Overview
PlanetScale sells dedicated database clusters rather than a shared or serverless tier. It offers three engines: PlanetScale Postgres, Vitess for horizontally sharded MySQL, and Neki, a newer sharded Postgres architecture. Clusters run in AWS or GCP, and a PlanetScale Managed option deploys into your own cloud account.
The entry point changed in November 2025, when single-node, non-HA Postgres clusters became available from $5 a month (PS-5, 512 MiB RAM). Highly available clusters with a primary and two replicas across three zones start at $15 a month, and Metal clusters on local NVMe drives with unlimited IOPS start at $50 a month with storage included. Vitess clusters start at $39 a month.
Billing is per branch: every development or production branch is its own cluster with its own compute, storage, backups and egress, prorated to the millisecond. That makes branch-per-environment workflows easy but means each extra branch adds cost. Network storage includes 10 GB per cluster and backups include twice the disk size before per-GB charges apply.
PlanetScale publishes SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 reports with HIPAA coverage, can sign BAAs, and has PCI DSS attestation for its Managed option. Its SLA is 99.99% for single-region and 99.999% for multi-region deployments.
Pricing and plans
checked 28 Sept 2026| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Postgres single node PS-5 | $5/mo | 1/16 vCPU, 512 MiB RAM, non-HA; 10 GB network storage included |
| Postgres single node PS-10 | $10/mo | 1/8 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (arm64); $13 on x86-64 |
| Postgres HA PS-5 | $15/mo | Primary plus 2 replicas across three availability zones |
| Postgres HA PS-10 | $30/mo | 1/8 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 3 nodes (arm64); $39 on x86-64 |
| Postgres Metal M-10 | $50/mo | 3 nodes on local NVMe, 10 GiB storage included, unlimited IOPS |
| Vitess (MySQL) PS-10 | $39/mo | 1/8 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 3 nodes, x86-64 |
| Enterprise / Managed | Custom | Single-tenant or deployed in your own AWS/GCP account; PCI DSS on Managed |
What it does
- Single-node and HA clusters
- Start on a $5 single node, then resize or switch to a primary plus two replicas across three availability zones from the clusters page.
- PlanetScale Metal
- Clusters on locally attached NVMe drives with unlimited IOPS, with storage included in the instance price, from $50/mo.
- Vitess and Neki sharding
- Horizontal sharding for MySQL through Vitess and for Postgres through Neki, routed through a single connection.
- Branching
- Each branch runs on its own dedicated cluster for development, staging or restore, priced to the millisecond.
- Connection pooling
- PgBouncer on port 6432 with buffered failovers to reduce the impact of primary changes.
- Query Insights and Traffic Control
- Per-query metrics, schema recommendations and budgets on query traffic to contain runaway queries.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Dedicated clusters with predictable performance instead of shared compute
- $5 single-node entry price with a path to HA, Metal and sharding without changing vendor
- NVMe-backed Metal instances with unlimited IOPS
- Vitess sharding proven on very large MySQL deployments
- SOC 2 Type 2 with HIPAA, BAAs and PCI DSS (Managed)
Limitations
- No free plan
- Single-node clusters are not highly available; HA starts at $15/mo
- Every branch is a separately billed cluster
- No scale to zero; clusters bill while running
- Prices vary by region and cloud, and storage and egress rates must be checked per region
Who it suits
Good for
- Production apps that need a highly available Postgres or MySQL cluster
- High-throughput workloads that benefit from local NVMe storage
- MySQL applications that need horizontal sharding
- Side projects willing to pay $5/mo for a dedicated Postgres node
Look elsewhere if
- Hobby projects that need a free database
- Many mostly idle databases, where scale-to-zero services cost less
Pricing history
-
$5 single-node Postgres
Effective 2025-11-14 (announced 2025-10-30): a single-node PS-5 Postgres at $5/mo became available; before, the entry point was a 3-node cluster at $30/mo. Development branches dropped from $10 to $5/mo. Source ↗
Alternatives to PlanetScale
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aiven Managed open-source data platform (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, Valkey, OpenSearch, ClickHouse) | $5/mo | Free tier | |
| Clever Cloud European managed PaaS | €6/mo | ||
| Convex Reactive backend and document database | $25/mo | Free tier | |
| Crunchy Bridge Managed PostgreSQL on AWS, Azure and GCP | $9/mo | ||
| Dragonfly Cloud Managed Redis-compatible in-memory data store | $36/mo | ||
| Firebase Backend platform with document and realtime databases | Usage-based | Free tier |
Questions
Does PlanetScale have a free tier?
No. The cheapest option is a single-node PS-5 Postgres cluster at $5 a month in AWS us-east-1.
Does PlanetScale support Postgres?
Yes. PlanetScale Postgres is generally available alongside Vitess for MySQL and Neki for sharded Postgres.
How much is a highly available PlanetScale database?
A three-node Postgres cluster starts at $15 a month (PS-5), and a PS-10 HA cluster at $30 a month on arm64 in AWS us-east-1.
Is PlanetScale HIPAA compliant?
PlanetScale reports under SOC 2 Type 2 plus HIPAA and can sign Business Associate Agreements with qualifying customers.
Sources read for this page