Aiven vs PlanetScale Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Aiven | PlanetScale | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $5/mo | Custom |
| Number of plans | 6 | 2 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | — | |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
Free
- 1 dedicated VM
- 1 CPU per VM
- 1 GB RAM per VM
- 1 GB total storage
- Cannot select a specific cloud or region
- No integrations or connection pooling
- All networking cost included
- Seamless upgrade/downgrade to other plans
- One-click version upgrade
- Extensions (PostGIS, PL/v8, etc)
- Performance graphs
- Data encrypted on disk and network
- Real-time backups to a remote location
- Restore to any point in time (PITR)
- Support
Developer
- 1 dedicated VM
- 1 CPU per VM
- 1 GB RAM per VM
- 8 GB total storage
- Cannot select a specific cloud or region
- No integrations or connection pooling
- All networking cost included
- Seamless upgrade/downgrade to other plans
- One-click version upgrade
- Extensions (PostGIS, PL/v8, etc)
- Performance graphs
- Data encrypted on disk and network
- Real-time backups to a remote location
- Restore to any point in time (PITR)
- Support
Hobbyist
- 1 dedicated VM
- 1 CPU per VM
- 1 GB RAM per VM
- 8 GB total storage
- All networking cost included
- Seamless upgrade/downgrade to other plans
- One-click version upgrade
- Extensions (PostGIS, PL/v8, etc)
- Performance graphs
- Data encrypted on disk and network
- Real-time backups to a remote location
- Restore to any point in time (PITR)
- VPC peering in AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure
- Support
Startup
- 1 dedicated VM
- 2-32 CPU per VM
- 4-192 GB RAM per VM
- 80 GB-11 TB total storage
- 99.99% uptime SLA
- All networking cost included
- Seamless upgrade/downgrade to other plans
- One-click version upgrade
- Extensions (PostGIS, PL/v8, etc)
- Performance graphs
- Data encrypted on disk and network
- Real-time backups to a remote location
- Restore to any point in time (PITR)
- VPC peering in AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure
- Multiple logical databases per instance
- Database forks
- Connection pooling
- 99.99% availability
- Dynamic disk sizing
- Support
Business
- 2 dedicated VM
- 2-32 CPU per VM
- 4-192 GB RAM per VM
- 80 GB-11 TB total storage
- All networking cost included
- Seamless upgrade/downgrade to other plans
- One-click version upgrade
- Extensions (PostGIS, PL/v8, etc)
- Performance graphs
- Data encrypted on disk and network
- Real-time backups to a remote location
- Restore to any point in time (PITR)
- VPC peering in AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure
- Multiple logical databases per instance
- Database forks
- Connection pooling
- 99.99% availability
- High availability
- Read-only access to DB replica nodes
- Dynamic disk sizing
- Support
Premium
- 3 dedicated VM
- 2-32 CPU per VM
- 4-192 GB RAM per VM
- 80 GB-11 TB total storage
- All networking cost included
- Seamless upgrade/downgrade to other plans
- One-click version upgrade
- Extensions (PostGIS, PL/v8, etc)
- Performance graphs
- Data encrypted on disk and network
- Real-time backups to a remote location
- Restore to any point in time (PITR)
- VPC peering in AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure
- Multiple logical databases per instance
- Database forks
- Connection pooling
- 99.99% availability
- High availability
- Read-only access to DB replica nodes
- Dynamic disk sizing
- Support
Base Plan
- Single node — Starting at $5/month for development and low-traffic workloads
- Metal — Starting at $50/month with local NVMe storage for high-performance needs
- High Availability — 1 primary + 2 replicas across 3 availability zones
- MySQL-compatible databases with horizontal sharding (Vitess)
- Instance and VTGate sizes
- Storage amount — First 10 GB included, and then $0.50 per GB per instance
- Add-ons — Additional development branch hours, SSO, upgraded support
Enterprise
- Bring your own cloud
- Upgraded support
- Database expertise
- Migration assistance
- Slack-based support
- More deployment options
- Business support included
- Architecture consultation
- Custom pricing
- Additional regions
Aiven vs PlanetScale FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Aiven has a free plan. PlanetScale doesn't — you'll need to pay from day one.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Aiven: Aiven sits in the mid-to-premium range for managed open-source data services — they're not trying to undercut bare-metal DIY, they're competing with managed offerings from AWS, GCP, and Render by offering multi-cloud flexibility and a broader service catalog (Kafka, OpenSearch, etc.). The BYOC option signals they're actively courting enterprise buyers who can't send data to a third-party cloud. PlanetScale: They're threading the needle between managed Postgres commodities (Neon, Supabase) and premium database-as-a-service players (Aurora, AlloyDB) — not the cheapest option, but positioning on performance and MySQL/Postgres flexibility for teams that have outgrown basic managed DBs. The AWS and GCP Marketplace availability signals they're going after cloud-native teams with existing marketplace spend commitments.
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