CockroachDB vs MotherDuck Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

CockroachDB pricing MotherDuck pricing
Starts at $0/mo $250/mo
Number of plans 2 3
Free plan —
Free trial
Pricing model usage-based hybrid

Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →

CockroachDB pricing

Official page

Standard

$0/mo
  • Shared infrastructure
  • 99.99% availability SLA
  • Single- or multi-region, on AWS and GCP
  • Usage-based storage
  • Row-level security, column-level encryption, private connectivity
  • CDC add-on available
  • 1-hour P1 support response

Mission Critical

$0/mo
  • Dedicated infrastructure
  • 99.999% availability SLA with multi-region
  • AWS, GCP and Azure
  • Provisioned storage, or usage-based storage (preview)
  • Egress controls, CMEK, PCI DSS & HIPAA compliance
  • All add-ons available
  • 30-minute P1 support response

MotherDuck pricing

Official page

Lite

$0/mo
  • Up to 3 internal active users and 2 service accounts
  • 10 GB free storage
  • 10 hrs Pulse compute per month included
  • Pulse instances only
  • Role-based access control (preset roles)
  • Guides: Shared context for better AI agent performance
  • Community support

Business

Popular
$250/mo
  • Up to 10 internal active users and unlimited service accounts
  • 5 instance types and read-scaling replicas
  • Flights: agent-native data pipelines
  • Guides: Shared context for better AI agent performance
  • 90-day snapshot retention
  • Query history
  • Role-based access control (preset and custom roles)
  • Support from MotherDuck experts
  • 99.9% availability SLA

Enterprise

Custom
  • Unlimited internal active users and service accounts
  • Fixed-cost capacity pricing
  • AWS PrivateLink connectivity
  • IP allowlisting
  • HIPAA BAA

CockroachDB vs MotherDuck FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
CockroachDB starts lower at $0/mo, compared to $250/mo for MotherDuck.
Can I use either one for free?
MotherDuck has a free plan. CockroachDB doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. CockroachDB uses usage-based pricing, while MotherDuck goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. CockroachDB: This isn't a budget play — usage-based vCPU pricing plus a premium Mission Critical tier signals they're chasing teams who need serious distributed-SQL muscle (multi-region, strong consistency) and are willing to pay for it, going head-to-head with Google Spanner and Yugabyte more than commodity Postgres hosting. The lack of a free plan reinforces that they're not fishing for hobbyists. MotherDuck: Sitting in the middle of the modern data warehouse pack — pricier than pure open-source DuckDB setups you'd self-host, but cheaper and lighter-weight than Snowflake or BigQuery for teams that don't need massive distributed compute. They're courting teams who want warehouse power without warehouse overhead or price tags.

Still deciding? See the best CockroachDB alternatives or the best MotherDuck alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.

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