Which one is cheaper?

Dagster starts lower at $10/mo, compared to $100/mo for Prefect.

Can I use either one for free?

Prefect has a free plan. Dagster doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.

Different approach here. Dagster uses usage-based pricing, while Prefect 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. Dagster: At $10-$100/mo for self-serve tiers, Dagster is undercutting Prefect and positioning against Airflow's operational overhead cost rather than competing on raw price with open-source. They're going after the mid-market data team that wants managed orchestration without paying Astronomer-level enterprise prices. Prefect: They're positioned in the mid-market sweet spot — not trying to undercut Airflow's self-hosted free tier, but not as aggressively priced as Dagster Cloud or as enterprise-heavy as Astronomer. The $100/user/mo Team tier targets growing data engineering teams who've outgrown DIY orchestration but aren't ready for a six-figure platform deal.

Dagster vs Prefect Pricing (2026)

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

	Dagster	Prefect
Starts at	$10/mo	$100/mo
Number of plans	3	5
Free plan	—
Free trial		—
Pricing model	usage-based	hybrid

Dagster

Official page

Solo Plan

$10/mo

Pay-as-you-go $0.040/credit
1 User
1 Code location
1 Deployment
30-day free trial

Starter Plan

$100/mo

Pay-as-you-go $0.035/credit
Up to 3 Users
5 Code locations
1 Deployment
Catalog Search
30-day free trial

Pro Plan

Custom

Unlimited code locations
Unlimited deployments
Cost Tracking and Insights
Personalized Onboarding Support
Private Slack channel
Uptime SLAs
Custom Security Questionnaires

Prefect

Official page

Hobby

$0/mo

Workflow scheduling
2 users
Up to 5 deployments
500 min of Prefect Serverless
Workflow observability
Logging & alerting
7 days run retention

Starter

$100/mo

3 users
Up to 20 deployments
75 hours of Prefect Serverless
Bring your own compute
Webhooks
1,250 API requests/min

Team

$100/mo

4-8 users
Up to 100 deployments
225 hours of Prefect Serverless
Service accounts
24 hour audit log
50 automations

Pro

Custom

5-20 users
Up to 1,000 deployments
250 hours of Prefect Serverless
Multiple workspaces
SSO (SAML/OIDC)
Basic RBAC

Enterprise

Custom

5+ users
Unlimited deployments
Custom Prefect Serverless
RBAC + ACLs
Directory Sync (SCIM)
IP allowlisting & PrivateLink

Dagster vs Prefect FAQ

Which one is cheaper?: Dagster starts lower at $10/mo, compared to $100/mo for Prefect.
Can I use either one for free?: Prefect has a free plan. Dagster doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
How do they charge?: Different approach here. Dagster uses usage-based pricing, while Prefect 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. Dagster: At $10-$100/mo for self-serve tiers, Dagster is undercutting Prefect and positioning against Airflow's operational overhead cost rather than competing on raw price with open-source. They're going after the mid-market data team that wants managed orchestration without paying Astronomer-level enterprise prices. Prefect: They're positioned in the mid-market sweet spot — not trying to undercut Airflow's self-hosted free tier, but not as aggressively priced as Dagster Cloud or as enterprise-heavy as Astronomer. The $100/user/mo Team tier targets growing data engineering teams who've outgrown DIY orchestration but aren't ready for a six-figure platform deal.

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