MotherDuck vs Nhost Pricing (2026)

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

MotherDuck Nhost
Starts at $250/mo $25/mo
Number of plans 3 4
Free plan
Free trial
Pricing model hybrid usage-based

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)
  • 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
  • 90-day snapshot retention
  • Query history
  • Role-based access control (preset 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
  • Role-based access control (custom roles)
  • HIPAA BAA

Starter

$0/mo
  • 1 GB database
  • 1 GB storage
  • 5 GB egress
  • Functions
  • Realtime APIs
  • IaC
  • Automated deployments
  • Unlimited users
  • OAuth providers
  • Community support

Pro

Popular
$25/mo
  • 10 GB database
  • 50 GB storage
  • 50 GB egress
  • Automated backups
  • Point in time recovery
  • Bring your own services
  • Managed Grafana (Metrics & Alerting)
  • Email support
  • Addons (AI toolkit, custom domains, etc)

Team

$599/mo
  • SOC 2 Type II
  • Email support SLA
  • Dedicated discord channel
  • Connect to external databases
  • Advanced GraphQL features
  • HIPAA (coming soon)

Enterprise

Custom
  • SLAs
  • Dedicated technical account manager
  • Dedicated clusters (add-on)

MotherDuck vs Nhost FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
Nhost is the cheaper option, starting at $25/mo vs $250/mo for MotherDuck.
Can I use either one for free?
Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. MotherDuck uses hybrid pricing, while Nhost goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. MotherDuck: Positioned as a cost-efficient alternative to Snowflake and BigQuery for teams that don't need a full data warehouse — the $250 base is approachable, but the compute rates (especially Jumbo and above) put it in mid-market territory. They're clearly targeting data-savvy startups and mid-size teams who want DuckDB's speed without managing infrastructure themselves. Nhost: Nhost is positioning as a Firebase/Supabase alternative with a more backend-complete stack (Hasura, auth, storage baked in), sitting in the mid-market on price — cheaper than rolling your own infra, but not the cheapest BaaS out there. They're going after product teams that want GraphQL-first development without the DevOps overhead, not the enterprise crowd chasing Salesforce-grade SLAs.

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

Keep tabs on both.

We'll monitor pricing changes for MotherDuck and Nhost and let you know when something moves.

Start tracking free »