How much does PlanetScale cost?

PlanetScale publishes 4 plans: Postgres EBS HA at $15/mo, Vitess HA at $39/mo, Postgres Metal HA at $50/mo, Vitess Metal at $609/mo. Every figure is read from the vendor's own pricing page; the pricing section above shows the source sentence for each tier.

Does PlanetScale have a free plan?

Yes. PlanetScale offers a free tier with limits; paid plans unlock higher usage or team features.

What are the main drawbacks of PlanetScale?

The trade-offs we noted: No foreign key constraints in the traditional sense; Costs rise quickly beyond small workloads; Ties you to their platform and workflow.

When should you not use PlanetScale?

Skip PlanetScale if: You expect a free tier — none is listed on the pricing page; You run Vitess Metal for a small app: it starts at $609/month; Your cloud region is not us-east-1; prices vary by provider and region.

Developer Tools

PlanetScale

Serverless MySQL platform with branching.

What it is

PlanetScale is a managed MySQL platform whose distinguishing feature is database branching: you branch a schema like code, open a deploy request, and merge it without locking tables. Schema changes stop being the scary part of a release: a branch is reviewed and merged without locking the table. The trade-off is that foreign key behaviour and some MySQL features work differently under its sharding model, which has to be designed for.

PlanetScale pricing

PlanetScale publishes 4 plans. Paid tiers start at $15/mo.

PlanetScale plans and published prices, taken from the vendor’s pricing page.
Plan	Price	What the vendor’s page says
Postgres EBS HA	$15/mo	Postgres EBS HA from $15/month (PS-5), single-node from $5/month
Vitess HA	$39/mo	Vitess HA from $39/month (PS-10); Vitess Metal from $609/month (M-160, 110 GiB)
Postgres Metal HA	$50/mo	Postgres Metal HA from $50/month (M-10, 10 GiB NVMe)
Vitess Metal	$609/mo	Vitess HA from $39/month (PS-10); Vitess Metal from $609/month (M-160, 110 GiB)

Prices read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-08. Vendors change plans without notice — check the source before you budget. Source

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Key features

Database branching
Branches a schema like code and merges it through a deploy request.
Non-blocking schema changes
Applies migrations without locking tables in production.
Managed MySQL
Runs MySQL-compatible clusters without server administration.

Strengths and trade-offs

What works well

Schema changes without downtime
Branching workflow that mirrors Git
Managed, with no server maintenance

Where it falls short

No foreign key constraints in the traditional sense
Costs rise quickly beyond small workloads
Ties you to their platform and workflow

Who it is for

Teams shipping frequent schema changes who want to avoid migration downtime.

Pick it or skip it

Pick PlanetScale if

Teams that want managed Postgres or Vitess MySQL with 3-node high availability from $15/month
Dev and staging databases on single-node Postgres from $5/month
Workloads that need local NVMe performance: Metal Postgres from $50/month with 10 GiB

Skip it if

You expect a free tier — none is listed on the pricing page
You run Vitess Metal for a small app: it starts at $609/month
Your cloud region is not us-east-1; prices vary by provider and region

Our verdict

The branching model genuinely solves a painful problem. Check the pricing tiers against your read volume before committing.

Frequently asked questions

How much does PlanetScale cost?: PlanetScale publishes 4 plans: Postgres EBS HA at $15/mo, Vitess HA at $39/mo, Postgres Metal HA at $50/mo, Vitess Metal at $609/mo. Every figure is read from the vendor's own pricing page; the pricing section above shows the source sentence for each tier.
Does PlanetScale have a free plan?: Yes. PlanetScale offers a free tier with limits; paid plans unlock higher usage or team features.
Who is PlanetScale best for?: Teams shipping frequent schema changes who want to avoid migration downtime.
What are the main drawbacks of PlanetScale?: The trade-offs we noted: No foreign key constraints in the traditional sense; Costs rise quickly beyond small workloads; Ties you to their platform and workflow.
When should you not use PlanetScale?: Skip PlanetScale if: You expect a free tier — none is listed on the pricing page; You run Vitess Metal for a small app: it starts at $609/month; Your cloud region is not us-east-1; prices vary by provider and region.

What we checked

Public APIOffers a documented API you can build against.Yes
Mobile appHas a native app for iOS or Android, not just a mobile website.No
Open source / self-hostableSource is open and the tool can be run on your own infrastructure.No
SSO (SAML)Supports SAML single sign-on on at least one plan.Yes

“Not checked” means exactly that — we have not verified it, and we do not guess.

Evidence and freshness

Status: Vendor pricing page verifiedReviewed: 2026-09-08

PlanetScale — Pricing ↗
Checked 2026-09-08 · Supports: Postgres EBS HA from $15/month (PS-5), single-node from $5/month, Postgres Metal HA from $50/month (M-10, 10 GiB NVMe), Vitess HA from $39/month (PS-10); Vitess Metal from $609/month (M-160, 110 GiB), prices based on AWS us-east-1; no free tier stated

Limit: Vendor pricing page was reviewed by an editor on this date; this record is not a ToolCompare benchmark. Prices and limits change.

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