PlanetScale

Vitess-Scale MySQL and Postgres With Git-Style Branching

United States
Category
Managed DBaaS
Pricing Model
SubscriptionUsage-based
Pricing Examples
No free tier (removed April 2024) Postgres single-node: from $5/month (PS-5) Postgres 3-node HA: from $15/month (PS-5) Vitess/MySQL 3-node HA: from $39/month (PS-10) Enterprise: custom

Overview

Category
Managed DBaaS
Pricing Model
SubscriptionUsage-based
Pricing Examples
No free tier (removed April 2024) Postgres single-node: from $5/month (PS-5) Postgres 3-node HA: from $15/month (PS-5) Vitess/MySQL 3-node HA: from $39/month (PS-10) Enterprise: custom

What is PlanetScale?

PlanetScale offers managed MySQL (running on Vitess) and managed Postgres databases. Founded in 2018 by Jiten Vaidya and Sugu Sougoumarane, the original creators of Vitess at YouTube, and now led by former GitHub CTO Sam Lambert, PlanetScale focuses on developer workflow: every database change goes through a branch -> deploy request -> schema migration pipeline inspired by Git.

PlanetScale has no free tier. It removed its free Hobby plan in April 2024 and has not brought it back. Every database is paid: the cheapest is a single-node Postgres PS-5 at $5/month, and a production 3-node HA cluster starts at $15/month (Postgres) or $39/month (Vitess MySQL, PS-10). Pricing is per cluster SKU plus metered storage ($0.50/GB beyond 10 GB), egress ($0.06/GB beyond 100 GB), and backups ($0.023/GB).

Use Cases

  • Production MySQL — Vitess-compatible serverless MySQL with horizontal sharding
  • Postgres Deployments — Managed Postgres with branching workflows
  • Schema Migrations — Deploy requests with automated migration review
  • Non-blocking Schema Changes — Online DDL without table locking

Branching Workflow

PlanetScale databases support non-blocking schema changes through branching. Create a branch of your database, make schema changes, open a deploy request, and merge. The platform handles schema migration automatically without locking tables or requiring downtime.

Infrastructure

PlanetScale runs on AWS, GCP, and Azure. Postgres clusters are 3-node HA with EBS storage. Vitess clusters scale horizontally across shards with automatic resharding.

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Features

Category

Managed
DBaaS

Integrations

Drizzle
Netlify
Next.js
Prisma
Rails
Vercel

Pricing

Plans

PlanetScale has no free tier; the free Hobby plan was removed in April 2024 and never replaced. You pay per database, priced by cluster SKU (PS-5 through PS-2560) plus storage, backups, and egress. There are no per-seat product tiers below Enterprise: the self-serve Base plan bills purely on the SKUs and usage you select. The cheapest real entry point is a single-node Postgres PS-5 at $5/month; production workloads want a 3-node HA cluster, which roughly triples the compute cost.

Base (self-serve)

$ 5 per month

  • No free tier
  • Postgres (single-node or 3-node HA) and Vitess MySQL
  • Billed per cluster SKU + usage
  • Cheapest: $5/mo single-node Postgres PS-5
  • 10 GB storage included per cluster, then $0.50/GB
  • 100 GB egress included, then $0.06/GB
  • Branching, deploy requests, online schema changes

Enterprise

$ Custom per month

  • Single-tenant and PlanetScale Managed deployment
  • Larger SKUs and committed-use discounts
  • SSO, audit logs, security review
  • Dedicated support and SLAs
  • Bring-your-own-cloud options

Resource Pricing

Metered extras billed on top of every cluster SKU. Storage and egress include a per-cluster allowance, then bill per GB. Backups are charged separately.

  • Storage (included)

    first 10 GB per cluster

    $0

  • Storage (overage)

    per GB / month

    $0.50

  • Egress (included)

    first 100 GB / month

    $0

  • Egress (overage)

    per GB

    $0.06

  • Backups

    per GB / month

    $0.023

Instances Pricing

Postgres cluster SKUs. PlanetScale prices each database by SKU; a single-node (non-HA) cluster is the cheapest, while a production 3-node HA cluster (1 primary + 2 replicas) costs roughly 3x. Prices below are arm64 in AWS us-east-1; x86 runs slightly higher and other regions vary. Storage (10 GB included, then $0.50/GB), backups ($0.023/GB), and egress (100 GB included, then $0.06/GB) are billed on top.

  • PS-5 (single-node)

    512 MB RAM, 1/16 vCPU

    5 /month

  • PS-5 (3-node HA)

    512 MB RAM, 1/16 vCPU

    15 /month

  • PS-10 (3-node HA)

    1 GB RAM, 1/8 vCPU

    30 /month

  • PS-20 (3-node HA)

    2 GB RAM, 1/4 vCPU

    50 /month

  • PS-40 (3-node HA)

    4 GB RAM, 1/2 vCPU

    83 /month

  • PS-80 (3-node HA)

    8 GB RAM, 1 vCPU

    148 /month

  • PS-160 (3-node HA)

    16 GB RAM, 2 vCPU

    286 /month

  • PS-320 (3-node HA)

    32 GB RAM, 4 vCPU

    570 /month

  • PS-640 (3-node HA)

    64 GB RAM, 8 vCPU

    1135 /month

  • PS-1280 (3-node HA)

    128 GB RAM, 16 vCPU

    2265 /month

  • PS-2560 (3-node HA)

    256 GB RAM, 32 vCPU

    4529 /month

Find the full pricing details on the official PlanetScale

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PlanetScale Regions

PlanetScale databases run on AWS and GCP. Each database deploys to a single primary region; the default for new databases is AWS us-east-2 (Ohio).
PlanetScale's 19 datacenter locations by region. (June 18, 2026) - Map by d3js.org

19 PlanetScale datacenter locations and IDs per region

Source: https://planetscale.com/docs/concepts/regions

Location

Region

ID

AWS Northern VirginiaNorth Americaus-east-1
AWS OhioNorth Americaus-east-2
AWS OregonNorth Americaus-west-2
AWS MontrealNorth Americaca-central-1
GCP Council Bluffs, IowaNorth Americaus-central1
GCP Ashburn, VirginiaNorth Americaus-east4
GCP Moncks Corner, South CarolinaNorth Americaus-east1
GCP Montréal, QuébecNorth Americanorthamerica-northeast1
AWS São PauloSouth Americasa-east-1
AWS DublinEuropeeu-west-1
AWS LondonEuropeeu-west-2
AWS FrankfurtEuropeeu-central-1
GCP St Ghislain, BelgiumEuropeeurope-west1
GCP Eemshaven, NetherlandsEuropeeurope-west4
AWS TokyoAsia Pacificap-northeast-1
AWS MumbaiAsia Pacificap-south-1
AWS SingaporeAsia Pacificap-southeast-1
AWS SydneyAsia Pacificap-southeast-2
GCP Seoul, South KoreaAsia Pacificasia-northeast3
Last updated: June 18, 2026

*Information is subject to change. Verify with the official PlanetScale website.

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Frequently Asked Questions about PlanetScale

PlanetScale has no free tier. The cheapest database is a single-node Postgres PS-5 at $5/month; a production 3-node HA cluster starts at $15/month (Postgres PS-5) or $39/month for Vitess MySQL (PS-10). The part people miss is that price is per cluster SKU, and storage above 10 GB ($0.50/GB), egress above 100 GB ($0.06/GB), and backups ($0.023/GB) bill on top.

No. PlanetScale removed its free Hobby plan in April 2024 and has not brought it back. The limit that matters is simple: every database costs money. The lowest real entry point is a $5/month single-node Postgres database, which is non-HA and meant for development, not production.

PlanetScale shut down its free Hobby tier in April 2024 with a short notice period. Existing free databases had to move to a paid plan (then $39/month Scaler, now the SKU-based Base plan) or migrate out. If you came here expecting a free database, that option is gone; budget for at least $5/month per database.

Both. PlanetScale built its name on Vitess, the MySQL sharding system that powers YouTube, and now also offers managed Postgres. Postgres is the cheaper way in ($5/month single-node), while Vitess MySQL starts at $39/month for a 3-node HA cluster. Branching and deploy requests work on both engines.

They are PlanetScale’s compute SKUs. PS-5 is 512 MB RAM and 1/16 vCPU, PS-10 is 1 GB and 1/8 vCPU, PS-20 is 2 GB and 1/4 vCPU, scaling up to PS-2560 (256 GB, 32 vCPU). Each step roughly doubles capacity and price, and a 3-node HA cluster costs about 3x the single-node price.

Yes. Because there is no free tier, you add a payment method to create any database. There is no anonymous sandbox; the smallest real commitment is the $5/month single-node Postgres SKU.

Each cluster includes 10 GB of storage and 100 GB of monthly egress. Beyond that, storage is $0.50/GB per month, egress is $0.06/GB, and backups are $0.023/GB per month. For a small app this stays near the base SKU price, but a chatty, high-traffic database can add real money in egress.

For Postgres with a real free tier, compare Neon and Supabase. For serverless MySQL or distributed SQL, look at TiDB and CockroachDB. The right choice depends on whether you need Vitess-grade MySQL scale, a free tier to start on, or a full backend rather than just a database.