Neon's pricing page is built around elasticity. The free plan allows 100 projects with 1GB of storage each, 100 compute-hours a month per project and sizes up to 2 CU (8GB of RAM), and computes suspend after roughly five minutes of inactivity so an unused database stops accruing compute. Launch prices compute at $0.106 per CU-hour with storage at $0.35 per GB-month and branches at $0.002 per branch-hour; the page lists a typical spend of $15 a month for intermittent load on 1GB. Scale moves compute to $0.222 per CU-hour, adds 1,000+ projects, sizes up to 56 CU (224GB RAM), and carries the SLAs, HIPAA support and private networking, with a listed typical spend of $701 a month for high load on 100GB. The page states Neon is part of Databricks and that 20M+ developers build on it.
TL;DR
Both sell managed Postgres with branching, and they price it differently. Neon leads with a free plan - 100 projects, 1GB of storage each, 100 CU-hours a month per project and compute that suspends after about five minutes of inactivity - then usage rates: $0.106 per CU-hour and $0.35 per GB-month on Launch (typical spend listed at $15 a month), $0.222 per CU-hour on Scale (typical $701), with SLAs, HIPAA and private networking at the top tier. PlanetScale publishes fixed entry prices instead: Postgres single node from $5 a month for development and low-traffic production, Metal from $50 with local NVMe, and high availability as one primary plus two replicas across three availability zones. Choose Neon if idle-database cost matters and you will pay for what you use; choose PlanetScale if you want a priced node, online schema changes and a published HA configuration.
PlanetScale prices the node rather than the meter. Its Postgres single-node tier starts at $5 a month for development and low-traffic production; PlanetScale Metal, with local NVMe storage, starts at $50. High availability is described as one primary and two replicas across three availability zones with automated failover, connection pooling through PgBouncer on port 6432 and buffered failovers. Schema changes deploy fully online and are revertable with zero data loss, version updates run online, and clusters can be resized and resharded online. Billing is driven by topology, storage, backup storage, network usage and add-ons such as development branch hours, and databases can be purchased through the AWS or GCP Marketplace. Compliance is listed as SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 with HIPAA.
The practical split is idle cost against published node prices. Neon's scale-to-zero makes a fleet of development or per-preview-branch databases cheap to keep around, and its branch-per-PR model is priced at $0.002 per branch-hour so the workflow is affordable rather than merely possible. PlanetScale's $5 single node gives a fixed, knowable price for one database, and its Metal tier buys NVMe performance at $50 before configuration. Teams with bursty or numerous databases tend to land on Neon; teams that want a priced database with online schema management and a defined HA shape tend to land on PlanetScale.
| Feature | Neon | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Free plan with 100 projects; Launch from usage at $0.106/CU-hour | Postgres single node from $5/month |
| Mid tier | Launch: typical spend $15/month (intermittent load, 1GB) | Metal from $50/month with local NVMe storage |
| Top tier | Scale: typical spend $701/month (high load, 100GB), SLAs and HIPAA | High availability: 1 primary + 2 replicas across 3 AZs; Enterprise by arrangement |
| Billing model | Usage meters: compute hours, storage, branch hours | Node price plus topology, storage, backup storage and network usage |
| Idle cost | Compute suspends after about 5 minutes inactive on free; disable after 5 minutes on Launch | Single node runs at its price whether queried or not |
| Branching | $0.002 per branch-hour, with snapshots at $0.09/GB-month | Online schema changes and revertable deploys; development branch hours are an add-on |
| Max scale | Up to 56 CU (224GB RAM) on Scale | Metal and Enterprise configurations sized to order; pooling via PgBouncer on port 6432 |
| Compliance | HIPAA and SOC 2 listed on Scale | SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA listed |
Pick Neon if
Neon fits teams that spin databases up per branch, per preview or per customer and want the idle ones to cost close to nothing. The free plan's 100 projects with 1GB each and scale-to-zero after five minutes make that workflow practical, and the branch rate of $0.002 an hour keeps per-PR environments affordable. Expect a bill made of compute hours and gigabytes rather than a fixed price, and a listed typical spend of $15 a month once real load arrives.
Pick PlanetScale if
PlanetScale suits teams that want to know the base cost before traffic arrives: a single node at $5 a month, NVMe-backed Metal at $50, and a high-availability shape stated as one primary with two replicas across three zones. Its online schema deploys and zero-loss reverts matter most on production workloads with real migration risk, and Marketplace purchase simplifies procurement through existing AWS or GCP commitments.
No independent ratings or user quotes are reproduced here; we collected none for this pair. All prices were read from neon.tech/pricing and planetscale.com/pricing on 2026-10-13. PlanetScale's statement that Metal is benchmarked as the fastest Postgres in the cloud is a vendor claim.
Its pricing page lists no free plan; the entry point is Postgres single node at $5 a month. Neon's free plan covers 100 projects with 1GB each and 100 CU-hours a month per project.
Neon: computes suspend after about five minutes of inactivity, so an unused database accrues storage rather than compute. A PlanetScale single node runs at its published price whether queried or not.
Neon prices branches at $0.002 per branch-hour with snapshots at $0.09 per GB-month. PlanetScale's page centers on online schema changes, revertable deploys with zero data loss and add-on development branch hours rather than a per-branch rate.
PlanetScale describes HA as one primary and two replicas across three availability zones with automated failover and PgBouncer pooling on port 6432. Neon's Scale tier lists SLAs, HIPAA support and private networking at a typical spend of $701 a month.
PlanetScale states its databases can be purchased through the AWS Marketplace or GCP Marketplace. Neon's page lists startup credits of up to $100k rather than a marketplace option.
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