$12/yr · always on · never sleeps
Why pay $25/mo for 50 MB?
Every managed Postgres has the same trap: a free tier that sleeps, then a jump straight to $5–$25 a month for your first always-on database. We live in that gap — $1 a month, per project, and it never falls asleep.
What one always-on app really costs
The cheapest way to keep a single small database online, per provider.
| Provider | Free tier | Per year | vs us |
|---|---|---|---|
| PilotDB | 2-week trial, no card | $12 | — |
| Supabase | 500 MB, 2 projects, paused after 1 week idle | $300 | 25× more |
| Neon | 0.5 GB, 100 CU-hr/mo, scales to zero (pauses) | $60 | 5× more |
| Render | No standing free database | $84 | 7× more |
| Railway | $5 trial credit, then none | $120 | 10× more |
| PlanetScale | Discontinued | $60 | 5× more |
The multi-project math
Run a handful of small apps and the per-project pricing elsewhere stacks up fast. Yearly cost by number of always-on apps:
| Apps | PilotDB | Supabase | Render | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $12/yr | $300/yr | $84/yr | $60/yr |
| 3 | $36/yr | $900/yr | $252/yr | $180/yr |
| 5 | $60/yr | $1500/yr | $420/yr | $300/yr |
| 10 | $120/yr | $3000/yr | $840/yr | $600/yr |
Five small apps: $60/yr here vs $1500/yr on Supabase. Same idle 50 MB databases.
The honest version
We run many small, isolated databases on one shared, connection-pooled Postgres — the efficiency that lets us keep it this cheap and always-on. It is built for small apps, bots, side projects, and client microsites, not for high-throughput production at scale. When you outgrow 200 MB or 2 connections, upgrading is one click. Until then, stop overpaying.
Competitor prices are each provider’s cheapest always-on Postgres as of June 2026, and change often — check the linked pricing pages for current figures.