Abhishek Jaiswal 
Managed Postgres is priced in more ways than almost any other cloud product. Some providers sell a fixed instance with storage on top, some include storage up to a cap, one meters memory by the hour, and one wraps the database in a $25 platform plan. That makes two quotes hard to compare at a glance. This post prices the same two databases on eight providers, using list prices read from each provider’s pricing page on 2026-10-13. The numbers match our managed Postgres cost calculator, where you can try any size.
TL;DR
- For a small database (1 GB of memory, 10 GB of storage), monthly prices run from $9 on Heroku Essential-1 to about $41 on Fly.io Managed Postgres. Ownkube is $10.50.
- For a mid-size database (4 GB of memory, 50 GB of storage), the range runs from $40.50 on Ownkube to $296 on Fly.io, which has no plan between 2 GB and 8 GB.
- Heroku’s Essential plans are the cheapest small option, with shared memory and a hard 10 GB storage cap on Essential-1.
- Neon and Railway bill by usage, so a quiet database costs less than the always-on figures here. Fly.io includes high availability in every plan, which is part of why it costs more.
How do providers price managed Postgres?
Four models show up across the eight providers:
- Fixed instance plus storage. You pick a memory size and pay a flat monthly price, then pay per GB of disk. Ownkube, Render and Fly.io work this way.
- Fixed instance with storage included. The plan price covers a set amount of disk. Heroku includes storage up to each plan’s cap. DigitalOcean includes the low end of a storage range and charges for more in 10 GiB steps.
- Usage-based. Neon bills compute in CU-hours (one CU is about 4 GB of memory) plus storage. Railway bills memory and CPU by the minute plus volume storage.
- Platform plan plus compute. Supabase Pro costs $25 a month and includes $10 of compute credit and 8 GB of disk. Larger compute sizes and extra disk add to that.
The storage rate is easy to skim past. It ranges from $0.125 per GB on Supabase to $0.35 per GB on Neon, which matters more as the database grows.
What does a 1 GB and a 4 GB database cost on each provider?
| Provider | 1 GB memory, 10 GB storage | 4 GB memory, 50 GB storage |
|---|---|---|
| Ownkube | $10.50 (DB 1) | $40.50 (DB 4) |
| Heroku | $9.00 (Essential-1, shared memory) | $50.00 (Standard-0) |
| Railway | $13.50 (usage) | $49.50 (usage) |
| DigitalOcean | $15.15 (1 GiB node) | $60.90 (4 GiB node) |
| Render | $22.00 (0.5c-1g) | $70.00 (1c-4g) |
| Neon | $22.85 (Launch, 0.25 CU always on) | $94.88 (Launch, 1 CU always on) |
| Supabase | $25.25 (Pro + Micro) | $80.25 (Pro + Medium) |
| Fly.io | $40.80 (Basic) | $296.00 (Launch, 8 GB) |
List prices in USD per month, read from each provider’s pricing page on 2026-10-13. Railway assumes 0.1 vCPU of average database CPU; each extra 0.1 vCPU adds about $2. Neon is modelled always on. Single instance unless noted. Taxes and bandwidth excluded.
Why is Heroku the cheapest small database?
Heroku Essential-1 costs $9 a month with 10 GB of storage included, and nothing on this list beats it at that size. The trade is in the plan shape. Essential databases run on shared memory with no stated allocation, and storage is a hard cap: Essential-1 stops at 10 GB, and the next step is Essential-2 at $20 for 32 GB. Above that, Heroku moves to the Standard plans, which start at $50 for 4 GB of memory and jump to $200 for 8 GB.
So Heroku is a good fit for a small database that will stay small. Once you need a guaranteed memory size or more than 32 GB of data, the price steps are large. Our Heroku pricing and alternatives guide covers the rest of the Heroku bill.
What do Neon and Railway cost when the database is quiet?
Less than the table shows. Both bill by usage, and the table prices them as if the database runs all month.
Neon scales compute to zero after a period without queries, so a database that serves a few hours of traffic a day pays for those hours plus storage. The always-on figure ($22.85 at 0.25 CU) is the ceiling for that size. Neon also gives you branching, which makes a copy of the database for each pull request.
Railway bills the memory the database process holds and the CPU it uses. Postgres keeps its buffers in memory, so the memory line tends to stay near the allocation. The CPU line is where a quiet database saves money.
On fixed-instance providers, including Ownkube, the price stays the same whether the database is busy or idle.
Why does Fly.io cost more?
Fly.io Managed Postgres includes high availability, backups and connection pooling on every plan, and the $38 Basic price pays for all three. If you need a standby from day one, compare Fly against the high-availability price elsewhere. On Ownkube, for example, each standby bills as another database box plus its own storage, so a primary with one standby costs about twice the single-instance figure.
The plan ladder also matters at the 4 GB size. Fly’s plans go from Starter (2 GB) to Launch (8 GB), so a 4 GB requirement lands on the 8 GB plan.
What does Supabase include for $25?
Supabase Pro is a platform plan: Postgres plus authentication, file storage, realtime and edge functions, with $10 of compute credit that covers the Micro size. If you use those features, the $25 buys much more than a database. If you only use Postgres behind your own API, you are paying for the bundle. Our Supabase alternatives post walks through that decision.
How does Ownkube price Postgres?
Ownkube runs Postgres 17 or 18 on database boxes: a flat monthly price for the memory size, plus storage.
- Boxes: DB 0.5 at $4, DB 1 at $8, DB 2 at $12, DB 4 at $28, DB 8 at $54 and DB 16 at $104 a month.
- Storage: $0.25 per GB per month from the first GB, on the volume you provision.
- Backups: on the Personal and Team plans, storage includes 7-day backups with point-in-time restore. Backups are off by default and you turn them on per database.
- High availability: a primary plus up to two standbys with automatic failover, on Team. Each standby bills as its own database box, and storage bills per replica.
Pay as you go accounts can run databases up to DB 2, with no backups. Personal costs $5 a month, loads $5 of wallet credit, and unlocks every size and backups. Everything draws one prepaid wallet, and unused credit never expires.
A database on Ownkube sits next to your app in the same region, on the same bill. Our guide to adding a managed Postgres database shows the setup, and the Postgres hosting page covers versions and connection details.
When is another provider the better choice?
- The database is small and will stay small. Heroku Essential is cheaper than Ownkube at 1 GB, as long as shared memory and a storage cap are fine for you.
- You want branching or scale to zero. Neon is built for that workflow.
- You need high availability on the smallest plan. Fly.io includes it from Basic. On Ownkube, standbys are a Team feature.
- You need a region outside Europe and South Asia. Ownkube databases run in the Mumbai and Germany regions today. DigitalOcean, Render and Fly.io cover far more locations.
- You use Supabase’s auth, storage and realtime. Keep Supabase; replacing all of it is real work.
FAQ
What is the cheapest managed Postgres in 2026?
For a 1 GB database with 10 GB of storage, Heroku Essential-1 at $9 a month, followed by Ownkube at $10.50 and Railway at about $13.50. For a 4 GB database with 50 GB of storage, Ownkube at $40.50, followed by Railway at about $49.50 and Heroku Standard-0 at $50. Prices are list prices checked on 2026-10-13.
Is Neon cheaper than Supabase?
It depends on how often the database is busy. Always on, a 1 GB Neon database costs about $22.85 against $25.25 on Supabase Pro. If the database sleeps for much of the day, Neon drops well below that. Supabase includes auth, storage and realtime in its $25, which Neon does not.
Does managed Postgres pricing include backups?
It varies. On Ownkube, 7-day backups with point-in-time restore are included in the storage price on Personal and Team. Fly.io includes backups on every plan, and Render offers point-in-time recovery on paid instances. Check each provider’s retention window, since a day of backups and a week of point-in-time restore are very different safety nets.
How much storage should I plan for?
Plan for your data plus its indexes plus room to grow. On Ownkube and Render you pay per GB provisioned. On Heroku a database that crosses its plan’s cap needs a plan change, and DigitalOcean adds storage in 10 GiB steps up to each plan’s maximum. Our calculator lets you price any storage size.
Where Ownkube fits
Ownkube is a developer platform that runs your app and its Postgres side by side on one prepaid wallet. Database boxes start at $4 a month, storage is $0.25 per GB with 7-day backups included on Personal and Team, and at the 4 GB size priced here it has the lowest list price of the eight providers. Deploy my first app.
Abhishek Jaiswal · Founder and Engineer
Abhishek Jaiswal is the founder and engineer behind Ownkube, a cloud for personal software. He builds the platform and writes here about cloud cost, migrations, and running production infrastructure in your own AWS account without a DevOps team.