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Neon bills Postgres on usage, with no plan fee. Compute is billed in CU-hours, where one CU (compute unit) is about 4 GB of memory: $0.106 per CU-hour on Launch and $0.222 on Scale. Storage is $0.35 per GB-month, and the history Neon keeps for restores and branching is $0.20 per GB-month. When the database is idle, compute scales to zero and stops billing, which is why a quiet Neon database can cost a few dollars a month.
This post walks through each line, from Neon’s pricing page as of 2026-10-27, and works three monthly bills.
TL;DR
- Free covers up to 100 projects, each with 100 CU-hours a month and 1 GB of storage. Compute scales to zero after 5 idle minutes.
- Launch bills $0.106 per CU-hour and $0.35 per GB-month of storage, with up to 7 days of restore history and autoscaling to 16 CU.
- Scale bills $0.222 per CU-hour, keeps up to 30 days of history, and offers fixed sizes up to 56 CU.
- A database that sleeps most of the day costs a few dollars. An always-on 1 CU database costs about $77 a month in compute before storage.
- Neon sends spend notifications but has no hard cap, so autoscaling and branches can raise the bill in a busy month.
What are Neon’s plans?
| Free | Launch | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compute | 100 CU-hours per project | $0.106 per CU-hour | $0.222 per CU-hour |
| Largest compute | 2 CU | Autoscaling to 16 CU | Autoscaling to 16 CU, fixed up to 56 CU |
| Storage | 1 GB per project, 20 GB in total | $0.35 per GB-month | $0.35 per GB-month |
| Restore history | 6 hours | Up to 7 days, $0.20 per GB-month | Up to 30 days, $0.20 per GB-month |
| Branches per project | 10 | 10 included | 25 included |
| Egress | 5 GB | 500 GB, then $0.10 per GB | 500 GB, then $0.10 per GB |
| Scale to zero | After 5 minutes, always enabled | After 5 minutes, can be turned off | Configurable, 1 minute to always on |
| Projects | 100 | 100 | 1,000 |
Extra branches past the included amount are $1.50 per branch-month, prorated by the hour. Scale also offers private network transfer at $0.01 per GB.
How does Neon compute pricing work?
A CU is Neon’s unit of compute: about 1 vCPU and 4 GB of memory. The smallest size is 0.25 CU (about 1 GB). Neon bills the size the compute runs at, for every hour it runs:
| Compute size | Memory | Launch, per hour | Launch, a month always on | Scale, a month always on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25 CU | about 1 GB | $0.0265 | $19.35 | $40.52 |
| 0.5 CU | about 2 GB | $0.053 | $38.69 | $81.03 |
| 1 CU | about 4 GB | $0.106 | $77.38 | $162.06 |
| 2 CU | about 8 GB | $0.212 | $154.76 | $324.12 |
| 4 CU | about 16 GB | $0.424 | $309.52 | $648.24 |
Monthly figures use 730 hours.
Read replicas are separate computes on the same storage, billed in CU-hours like the primary. Two settings decide most of the compute line.
Scale to zero
After a stretch with no connections (5 minutes by default), compute stops and the meter stops with it. The next connection starts it again, with a short cold start. A database used 4 hours a day bills about 4 hours a day.
Autoscaling
You set a minimum and maximum size, and Neon moves between them with load. You pay for the size it runs at each moment, so a traffic spike shows up on the bill.
How does Neon bill storage and history?
Storage is the current size of your data, at $0.35 per GB-month. Branches share storage with their parent, so a new branch costs nothing until its data changes.
History (Neon calls the feature instant restore) is the log of changes Neon keeps so you can restore to a point in time or create a branch from the past. It bills at $0.20 per GB-month, and its size depends on how much you write and how long a window you keep. A write-heavy database with a 7-day window can hold more history than data.
Egress covers data leaving Neon over the internet. Launch and Scale include 500 GB a month, then $0.10 per GB. On Free, 5 GB is included and compute suspends past it until the next month.
What do real Neon bills look like?
A side project on Launch
0.25 CU, awake about 4 hours a day (120 hours a month), 2 GB of data, 0.5 GB of history.
| Line | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Compute (0.25 CU x 120 hours = 30 CU-hours at $0.106) | $3.18 |
| Storage (2 GB at $0.35) | $0.70 |
| History (0.5 GB at $0.20) | $0.10 |
| Total | $3.98 |
The same database always on would be about $22, so the hours it sleeps are most of the saving.
A production app on Launch
1 CU always on, 30 GB of data, 10 GB of history for a 7-day window, and five preview branches, each awake about 20 hours a month at 0.25 CU.
| Line | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Compute, production (730 CU-hours) | $77.38 |
| Compute, preview branches (25 CU-hours) | $2.65 |
| Storage (30 GB at $0.35) | $10.50 |
| History (10 GB at $0.20) | $2.00 |
| Total | $92.53 |
The branches fit inside the 10 included on Launch, and their data is shared with production until it changes.
A busier app on Scale
Autoscaling between 1 and 4 CU, averaging 2 CU all month, plus a 1 CU read replica, 100 GB of data and 30 GB of history.
| Line | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Compute, primary (1,460 CU-hours at $0.222) | $324.12 |
| Compute, read replica (730 CU-hours) | $162.06 |
| Storage (100 GB at $0.35) | $35.00 |
| History (30 GB at $0.20) | $6.00 |
| Total | $527.18 |
Scale costs about twice Launch per CU-hour. Teams move to it for the 30-day restore window, fixed sizes past 16 CU, longer configurable idle timeouts and private networking.
Does Neon have a spend cap?
No hard cap. Neon emails you when usage reaches 80% and 100% of a spending limit you set, and keeps running. On Free, the plan’s quotas act as the cap: compute suspends when a project uses its 100 CU-hours or 5 GB of egress for the month.
To keep a paid bill predictable, set a maximum autoscaling size and leave scale to zero on for databases that can wait for a cold start.
When is Neon the right price?
Neon is cheapest when the database is idle much of the time: side projects, internal tools, staging and preview databases, and apps with one database per customer where most customers are quiet. Branching per pull request is also cheap, because branches share storage.
For a database that is busy around the clock, the CU-hour price adds up. An always-on 1 CU database is about $77 a month in compute on Launch, and from about 2 GB of memory up, fixed-size hosts usually cost less. Neon vs Supabase shows where that crossover sits against Supabase.
What does the same Postgres cost on a flat box?
Ownkube runs managed PostgreSQL 17 and 18 on flat database boxes, with storage at $0.25 per GB a month that includes 7-day backups with point-in-time restore on Personal and Team.
| Setup | Neon | Ownkube |
|---|---|---|
| About 1 GB, awake 4 hours a day, 2 GB data | $3.98 on Launch | about $2 (DB 1 with idle to zero, plus 2 GB) |
| About 4 GB always on, 30 GB data | $89.88 on Launch | $35.50 (DB 4 at $28, plus 30 GB) |
| About 8 GB always on with a standby, 100 GB data | $527.18 on Scale (with a read replica) | $158 (DB 8 at $54 twice, plus 100 GB on each) |
Ownkube’s standby is a hot standby with automatic failover on the Team plan, where Neon’s read replica serves reads. Ownkube has no database branching.
FAQ
How much does Neon cost a month?
It depends on how long compute runs. A small database that sleeps most of the day costs a few dollars on Launch. A 1 CU database running all month costs about $77 in compute plus $0.35 per GB of storage.
Is Neon free?
Yes, for up to 100 projects with 100 CU-hours a month, 1 GB of storage and 5 GB of egress each. Compute scales to zero after 5 idle minutes, and the restore window is 6 hours.
What is a CU in Neon?
A compute unit: about 1 vCPU and 4 GB of memory. Sizes start at 0.25 CU, and you pay per CU-hour for the size the compute runs at.
Does Neon charge for branches?
Each project includes 10 branches on Launch and 25 on Scale, then $1.50 per branch-month. A branch also bills the compute it runs and any data that changes on it.
Can I set a spending limit on Neon?
You can set a limit that triggers email notifications at 80% and 100%. Neon does not stop the database when you reach it. Capping the autoscaling maximum is the main way to bound compute.
Where Ownkube fits
If your Postgres runs all day next to an app that also needs a home, Ownkube gives you PostgreSQL 17 or 18 on a flat box from $4 a month, backups in the storage price on Personal and Team, and extensions such as pgvector and pg_cron a toggle away, with the app on the same bill. Compare more providers in managed Postgres pricing compared, or price your own setup with the managed Postgres cost calculator. Deploy my first app.