PlanetScale vs Railway: Pricing Comparison (2026)
PlanetScale starts at $39/mo. Railway starts at $5/mo. Railway is $34/mo cheaper on the entry tier than PlanetScale.
See price history: PlanetScale · Railway
Serverless MySQL platform built on Vitess (YouTube's original scaling infra). Positioned as the alternative to Amazon Aurora for teams that need horizontal scale with zero downtime schema changes. PS-5 cluster starts at $39/mo, HA clusters from $59/mo. Distinctive for branching + deploy requests (git-like workflow for schema changes). Killed its free tier in April 2024 — controversial move that drove users to Neon + Turso.
Modern PaaS positioned as the alternative to Heroku for developers who want git-push-to-deploy simplicity plus per-resource billing. Distinctive for its usage-based pricing (compute per GB-hour, RAM per GB-hour) versus flat dyno pricing at Heroku. Free trial credits give hobby projects room; production apps typically $20-$500/mo. YC-backed, popular with indie hackers and Series A/B startups.
All plans compared
| # | Plan | PlanetScale monthly | PlanetScale annual | Railway monthly | Railway annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PS-5 / Free Trial | 39 | 39 | 0 | — |
| 2 | PS-10 / Hobby | 79 | 79 | 5 | — |
| 3 | PS-25 / Pro | 199 | 199 | 20 | — |
| 4 | Enterprise | custom | custom | custom | custom |
What each is best for
Serverless MySQL platform built on Vitess (YouTube's original scaling infra). Positioned as the alternative to Amazon Aurora for teams that need horizontal scale with zero downtime schema changes. PS-5 cluster starts at $39/mo, HA clusters from $59/mo. Distinctive for branching + deploy requests (git-like workflow for schema changes). Killed its free tier in April 2024 — controversial move that drove users to Neon + Turso.
Modern PaaS positioned as the alternative to Heroku for developers who want git-push-to-deploy simplicity plus per-resource billing. Distinctive for its usage-based pricing (compute per GB-hour, RAM per GB-hour) versus flat dyno pricing at Heroku. Free trial credits give hobby projects room; production apps typically $20-$500/mo. YC-backed, popular with indie hackers and Series A/B startups.
At a glance
| PlanetScale | Railway | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Entry price | $39/mo | $5/mo |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | — | Hybrid |
| Last verified | July 25, 2026 | July 17, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified July 25, 2026. Tracked daily.