PlanetScale Pricing in May 2026

PlanetScale's standard pricing follows tiered structure: Hobby (sunset for new signups in 2024), Scaler at $39/month, Scaler Pro at $79/month, Enterprise custom-quote starting around $1K/month. PlanetScale removed its serverless scale-to-zero option in 2024, shifting toward larger committed-use pricing tiers. Real-world PlanetScale bills for production MySQL workloads land at $80-500/month for moderate usage; mid-stage products with high-traffic databases hit $2K-15K/month at Enterprise.

The $500 startup credit covers 6-12 months of PlanetScale at the Scaler tier. Eligibility focuses on accelerator-backed startups with verified MySQL needs. The credit applies to standard PlanetScale services. The strategic decision: PlanetScale's value is MySQL-compatible serverless with branching workflows — non-blocking schema migrations via deploy requests, branching for feature work, Vitess-based horizontal scaling. For teams committed to MySQL specifically, PlanetScale's deploy-request workflow is genuinely differentiated. The credit window is the right time to validate whether MySQL is the right database choice — in 2026, most new SaaS products choose Postgres (via Supabase or Neon) over MySQL for stronger ecosystem and modern features. PlanetScale's removal of the free serverless tier and pricing changes pushed many teams toward Postgres alternatives. For teams with existing MySQL investment, PlanetScale's pricing tier is fair value; for new projects, Postgres-via-Supabase or Neon typically wins on the architectural decision.