Our take
Pick PlanetScale if app teams who will start Base at $5/month (single-node Postgres) or $30/month (PS-10 arm64 HA in us-east-1) while they open a first Cluster configuration screen, then add $5 PS-DEV branches or extra production SKUs when they need a deploy-request workflow. Pick Timescale if teams who will burn the 30-day Performance trial (no card), then land on Performance at $30/month compute + $0.177/GB-month
branching database desk
Tiger Cloud Postgres. Performance compute
Best for
PlanetScale A cluster you start at $5 / $30
Timescale Time-series Postgres you start on a printed $ tile
Free plan
PlanetScale No free plan
Timescale No free plan
Lowest paid
PlanetScale Storage overage $0.50
Timescale Scale $36/mo
Next step up
PlanetScale Postgres single-node $5/mo
Timescale
Runs where
PlanetScale
Timescale Hosted
Watch out
PlanetScale There is no $0 Hobby card
Timescale No forever-free Cloud card
Last checked
PlanetScale 2026-10-23 · planetscale.com/pricing.md
Timescale 2026-10-23 · timescale.com/pricing
app teams who will start Base at $5/month (single-node Postgres) or $30/month (PS-10 arm64 HA in us-east-1) while they open a first Cluster configuration screen, then add $5 PS-DEV branches or extra production SKUs when they need a deploy-request workflow.
Read the PlanetScale pageteams who will burn the 30-day Performance trial (no card), then land on Performance at $30/month compute + $0.177/GB-month when the job is time-series on Postgres — not a serverless branch database.
Read the Timescale page