MotherDuck Pricing, Plans & Alternatives (2026)

Overview

MotherDuck is a managed cloud service that brings the DuckDB query engine from local machines to the cloud, through a partnership with the developers of DuckDB; its Dual Execution feature splits queries between local and cloud compute^[17].

The Lite plan starts at no cost for individuals, with up to three users, 10 GB of storage and ten hours a month of Pulse compute. Business costs US$250 per organisation per month plus usage and adds up to ten users, all five instance types, read-scaling replicas, 90-day snapshot retention, custom roles and a 99.9 percent availability SLA; Enterprise adds unlimited users, fixed-capacity pricing, AWS PrivateLink, a HIPAA business associate agreement and bring-your-own-compute^[17]. Compute is sold as “Duckling” instances: Pulse at US$0.60 per CU-hour metered per query, and Standard, Jumbo, Mega and Giga at US$2.40, US$4.80, US$12 and US$24 an hour, metered per second; storage costs US$0.04 per GB per month^[17].

MotherDuck suits analysts and small data teams whose data fits comfortably on single large machines and who value DuckDB’s speed and simplicity. It runs only in six AWS regions, each organisation is tied to one region, and it is not designed for very large multi-petabyte enterprise warehouses^[17].

MotherDuck features

DuckDB engine in the cloud
Dual Execution across local and cloud
Free Lite tier
Per-second instance billing
Read-scaling replicas (Business)
HIPAA BAA and PrivateLink (Enterprise)

MotherDuck pricing

Lite: from US$0. Business: US$250/org/month plus usage. Enterprise: custom. Compute: Pulse US$0.60/CU-hour; Standard US$2.40/hour up to Giga US$24/hour. Storage US$0.04/GB-month.