What Is Neon? Database Software Overview & Pricing

Overview

Neon is a serverless PostgreSQL service that separates storage from compute so databases can scale to zero and be branched like code. Its pricing page describes it as built around Lakebase Postgres, for developers, start-ups and agent platforms, “from Databricks”, reflecting its acquisition by Databricks^[23].

Pricing is usage-based without monthly minimums on paid plans. The Free plan is permanent, requires no card and includes 100 compute-unit (CU) hours per project and 1 GB of storage per project, up to 20 GB across the account^[23]. Launch costs US$0.106 per CU-hour and Scale US$0.222 per CU-hour, with storage at US$0.35 per GB-month and no storage cap^[23]. Branching and scale-to-zero suit preview environments and AI agent platforms, which Neon names as target users. Its limitations are cold-start latency when compute resumes from zero, a product direction now tied to Databricks’ Lakebase strategy, and storage prices higher than raw block storage.

What Neon does

Serverless Postgres with scale-to-zero
Database branching
Usage-based compute (CU-hours)
Free plan with 100 CU-hours per project
Unlimited storage on paid plans

Neon pricing

Free: 100 CU-hours and 1 GB per project (20 GB total). Launch: US$0.106/CU-hour. Scale: US$0.222/CU-hour. Storage US$0.35/GB-month. No monthly minimum.