Database & Data Management · pricing
SurrealDB pricing
SurrealDB publishes 3 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Usage-based
- Tiers
- 3
- Free tier
- Yes
SurrealDB plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
| Scale | $0.192/month | 4 | +$0.192/month, 4 more features |
| Enterprise | On request | 4 | Priced on request |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Start
FreeThe entry tier. It covers 1 free instance, then from $0.021/hr, 1gb storage free forever, vertical scaling to terabytes, best for prototypes and development.
Scale
$0.192/monthOver Start, this tier adds:
- $0.192/node/hr
- Production-grade fault tolerance
- Horizontal scaling to petabytes
- Multi-region disaster recovery
Enterprise
On requestOver Scale, this tier adds:
- Self-hosted, custom pricing
- Clustered fault-tolerant deployments
- FIPS-compliant cryptography
- Advanced observability
Where SurrealDB stops being free
Start, Free
- 1 free instance, then from $0.021/hr
- 1GB storage free forever
- Vertical scaling to terabytes
- Best for prototypes and development
Scale, $0.192/month
The first thing you pay for:
- $0.192/node/hr
- Production-grade fault tolerance
- Horizontal scaling to petabytes
- Multi-region disaster recovery
What the product covers
The full SurrealDB feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
core
- Multi-model engine
- ACID transactions
- Horizontal scaling
analytics
- Hybrid retrieval
security
- Multi-region disaster recovery
- FIPS-compliant cryptography
People bring SurrealDB in for ai agent memory and retrieval-augmented generation, applications needing documents, graphs and vectors in one database, knowledge graph construction from unstructured data, regulated workloads requiring soc2/iso27001/hipaa-eligible hosting. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to SurrealDB are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Database & Data Management
Too few database & data management tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SurrealDB (this page) | Free | usage-based | - | |
| Timescale | $30/month | subscription | - | vs SurrealDB |
| MotherDuck | Free, then $250/month | usage-based | - | vs SurrealDB |
| DataGrip | Free, then $8.25/month | subscription | - | vs SurrealDB |
| Ninox | On request | subscription | - | vs SurrealDB |
| Grist | On request | subscription | - | vs SurrealDB |
| Knack | On request | subscription | - | vs SurrealDB |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the SurrealDB badges page.
Before you pay for SurrealDB
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 3 tiers between Free and On request, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
SurrealDB runs on web, api, windows, mac, linux, and is published by SurrealDB. The full record is on the SurrealDB review, and the rest of the category is under best database & data management tools.
SurrealDB pricing questions
- How much does SurrealDB cost?
- SurrealDB publishes 3 tiers, from Free for Start up to On request for Enterprise. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does SurrealDB have a free plan?
- Yes. The Start tier costs nothing and covers 1 free instance, then from $0.021/hr, 1gb storage free forever, vertical scaling to terabytes. Paying starts at $0.192/month for Scale.
- What is the difference between Start and Scale on SurrealDB?
- Scale costs $0.192/month against Free, and adds $0.192/node/hr, production-grade fault tolerance, horizontal scaling to petabytes, multi-region disaster recovery.
- Is the Enterprise plan on SurrealDB worth it?
- That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is self-hosted, custom pricing, clustered fault-tolerant deployments, fips-compliant cryptography, advanced observability. It costs On request against $0.192/month for Scale. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.
- Which database & data management tools can I use without paying?
- 3 of the 7 database & data management tools listed alongside SurrealDB have a free tier: MotherDuck, DataGrip, Cloudinary.
- What am I actually paying for with SurrealDB?
- The record lists 6 features across 3 areas: core, analytics, security. In practice it is brought in for ai agent memory and retrieval-augmented generation, applications needing documents, graphs and vectors in one database, knowledge graph construction from unstructured data.
- Does SurrealDB charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 3 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these SurrealDB prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare SurrealDB against before paying?
- The closest database & data management tools in this directory are Timescale, MotherDuck, DataGrip, Ninox. Each has a side-by-side comparison with SurrealDB covering price, platforms and features.