Research · pricing
Terra pricing
Terra publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
As of 31 August 2026, Terra pricing is free across 2 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Open source, no licence fee
- Tiers
- 2
- Free tier
- Yes
Terra 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terra platform | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
| Cloud consumption | On request | 5 | 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.
Terra platform
FreeThe entry tier. It covers no charge for the platform, administration, security controls or frontline support, workspaces, workflow execution and notebook environments included, available on google cloud and microsoft azure, new users can start with cloud provider trial credits.
Cloud consumption
On requestOver Terra platform, this tier adds:
- Google Cloud or Azure charges passed through at cost with no markup
- Running notebook virtual machines around 0.22 USD per hour, roughly 0.027 USD per hour when paused
- Storage billed continuously on workspace buckets and intermediate workflow outputs
- Egress charged when data leaves the cloud region
- Billed to your own cloud billing account through a Terra billing project
Where Terra stops being free
Terra platform, Free
- No charge for the platform, administration, security controls or frontline support
- Workspaces, workflow execution and notebook environments included
- Available on Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure
- New users can start with cloud provider trial credits
No paid tier on record
Terra lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.
What the product covers
The full Terra 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.
Other
- No platform licence fee
- Cloud pass-through billing
- WDL workflow execution
- Notebook environments
- Controlled-access data
- Workspace sharing
- Compliance posture
- Multi-cloud
People bring Terra in for a genomics lab running whole-genome alignment and variant calling pipelines without provisioning or maintaining a local cluster, a consortium sharing controlled-access human data across institutions where the data cannot be copied to each site, a health system analysing patient genomic data under a hipaa business associate agreement, a federal or federally funded project needing fedramp moderate authorisation for its analysis environment. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Terra are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Research
Too few research 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terra (this page) | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | |
| Sapio Sciences | On request | quote | - | vs Terra |
| Condens | €15/month | Per contributor per month | - | vs Terra |
| LabArchives | Free, then $330/year | Per user per year | - | vs Terra |
| LabVantage | On request | quote | - | vs Terra |
| Florence eBinders | On request | quote | - | vs Terra |
| Medidata Rave | On request | quote | - | vs Terra |
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 Terra badges page.
Before you pay for Terra
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: 2 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.
Terra runs on web, google cloud, microsoft azure, and is published by Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, with Verily and Microsoft of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The full record is on the Terra review, and the rest of the category is under best research tools.
Terra pricing questions
- How much does Terra cost?
- Terra publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Terra platform up to On request for Cloud consumption. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does Terra have a free plan?
- Yes. The Terra platform tier costs nothing and covers no charge for the platform, administration, security controls or frontline support, workspaces, workflow execution and notebook environments included, available on google cloud and microsoft azure.
- What is the difference between Terra platform and Cloud consumption on Terra?
- Cloud consumption costs On request against Free, and adds google cloud or azure charges passed through at cost with no markup, running notebook virtual machines around 0.22 usd per hour, roughly 0.027 usd per hour when paused, storage billed continuously on workspace buckets and intermediate workflow outputs, egress charged when data leaves the cloud region.
- Which research tools can I use without paying?
- 2 of the 8 research tools listed alongside Terra have a free tier: LabArchives, Marvin.
- What am I actually paying for with Terra?
- The record lists 8 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for a genomics lab running whole-genome alignment and variant calling pipelines without provisioning or maintaining a local cluster, a consortium sharing controlled-access human data across institutions where the data cannot be copied to each site, a health system analysing patient genomic data under a hipaa business associate agreement.
- Does Terra charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 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 Terra 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 Terra against before paying?
- The closest research tools in this directory are Sapio Sciences, Condens, LabArchives, LabVantage. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Terra covering price, platforms and features.