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PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

(planetscale.com)
231 points ryanvogel | 3 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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reducesuffering ◴[30 Oct 25 21:02 UTC] No.45765316[source]▶
I like PlanetScale, but they already have precedent very recently for having a free-tier and then cancelling it for a minimum of $40/month plan, which made many people switch. What's to stop them from doing the same here?

Be wary of building a cheap hobby project on it expecting pricing to stay consistent. If $40+ isn't feasible for you, you may be trying to switch off to a hosted PostgreSQL option, with all the pain MySQL->Postgres entails, soon.

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samlambert ◴[30 Oct 25 21:05 UTC] No.45765347[source]▶
Why would we? we make a (small) profit on these cheaper tiers. We are a sustainable and profitable company. Also the free tier wasnt cancelled very recently it was 1.5 years ago so you are reaching a bit here.
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jszymborski ◴[30 Oct 25 21:12 UTC] No.45765434[source]▶
A bit of unsolicited advice:

This post is the first time I've heard of your company and your blog post interested me.

When proprietors go to the mat in the comment section, I immediately lose any interest in patronizing them.

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1. samlambert ◴[30 Oct 25 21:17 UTC] No.45765492[source]▶
why is it going to the mat? i had to correct something that was untrue. 1.5 years is not very recently.
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2. bryanlarsen ◴[30 Oct 25 21:53 UTC] No.45765838[source]▶
1.5 years ago is recently IMO.
3. reducesuffering ◴[30 Oct 25 23:11 UTC] No.45766497[source]▶
Case in point. Potential customers will see this dismissal as the equivalent of how long they expect this pricing to remain. You’re free to increase the price in a year and when customers are irked, “why isn’t it $5 anymore?” They’ll be met with “that’s not recent.” “That was so long ago”

If you want to rebuild reputation with hobby tier, you’ll probably want to put in a 3 year pricing guarantee, not 1 month like the notice last time.