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PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

(planetscale.com)
231 points ryanvogel | 7 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.025s | source | bottom
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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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carlm42 ◴[30 Oct 25 21:14 UTC] No.45765454[source]▶
(Planetscale employee) This is very different though: it's not a free tier, it's an actual single node DB as a paid product. It's definitely not a good fit for every usecase, but if you have a hobby project it's a great way to start with plenty of room to scale if/when you get actual usage
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CryptoBanker ◴[30 Oct 25 21:45 UTC] No.45765759[source]▶
It's very similar in that it's not a huge source of revenue for Planetscale, so easy to pull the rug without disrupting revenue too much
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samlambert ◴[30 Oct 25 21:57 UTC] No.45765878[source]▶
this makes no sense to me
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CryptoBanker ◴[30 Oct 25 22:11 UTC] No.45766005[source]▶
It's easier to pull the rug out from under a group of customers who earn you 5% of your revenue than it is to do the same thing to a group of customers who make you 25% of your revenue.

This small $5 plan is obviously not going to make Planetscale very much revenue.

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1. samlambert ◴[30 Oct 25 22:13 UTC] No.45766030[source]▶
but its entry level pricing for customers that grow. it will be great for us. there is no point hurting our reputation and slowing growth.
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2. czl ◴[30 Oct 25 22:42 UTC] No.45766256[source]▶
You were buying flow for your sales funnel with a free plan now you want to attract users with a low tier plan. Your reputation was hurt with the first rug pull so why be surprised that users expect another rug pull from you in the future?
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3. selcuka ◴[30 Oct 25 23:35 UTC] No.45766710[source]▶
I think what Sam means is $5/mo is already profitable for them. Free plan wasn't.
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4. ◴[31 Oct 25 01:12 UTC] No.45767318{3}[source]▶
5. czl ◴[31 Oct 25 04:42 UTC] No.45768506{3}[source]▶
If a free plan attracts users that can be upsold is that free plan not profitable _vs_ paying for advertising?

If such upselling is done via rug pull tactics it damages your reputation vs never having a free plan in the first place.

If a new bank offered you free or discounted banking would you move over your accounts and payments and credit cards? What if that bank has a reputation for upselling via rug pulling?

For users the cost of switching can mean that services that are free or cheap are not worth it if they are expecting a rug pull.

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6. selcuka ◴[31 Oct 25 05:41 UTC] No.45768759{4}[source]▶
I agree, removing the free plan was a bad move. They should have at least grandfathered existing free tier users. I was just explaining their point of view.

When you don't need advertising anymore, the free plan starts becoming a net loss. If the $5 plan is profitable today, it will probably stay profitable forever as their costs will only go down, never up. There is little incentive to remove it (until Broadcom or Oracle acquires them).

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7. czl ◴[31 Oct 25 07:30 UTC] No.45769256{5}[source]▶
You did a good job explaining their view. What I am doing is explaining the view of users and judging by your last post I have not yet done a good job so let me try again:

If elimination of a service plan is expected to push enough users to a _more_ profitable service plan why would a business not do it? Does it matter if the plan to be eliminated, generates _some_ profit?

Hope this helps!