Pricing Overview
Mage uses a usage-based pricing model with five managed cloud tiers, starting at $100 per month plus compute costs. All plans include Mage's AI sidekick for code assistance and debugging, with token limits scaling by tier. Compute is billed at $0.29 per hour, measured as 1 CPU hour or 4 GB RAM hour, whichever comes first. Teams that need hybrid, private cloud, or on-premises deployment must contact sales for a custom quote. The open-source version of Mage remains available under the Apache-2.0 license for self-hosted deployments at no licensing cost, though teams are responsible for their own infrastructure and maintenance. Every paid tier includes at least one production cluster, with higher tiers adding dev/prod separation and additional workspaces for team collaboration.
Plan Comparison
Mage structures its five paid tiers around block runs, AI tokens, compute hours, and workspace counts. A block run is one execution of a modular pipeline step; a pipeline with five blocks counts as five block runs per execution.
| Feature | Starter | Team | Plus | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $100/mo | $500/mo | $2,000/mo | $5,500/mo | $25,000/mo |
| Block Runs/Month | Usage-based | 15,000 | 50,000 | 200,000 | 700,000 |
| AI Tokens/Month | 50,000 | 250,000 | 2,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 50,000,000 |
| Core Hours/Month | Usage-based | 700 | 3,250 | 9,500 | 32,500 |
| GB Hours/Month | Usage-based | 4,000 | 17,000 | 46,500 | 235,000 |
| Clusters | 1+ | 1+ | 2+ | 3+ | 8+ |
| Workspaces | None | 2+ | 6+ | 15+ | 100+ |
The Starter plan charges $0.29 per compute hour on top of the $100 base, making it suitable for prototyping and low-volume workloads. The Team plan at $500 per month bundles 15,000 block runs and 700 core hours, targeting small data teams with predictable workloads. Plus at $2,000 per month adds dev/prod cluster separation and 50,000 block runs for teams automating their full data stack. Business and Enterprise tiers at $5,500 and $25,000 per month serve organizations running hundreds of thousands of pipeline executions monthly, with dedicated workspaces and expanded AI capabilities.
Hidden Costs and Considerations
The Starter plan's compute overage at $0.29 per hour can accumulate quickly for teams running frequent or long-running pipelines. A single pipeline consuming 10 CPU hours daily would add significant compute costs on top of the $100 base fee. Block run limits on Team and Plus tiers create a hard ceiling that, once exceeded, requires upgrading to a higher tier rather than paying per-unit overages. There is no pay-as-you-go overflow option within a tier. Teams deploying hybrid or private cloud configurations face additional infrastructure costs beyond the listed prices, and these deployment options require a custom sales quote. The open-source self-hosted option eliminates licensing fees but shifts compute, storage, networking, maintenance, and operational costs entirely to your team. AI sidekick token limits also vary significantly across tiers, from 50,000 on Starter to 50 million on Enterprise, which matters for teams relying heavily on AI-assisted pipeline development.
Cost Estimates by Team Size
Based on Mage's published tier limits and pricing, here are realistic monthly cost estimates:
| Team Size | Recommended Plan | Monthly Cost | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-2 developers | Starter | $100/mo + compute | Light pipeline prototyping, minimal block runs |
| 3-5 data engineers | Team | $500/mo | 15,000 block runs covers moderate ETL workloads |
| 6-10 engineers | Plus | $2,000/mo | 50,000 block runs, dev/prod separation, 6+ workspaces |
| 10-25 engineers | Business | $5,500/mo | 200,000 block runs, 15+ workspaces for larger orgs |
| 25+ engineers | Enterprise | $25,000/mo | 700,000 block runs, 100+ workspaces, full platform scale |
How Mage Pricing Compares
Mage occupies a different pricing tier than many data pipeline competitors. While tools like Airbyte and Stitch focus primarily on data ingestion with low entry prices, Mage provides a full pipeline execution platform that includes transformation, orchestration, and AI-assisted development.
| Tool | Entry Price | Free Tier | Pricing Model | Primary Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mage | $100/mo | Open-source (self-hosted) | Usage-based | Full pipeline execution |
| Airbyte | $10/mo | Yes (self-hosted OSS) | Usage-based | Data ingestion/ELT |
| Stitch | $25/mo | Yes (1 user) | Freemium | Data ingestion |
| Hevo Data | $25/mo | Yes (1M rows) | Freemium | Data ingestion |
Mage's $100 starting price is higher than Airbyte's $10 or Stitch's $25, but Mage bundles orchestration, transformation, dbt modeling, and AI coding assistance into a single platform. Airbyte and Stitch focus on data ingestion and replication, meaning teams still need separate orchestration and transformation tools to build complete pipelines. Hevo Data offers a managed ELT platform with row-based pricing starting at $25 per month for 10 million rows, but lacks the pipeline authoring and AI development features Mage provides. Teams currently using separate tools for ingestion, orchestration, and transformation may find Mage's consolidated pricing competitive against the combined cost of multiple point solutions. The open-source Apache-2.0 licensed version provides a zero-cost entry point for teams willing to manage their own infrastructure, similar to Airbyte's self-hosted option. For organizations prioritizing total cost of ownership over per-tool entry price, Mage's all-in-one approach reduces integration overhead and vendor management complexity.