Pricing Overview
TimescaleDB follows a freemium pricing model that gives teams two distinct paths: run the open-source PostgreSQL extension at zero cost on your own infrastructure, or deploy on Tiger Cloud, the fully managed service built by the creators of TimescaleDB. The self-hosted edition ships every core feature -- automatic partitioning, columnar compression, continuous aggregates, and 200+ time-series SQL functions -- under an open-source license. Tiger Cloud adds managed infrastructure, automated backups, high availability, and a 30-day free trial so teams can evaluate the platform before committing. Cloud pricing is usage-based, starting at $29/month for the base service, with storage billed at $0.15/GB/month and compute scaling independently.
Plan Comparison
TimescaleDB offers three main tiers that map to different operational needs.
| Feature | Self-Hosted (Free) | Tiger Cloud ($29/mo+) | Tiger Cloud Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Price | $0 | $29/month | Custom (contact sales) |
| Hypertable Partitioning | Included | Included | Included |
| Columnar Compression (up to 95%) | Included | Included | Included |
| Continuous Aggregates | Included | Included | Included |
| 200+ Time-Series Functions | Included | Included | Included |
| Managed Backups & PITR | Self-managed | Up to 14-day PITR | Up to 14-day PITR |
| High Availability & Replicas | Self-managed | Available | 99.9% uptime SLA |
| Tiered Storage (Object Storage) | Self-managed | Automatic | Automatic |
| Native Search (BM25 + Vector) | Not included | Included | Included |
| Tiger Lake (Iceberg Sync) | Not included | Included | Included |
| Storage Scaling | Manual | Elastic (up to 128 TB) | Elastic (up to 128 TB) |
| Support | Community | Standard | 24/7 with SLAs |
| SOC 2 Type II & GDPR | N/A | Included | Included |
| Free Trial | N/A | 30-day free trial | Demo available |
Tiger Cloud compute starts at $30/month to $36/month depending on instance size, with storage priced at $0.15/GB/month. The tiered storage option drops cold data costs to $0.02/GB/month on object storage, and compression can reduce raw storage footprint by up to 95%.
Hidden Costs and Considerations
Self-hosting eliminates license fees but shifts operational burden to your team: you handle provisioning, patching, backup orchestration, and scaling. On Tiger Cloud, additional AWS infrastructure charges apply on top of the base compute and storage fees. Read replicas for workload isolation carry their own compute cost. Teams running heavy ingest workloads should budget for IOPS beyond the included 110,000+ per volume. Enterprise features like contractual SLAs and regional data isolation require a custom quote.
Cost Estimates by Team Size
| Team Size | Recommended Tier | Estimated Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Solo developer / prototype | Self-Hosted (Free) | $0 (infrastructure only) |
| Small team (3-5 engineers) | Tiger Cloud base | $29-$36/month + storage |
| Mid-size team (10-20 engineers) | Tiger Cloud with replicas | $100-$300/month |
| Enterprise (50+ engineers) | Tiger Cloud Enterprise | Custom pricing (contact sales) |
These estimates cover TimescaleDB service costs. Self-hosted teams still pay for underlying server infrastructure (EC2, bare metal, or containers). Tiger Cloud costs scale with data volume -- compression at 95% means 1 TB of raw time-series data can drop to roughly 50 GB of billed storage.
How TimescaleDB Pricing Compares
TimescaleDB positions itself between free self-hosted time-series databases and fully managed cloud platforms. Its zero-cost self-hosted tier matches InfluxDB's Community Edition on price, while its managed cloud starts below Neo4j's AuraDB Professional tier. MotherDuck offers a lower entry point at $25/month but targets DuckDB-based analytics rather than time-series workloads.
| Platform | Free Tier | Paid Starting Price | Pricing Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| TimescaleDB | Self-hosted (full features) | $29/month (Tiger Cloud) | Usage-based |
| InfluxDB | Community Edition (self-hosted) | $250/month (Cloud) | Usage-based |
| Neo4j | AuraDB Free / Community Edition | $65/month (AuraDB Professional) | Tiered |
| MotherDuck | Free tier (1 user) | $25/month (Pro) | Tiered |
TimescaleDB delivers the strongest value for PostgreSQL-native teams: the self-hosted edition is feature-complete at no cost, and Tiger Cloud undercuts InfluxDB Cloud by over $200/month at entry level. The 30-day free trial and usage-based billing let teams scale costs alongside actual data volume rather than paying for fixed capacity.