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Postgres pricing

Is Amazon RDS cheaper than Neon?

Short answer: it depends on your workload. Amazon RDS bills around the clock; Neon scales to zero too. The two cases below flip the answer.

Bursty or idle workload
1 CU, ~4 h/day, scale-to-zero, 10 GB
Amazon RDS$47.87
Neon$16.39
Neon is cheaper here
Steady, always-on workload
2 CU, 24/7, 50 GB
Amazon RDS$129
Neon$172
Amazon RDS is cheaper here

Amazon RDS: Managed Postgres on AWS, billed around the clock per instance. It bills per instance-hour, 24/7, no scale-to-zero.

Neon: Serverless Postgres that scales compute to zero when idle. It bills usage-based, no monthly minimum, billed per compute-hour.

So Amazon RDS is cheaper than Neon for steady, always-on databases, and more expensive for the other. Your real answer depends on your compute size, how many hours a day the database is active, and your storage.

Run your exact numbers

Move the sliders for your workload and see Amazon RDS, Neon, and the others side by side.

Open the comparator
Is Amazon RDS cheaper than Neon?

It depends on your workload. For a bursty or idle database, Neon is usually cheaper (about $16.39 vs $47.87 in our reference case). For a steady, always-on database, Amazon RDS comes out ahead. Run your own numbers in the comparator.

What decides which is cheaper?

Mostly whether your database can idle. Amazon RDS bills around the clock; Neon scales to zero and bills only while active. Compute size and storage matter too.

Whichever you pick, FluentDB is the Mac client for it.

Download FluentDB for Mac
See also: Is Neon cheaper than Amazon RDS? · Prices last verified 2026-08-01.