If you just need a cache or a session store, you do not need to spend much. Managed Redis (and its open-source fork Valkey) ranges from genuinely free to a few dollars a month for small workloads. Here is how the cheapest options stack up as of June 2026.
Free tiers come first
Two providers offer a genuinely useful always-free Redis tier:
| Offering | Free tier | Model |
|---|---|---|
| Upstash Redis | 500K commands/month, 256 MB, 1 database | Serverless / per-request |
| Redis Cloud | 30 MB database | Fixed shared |
| Aiven for Valkey | 1 GB RAM, single-node | All-inclusive plan |
For a prototype, a side project, or caching on a low-traffic app, the Upstash free tier (500K commands/month) is the most generous and scales to zero when idle.
Cheapest paid plans
Once you outgrow free, the cheapest small paid plans are:
| Offering | Smallest paid | Approx price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redis Cloud Essentials 250 MB | 250 MB | ~$7/month | Verify exact in the vendor calculator |
| Upstash Fixed 250 MB | 250 MB | $10/month | Or pay-as-you-go $0.20/100K commands |
| ElastiCache cache.t4g.micro | 0.5 GiB | ~$12/month | Per node-hour, us-east-1 |
| Aiven for Valkey Hobbyist | 1 GB | from $19/month | All-inclusive |
Per-request vs per-node: which is cheaper for you?
This is the real decision. Upstash and Redis Cloud Pro bill by usage, so they are cheapest for spiky or low-duty workloads — you pay per command and the cost falls to near zero when traffic is low. ElastiCache and Aiven bill by node, so you pay for provisioned RAM around the clock; that is cheaper once a node is consistently busy. As a rule of thumb, sustained high throughput favours a node; bursty or unpredictable traffic favours serverless.
A note on Redis vs Valkey
After Redis Inc. changed its license in 2024, AWS, Google and Aiven moved their managed services to the open-source Valkey fork. Redis Cloud and Upstash still ship Redis. Pricing is broadly comparable, so pick on model and ecosystem, not the name.
Bottom line
Start free with Upstash or Redis Cloud. For a small steady cache, compare Redis Cloud Essentials ($7/month) against an ElastiCache micro node ($12/month). Model your real command volume in the cost estimator, and see the full managed Redis comparison. Prices are a June-2026 snapshot; verify on each vendor’s pricing page.