Managed MySQL splits into two pricing camps: hyperscaler instances you rent by the hour (RDS, Cloud SQL, Azure) and modern products with their own model (PlanetScale’s clusters, Aiven’s all-inclusive plans). Here is how they compare as of June 2026.
The hyperscalers (instance-hour + separate storage)
All three bill compute per hour and storage separately:
| Offering | Entry instance | ~Monthly | 2 vCPU / 8 GB | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure MySQL | B1ms (1 vCore / 2 GiB) | ~$12 | D2ds_v5 ~$125 | 12-month B1ms |
| RDS MySQL | db.t3.micro | ~$13 | db.m5.large ~$125 | 12-month t3.micro |
| Cloud SQL | 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB ~$49 | ~$49 | 2 vCPU / 8 GB ~$101 | None (credit only) |
Azure’s Burstable B1ms is the cheapest entry instance, and all three converge around $100-125/month for a small steady 2 vCPU production instance (compute only — add storage at roughly $0.10-0.22/GB-month). Cloud SQL bills vCPU and RAM separately, which is flexible but harder to estimate.
PlanetScale (fixed Vitess clusters)
PlanetScale delivers MySQL via Vitess and sells fixed cluster tiers:
- PS-5 — $15/month (smallest cluster)
- PS-10 — ~$39/month (smallest production-ready cluster)
- Metal M-10 — from $50/month (NVMe, unlimited IOPS)
There is no free tier since April 2024. PlanetScale’s draw is horizontal sharding, branching and non-blocking schema migrations — not the lowest price.
Aiven (all-inclusive)
Aiven for MySQL bundles compute, storage, HA and backups into one plan: a free plan ($0), Hobbyist from $19/month, Startup-4 from $75/month, and Business-4 (HA) from $180/month. The headline prices default to the cheapest cloud, so AWS us-east is modestly higher.
So which should you pick?
- Cheapest dev/test instance: Azure B1ms (
$12/month) or RDS db.t3.micro ($13/month). - Deep cloud integration: RDS or Cloud SQL if you are already on AWS or GCP.
- Sharding and schema workflow: PlanetScale, despite the higher floor.
- All-in-one with a free plan: Aiven.
See the full RDS MySQL vs Cloud SQL comparison and PlanetScale vs RDS, or model a tier in the estimator. Prices are a June-2026 snapshot; verify on each vendor’s pricing page.