# Preview branches should be included, not metered

> A preview environment per pull request is now standard practice. Charging ~$9.60/mo for each one running turns a good habit into a line item you ration.

Source: https://scribase.com/blog/preview-branches-should-be-included

By Scribase, 2026-08-30.

Per-PR preview environments are one of the best habits a team can build. Every
pull request gets an isolated, real environment; reviewers click a link instead
of imagining the change; bugs get caught before they merge.

So it is strange to price the habit like a vice.

## The meter on a good idea

A continuously-running preview branch costs roughly $9.60/mo, and compute
credits explicitly do not apply. Three open PRs is $28.80/mo. A busy repo with
ten is nearly $100/mo — for the privilege of reviewing your own code properly.
Predictably, teams respond by rationing previews, which quietly defeats the point
of having them.

## Included, swept, and scrubbed

Scribase previews are part of every project, within its caps:

- **PR-linked** — each pull request gets its own environment.
- **TTL-swept** — environments expire automatically, so you do not pay for
  branches you forgot to close.
- **Secret-scrubbed** — a preview never carries production secrets. A preview
  from prod is created in minutes with zero cloned secrets.

The goal is to make the good habit the frictionless one. You should open a
preview because it helps, not weigh it against the invoice.

See how previews fit the flat plan on the [pricing page](/pricing).