Why flat pricing is a product decision, not a discount
Metered billing is not just expensive — it changes how you use your own database. Flat pricing with hard caps is a different product, and we built for it deliberately.
Metered pricing has a hidden cost that never shows up on the invoice: it makes you hesitate. You think twice before spinning up a preview branch. You leave PITR off because it is $100/mo. You batch your egress. The pricing model quietly edits your engineering decisions, and rarely for the better.
We made flat pricing a binding product rule, not a promotion.
Three rules we will not break
- Never add a metered line item. The moment we bill per-MAU or per-GB-egress we become a worse version of the incumbent. Overage is a capacity pack you choose, not a surprise you discover.
- PITR-class protection is the Starter tier, not a $100 add-on. Verified restore is our strongest built asset. Charging separately for it would waste it and teach you to turn it off.
- We do not pause projects. "Your free project is still running" is a real, cheap, emotionally-loaded promise, and we keep it.
Hard caps beat soft meters
A cap is honest: you know exactly what you can use and exactly what it costs. A meter is a slot machine you pay for after you pull the lever. When you outgrow a cap, you buy a pack — a decision you make on purpose, at a price you saw first.
Flat pricing only works if the underlying system is efficient enough to afford it. That is why the backend is Rust services with real fleet density, not a markup on someone else's metered cloud. The price is a consequence of the architecture, not a marketing choice bolted on top.