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Extra usage

Learn how extra usage works in Neon's pricing plans

Neon plans are structured around Allowances and Extra usage. Allowances are included in your plan. With Neon's paid plans, you can purchase extra usage in set increments for when you need to go over your allowance.

Plan fees and allowances

This table provides an overview of plan fees with allowances for storage, compute, and projects:

PlanMonthly FeeStorage AllowanceCompute AllowanceProject Allowance
Free Plan$00.5 GiB191.9 compute hours/month—enough to run a primary 0.25 CU compute 24/7; up to 5 of those compute hours can be used for non-default branch computes10 projects
Launch$1910 GiB300 compute hours per month100 projects
Scale$6950 GiB750 compute hours per month1000 projects
Business$700500 GiB1000 compute hours per month5000 projects
EnterpriseCustomCustomCustomCustom

The Enterprise plan is fully customizable with respect to allowances. Please contact Sales for more information.

What are active hours and compute hours?

  • An active hour is a measure of the amount of time a compute is active. The time your compute is idle when suspended due to inactivity is not counted. In the table above, active hours are based on a 0.25 vCPU compute size.

  • A compute hour is one active hour for a compute with 1 vCPU. For a compute with .25 vCPU, it takes 4 active hours to use 1 compute hour. On the other hand, if your compute has 4 vCPUs, it takes only 15 minutes to use 1 compute hour.

  • Compute hours formula

    compute hours = compute size * active hours

Extra usage

The Launch, Scale, and Business plans permit extra usage beyond the allowances included with the monthly fee. The extra usage types that are available differ by plan.

Launch plan

The Launch plan supports extra Storage and Compute usage. If you need more than 100 projects, you'll need to move up to the Scale or Business plan.

  • Extra Storage: If you exceed 10 GiB, extra storage is allocated in units of 2 GiB at $3.50 per unit.
  • Extra Compute: If you exceed 300 compute hours, extra compute is billed at $0.16/compute hour.
ResourceUnitPrice
Extra Storage2 GiB$3.50 per unit
Extra ComputeCompute hour$0.16

Scale plan

The Scale plans supports extra Storage, Compute, and Project usage.

  • Extra Storage: If you exceed 50 GiB on Scale, extra storage is allocated in units of 10 GiB at $15 per unit.
  • Extra Compute: If you exceed 750 compute hours on Scale, extra compute is billed at $0.16/compute hour.
  • Extra Projects: If you exceed 1000 projects on Scale, extra projects are allocated in units of 500 projects at $50 per unit.
ResourceUnitPrice
Extra Storage10 GiB$15.00 per unit
Extra ComputeCompute hour$0.16
Extra Projects500$50.00 per unit

Business plan

Both the Scale and Business plans supports extra Storage, Compute, and Project usage.

  • Extra Storage: If you exceed 500 GiB on Business, extra storage is allocated in units of 10 GiB at $5 per unit.
  • Extra Compute: If you exceed 1000 compute hours on Business, extra compute is billed at $0.16/compute hour.
  • Extra Projects: If you exceed 5000 projects on Business, extra projects are allocated in units of 5000 projects at $50 per unit.
ResourceUnitPrice
Extra Storage10 GiB$5.00 per unit
Extra ComputeCompute hour$0.16
Extra Projects5000$50.00 per unit

How does extra usage work?

Taking advantage of extra usage requires no user action. Extra usage, if supported with your plan, is allocated by default. If you use more storage, compute, or projects than your monthly allowance provides, the extra usage is automatically allocated and charged to your monthly bill.

Storage

For example, the Launch plan includes an allowance of 10 GiB in the plan's monthly fee. If you exceed 10 GiB of storage at any point during the month, you are automatically allocated an extra storage unit of 2 GiB at $3.50 per unit. If you exceed 12 GiB, you are allocated 2 units of 2 GiB (an extra $7), and so on. It works the same way on the Scale and Business plans, but with 10 GiB units of storage at $15 per unit for Scale and $5.00 per unit for Business. However, the extra charge is prorated from the date the extra usage was allocated, meaning that you are not billed the full amount if extra storage units were allocated partway through the month.

note

In the context of billing, allocation of extra storage refers to an increase in the storage allowance rather than physical storage allocation.

Projects

Billing for extra projects, which are available with the Scale and Business plans, works in the same way as storage. Extra projects are allocated in units of 500 on Scale and 5000 on Business. For example, the Scale plan has an allowance of 1000 projects. If you use more than 1000 projects, you are automatically allocated an extra unit of 500 projects at $50 per unit. For example, if you use 1001 projects, you are allocated 1 unit of 500 projects (an extra $50). If you use 1501 projects, you are allocated 2 units of 500 projects (an extra $100), and so on. The extra charge is prorated from the date the extra usage was allocated, meaning that you are not billed the full amount if extra project units are allocated partway through the month.

How extra storage and project charges are prorated

The proration formula for calculating the cost of extra storage or projects allocated during a monthly billing period is:

Cost = Units x (Unit Price/Days in Month) x Days Left in Month

Where:

  • Cost is the amount charged for an extra unit of storage or projects
  • Units is the number of units purchased
  • Unit Price is the cost per unit
  • Days is the total number of days in the month
  • Days Left in Month is the number of days remaining in the month after going over your limit

Once an extra unit of storage or projects is allocated, you are billed for that extra unit for the remainder of the month. If you reduce your usage during that month and no longer require extra units of storage or projects, the extra usage charge is dropped at the beginning of the next month when your bill resets based on current usage.

Compute

Extra compute usage is available with the Launch, Scale, and Business plans and is billed by compute hour at $0.16 per hour. For example, the Launch plan has an allowance of 300 compute hours included in the plan's monthly fee. If you use 100 additional compute hours over the billing period, you are billed an extra $16 (100 x $0.16). Since extra compute usage is per hour, prorated billing does not apply.

Extra usage examples

The following examples illustrate how extra storage is allocated and billed in Neon. The same method applies to extra project usage. The examples are based on the Scale plan, which comes with a 50 GiB storage allowance. The Launch plan has a different storage allowance (10 GiB) and cost per extra storage unit ($3.50 per 2 GiB), but the examples still apply.

Example 1: Steady extra storage usage

This example illustrates how a steady amount of extra storage is billed.

Plan: Scale Period: June 1st – June 30th
Usage: Steady at 55 GiB throughout the month

ItemDetails
Plan Fee1 month = $69
Extra Storage10 GiB extra storage unit at $15/month from June 1st – June 30th = $15
Total$84

Example 2: Storage exceeds the limit at the start of the month

This example illustrates how extra storage is billed from the date the extra storage is allocated until the end of the month, not just for the days the storage limit was exceeded.

Plan: Scale Period: June 1st – June 15th
Usage: 55 GiB
Change: On June 16th, usage decreased to 45 GiB until the end of the month

ItemDetails
Plan Fee1 month = $69
Extra Storage10 GiB extra storage unit at $15/month from June 1st – June 30th = $15
Total$84

note

If usage remained at 45 GiB through to the end of July, no extra storage would be needed, and July's total would be $69 for the Scale plan.

Example 3: Storage spikes briefly at the end of the month

This example illustrates a prorated charge for extra storage that was allocated toward the end of the billing period. The charge is prorated from the date the extra storage usage was allocated.

Plan: Scale Period:

  • June 1st – June 27th: Usage up to 49 GiB
  • June 28th: Usage increased to 55 GiB
  • June 29th: Usage decreased back to 45 GiB and remained so until the end of the month
ItemDetails
Plan Fee1 month = $69
Extra Storage10 GiB extra storage unit at $15/month prorated for 3 days (June 28th – June 30th) = $1.50
Total$70.50

Feedback

We’re always looking for ways to improve our pricing model to make it as developer-friendly as possible. If you have feedback for us, let us know via the Feedback form in the Neon Console or our feedback channel on Discord. We read and consider every submission.

Need help?

Join our Discord Server to ask questions or see what others are doing with Neon. Users on paid plans can open a support ticket from the console. For more detail, see Getting Support.

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