Vector Database Cost Comparison
Enter one workload — vectors, dimensions, metadata bytes, writes and queries per month, read units per query and egress. The table prices it on Pinecone Builder, Pinecone Standard at low and high region rates (with the $50 minimum), Upstash Vector Pay as You Go and Upstash Fixed, with break-even notes. A full RAG bill = embed + store + query + LLM. Estimates only; provider pricing pages prevail.
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| Option | Monthly | $ / 1k queries | Note |
|---|
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One workload priced on Pinecone Builder ($20 flat within 10 GB / 5M WU / 2M RU / 10 GB egress), Pinecone Standard (usage at low and high region rates, $50 minimum), Upstash Vector Pay as You Go and Upstash Fixed ($60 + storage). Upstash requests = writes + queries. Pinecone read units per query is an editable assumption. turbopuffer is not shown because its public pricing page lists ceiling rates only.
A full RAG bill = embed + store + query + LLM: price embeddings and generation with the linked calculators.
Estimates only. Official list prices as of 2026-11-01 (Asia/Shanghai); the provider's pricing page prevails. Sources: Pinecone pricing · Pinecone read/write unit docs · Upstash Vector pricing
Pinecone Cost Calculator · Upstash Vector Cost Calculator · RAG Cost Calculator · OpenAI Embeddings Cost Calculator · Voyage AI Embedding Cost Calculator · Gemini Embedding Cost Calculator
More in this group
- Pinecone Cost Calculator Pinecone storage + WU + RU vs $50 minimum → monthly cost.
- Upstash Vector Cost Calculator Upstash Vector PAYG vs Fixed $60 + break-even.
- RAG Cost Calculator Embed + retrieve + LLM token cost in USD.
- OpenAI Embeddings Cost Calculator Embedding tokens with Batch and RAG ingest scenario.
- Voyage AI Embedding Cost Calculator Voyage embed + rerank, free tier & Batch.
- Gemini Embedding Cost Calculator Embedding 2 multimodal or embedding-001 text.
How it works
- Is Pinecone or Upstash Vector cheaper?
- For small and medium workloads Upstash Pay as You Go is usually cheapest because it has no minimum. Pinecone Builder ($20 flat) wins when you fit its 10 GB / 5M WU / 2M RU caps but would pay more than $20 on Upstash. Pinecone Standard starts at $50/month; Upstash Fixed ($60 + storage) wins above ~15M requests/month.
- Why does Pinecone Standard show $50 for a small workload?
- Standard has a $50 monthly minimum. If storage, write units and read units add up to less, you still pay $50 — the table shows the underlying usage in the note column.
- How are requests mapped between providers?
- Upstash bills requests: writes + queries at $0.40 per 100K. Pinecone bills write units and read units; write units per write and read units per query are editable assumptions because Pinecone's units depend on record size and query shape.
- Why isn't turbopuffer included?
- turbopuffer's public pricing page only shows ceiling rates through an interactive slider (storage ≤$0.33/GB, writes ≤$2.00/GB, queries ≤$1.00/PB), so it cannot be priced reliably for a workload here.
- What else is in a RAG bill?
- A full RAG bill = embed + store + query + LLM. Use the OpenAI, Voyage AI or Gemini embedding calculators for embedding cost and the RAG cost calculator for generation tokens.