Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL review
by Amazon Web ServicesManaged Postgres
Managed Postgres on an instance you pick, inside your AWS account: from $0.016 an hour, with point-in-time restore up to 35 days and a self-serve BAA.
- Free trial
- Self-serve
- Usage-based
- Public prices
What you're paying for
- Compliance included (main value)
- Saves engineering time
Managed Postgres in your own AWS account from $0.016 an hour, with point-in-time restore up to 35 days and a self-serve HIPAA BAA.
Amazon RDS runs PostgreSQL on an instance you choose, inside your AWS account, and takes care of automated backups and Multi-AZ failover. Backups can be kept up to 35 days and restored to any point in that window, with backup storage free up to the size of your database storage. AWS SOC reports, ISO 27001 certification and the HIPAA BAA come with any account through AWS Artifact, and SAML SSO through IAM Identity Center costs nothing extra.
- Compliance with any accountAWS SOC 2 reports and the HIPAA BAA are in AWS Artifact for every account; AWS is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and RDS is in scope of SOC, PCI, FedRAMP and HIPAA programs.Evidence: AWS SOC, HIPAA and ISO 27001 pages, RDS compliance docs (2026-10-15)
- Recovery without an add-onBackup retention can be set up to 35 days, with point-in-time restore to a new instance; backup storage is free up to your provisioned storage, then $0.095 per GB-month.Evidence: RDS user guide and FAQ (2026-10-15)
- Small instances by the hourA db.t4g.micro (1 GiB) is $0.016 an hour in us-east-1, and a stopped instance bills only storage and backups.Evidence: AWS price list for us-east-1 and pricing page (2026-10-15)
- Best for
- Teams already on AWS that need compliance documents, long restore windows and SSO without moving to a higher plan.
- Good to know
- There is no permanent free plan, and the bill combines instance hours, storage, backup storage and CPU credits that you estimate yourself.
How Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL compares
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Managed Postgres: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL | PlanetScale | Neon | Supabase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Compliance includedManaged Postgres in your own AWS account from $0.016 an hour, with point-in-time restore up to 35 days and a self-serve HIPAA BAA. | Worth the priceProduction Postgres at a fixed monthly price per cluster, from $10 for 1 GiB, with SOC 2 Type 2 reports and BAAs on the self-serve plan. | Worth the pricePostgres you pay for by the compute hour, with scale to zero, branches that start with your data, and a free plan of 100 projects. | Saves engineering timeA Postgres database with auth, storage and APIs in one project for $25 a month, with daily backups and a choice of 17 AWS regions. |
| Overall score | 6.9Best | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.0 |
| Free option | Free trial | Paid only | Free plan | Free plan |
| Card to start | –Not measured | –Not measured | No card needed | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $0.016/hour | $5/mo | $0.106/CU-hour | $25/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based | Seat + usage |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing units | Instance hours, storage (GB-month), backup storage above the free amount, CPU credits | Cluster size per month, storage above 10 GB, backups above 2× disk | Compute-unit hours, storage and restore history (GB-month) | Plan fee, compute hours, disk (GB) |
| Free plan | None; AWS Free Tier credits for new accounts | None; single node from $5/mo | 1 GB per project, 100 projects, 100 CU-hours each; no card | 500 MB per project, 2 projects; paused after 1 week inactive |
| 10 GB app with staging, per month | $19.10 on db.t4g.micro, computed | $15 on Base, computed | $28.06 on Launch, computed | $35.06 on Pro, computed |
| Point-in-time recovery | Up to 35 days, no add-on; extra backup storage $0.095/GB-month | 2 days by default; longer with custom backup schedules | Up to 7 days on Launch at $0.20/GB-month; 30 on Scale | $100/mo add-on per 7 days; needs Small compute |
| Automatic backups at no extra charge | 7 days by default (console); free up to provisioned storage | Every 12 hours, kept 2 days | None; history and snapshots billed per GB | Daily, kept 7 days (Pro) |
| SOC 2 Type II report | AWS reports in AWS Artifact, any account | Base plan (ISO 27001 not stated) | Scale plan | Team plan ($599/mo) |
| HIPAA BAA | Self-serve in AWS Artifact | Base plan, on request | Scale plan, self-serve | Team plan, paid add-on |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Milan, Spain | Frankfurt, Dublin (AWS); Belgium, Netherlands (GCP) | Frankfurt, London | Ireland, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm |
| SAML SSO for the dashboard | IAM Identity Center, no extra charge | $199/mo add-on on Base | Not listed | Listed on Team; table says Contact Us |
| Branch with production data | Yes, by restoring a snapshot or point in time to a new instance | Yes, by restoring a backup to a branch | Yes, every branch starts as a copy | Needs the PITR add-on |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, RDS for PostgreSQL includes the most recovery and compliance here at a low listed price, all self-serve. The bill has more lines to estimate than the others, and there is no permanent free plan. | From its public pages, PlanetScale lists the lowest price for our scenario and the most compliance on its entry plan, with backups and PITR included. There is no free plan, and its Postgres branches are separate databases rather than copies. | From its public pages, Neon has the most generous free plan and the most flexible branches here, and usage billing suits databases that are often idle. Compliance and longer restore windows move you to Scale, at about twice the compute rate. | From its public pages, Supabase gives the most around the database: auth, storage and APIs with daily backups for $25. For a database alone, PITR as a flat add-on and per-hour branches make it the highest-priced of the three in our scenario. |
Evidence: Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; PlanetScale: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Neon: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Supabase: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Score
- Pricing clarity
- 6.5 / 10, Good
- billed by instance hours, storage (GB-month), backup storage above the provisioned size, CPU credits above the burstable baseline; you estimate CPU use above the burstable baseline; the RDS for PostgreSQL pricing page offers new customers a 12-month free tier, while the AWS Free Tier page describes credits on a 6-month Free plan
- Free tier
- 0.0 / 10, Fair
- no free plan
- Price for a 10 GB app with staging
- 7.8 / 10, Good
- Backups and point-in-time recovery
- 8.8 / 10, Excellent
- PITR of 30 days or more on the entry paid plan without an add-on fee, automatic backups kept 7 days at no extra charge, 28+ days available self-serve
- Compliance and data residency
- 10.0 / 10, Excellent
- SOC 2 Type II report on the entry paid plan, ISO 27001, HIPAA BAA on the entry paid plan, EU region
- Team and control
- 8.0 / 10, Excellent
- SAML SSO on the entry paid plan; audit log on the entry paid plan; branches with production data
Review
Review from public pages
Written from Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 15, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
What the public pages show
We read the RDS for PostgreSQL pricing page, the AWS price list for us-east-1, the RDS FAQ, the user guide pages on backups, point-in-time restore, stopping instances and storage, and AWS's compliance, Artifact and IAM Identity Center pages on Oct 15, 2026; we did not sign up for this review. RDS has no plan fee: you pay for each DB instance by the hour (per second after a 10-minute minimum), its provisioned storage, backup storage above a free amount, and data transfer. In us-east-1 a db.t4g.micro (2 vCPUs, 1 GiB) is $0.016 an hour, or $0.032 with a Multi-AZ standby; gp3 storage is $0.115 per GB-month from 20 GiB.
Recovery is the strong point. Automated backups can be kept 1 to 35 days (7 by default in the console, 1 through the API), and a restore to any point in that window creates a new instance, which also gives staging a copy of production data. Backup storage is free up to your total provisioned storage in the region. A stopped instance bills storage but not instance hours, and RDS starts it again after 7 days.
Two details need care. T4g and T3 instances run in Unlimited mode, so CPU above the baseline, averaged over 24 hours, is billed at $0.075 per vCPU-hour. And AWS describes the free tier two ways: the RDS for PostgreSQL pricing page still offers new customers 750 hours a month for a year, while the RDS pricing page and the AWS Free Tier page say accounts opened after July 15, 2025 get credits ($100, up to $200) instead.
Strengths
- Point-in-time restore up to 35 days
Set backup retention to as many as 35 days and restore to any point in it, with no add-on; backup storage is free up to your provisioned storage.
vs Neon: Supabase sells PITR as a $100-a-month add-on per 7 days; Neon Launch goes up to 7 days.
- Compliance documents with any account
AWS SOC reports, ISO 27001 certification and the HIPAA BAA are available through AWS Artifact without a plan upgrade or sales call.
vs Neon: Supabase offers its BAA from Team ($599/mo); Neon lists it on Scale.
- SSO and an audit log at no extra charge
IAM Identity Center connects a SAML 2.0 identity provider at no extra charge, and CloudTrail keeps 90 days of account activity for free.
vs PlanetScale: PlanetScale sells SSO as a $199-a-month add-on; Neon lists neither.
- A low listed price for a small database
A db.t4g.micro is $0.016 an hour in us-east-1; our scenario comes to $19.10 a month.
vs PlanetScale: The same scenario is $15 on PlanetScale and $28.06 on Neon Launch, by our arithmetic.
- Runs in your AWS account
Instances run in your own VPC next to the rest of your AWS workload, and a Multi-AZ standby costs twice the Single-AZ instance and storage rates.
Things to know
- No permanent free plan
New accounts get AWS Free Tier credits rather than a free database; the AWS Free Tier page says the Free plan closes after 6 months or when the credits run out.
Workaround: Neon and Supabase both have permanent free plans.
- Many lines on the bill
Instance hours, storage, backup storage above the free amount, CPU credits on burstable instances, data transfer, and Extended Support per vCPU-hour for major versions past community end of life.
Workaround: The AWS Pricing Calculator estimates a full configuration.
- Free tier described two ways
The RDS for PostgreSQL pricing page offers new customers 750 hours a month for a year; the RDS pricing page and the AWS Free Tier page describe credits for accounts opened after July 15, 2025.
- No scale to zero
An idle instance bills every hour until you stop it; a stopped instance still bills storage and backups and restarts on its own after 7 days.
Pricing reality
RDS bills instance-hours (per second after a 10-minute minimum), provisioned storage, backup storage above your total provisioned storage ($0.095 per GB-month), CPU credits on T4g and T3 instances above the baseline ($0.075 per vCPU-hour) and data transfer. In us-east-1: db.t4g.micro $0.016 an hour (Multi-AZ $0.032), gp3 $0.115 per GB-month (Multi-AZ $0.23), from 20 GiB.
For our scenario: production 730 h × $0.016 = $11.68 + 20 GiB of gp3 $2.30; staging stopped outside 176 hours, 176 × $0.016 = $2.82 + its 20 GiB $2.30: $19.10 a month, our arithmetic, with CPU inside the baseline. With a Multi-AZ production instance it is $33.08.
Exit path
RDS runs PostgreSQL major versions, with paid Extended Support for versions past community end of life. The pricing page describes exporting snapshot data to Amazon S3 in Parquet format ($0.010 per GB of snapshot in us-east-1, per the AWS price list), and manual snapshots do not expire.
Compared with
- Pick Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL when
- You want point-in-time restore up to 35 days, SAML SSO at no extra charge, and ISO 27001 as well as SOC 2.
- Pick PlanetScale when
- You want the lowest price in our scenario, one fixed monthly price per cluster, and replicas across three zones as a standard size.
- Pick Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL when
- You want SOC 2 reports, a BAA and SAML SSO without a higher plan, and up to 35 days of point-in-time restore.
- Pick Neon when
- You want a permanent free plan, compute that scales to zero, and branches that start as copies of your data.
Choose it if
- You already run on AWS and want the database in your own VPC.
- You need a self-serve BAA, SOC reports and SAML SSO without a plan upgrade.
- You want point-in-time restore going back up to 35 days.
Look elsewhere if
- You want a permanent free plan.
- You want one or two lines on the bill rather than instances, storage, backups and CPU credits.
Bottom line
From its public pages, RDS for PostgreSQL includes the most recovery and compliance here at a low listed price, all self-serve. The bill has more lines to estimate than the others, and there is no permanent free plan.
Plan limits at a glance
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing units | Instance hours, storage (GB-month), backup storage above the free amount, CPU credits |
| Free plan | None; AWS Free Tier credits for new accounts |
| 10 GB app with staging, per month | $19.10 on db.t4g.micro, computed |
| Point-in-time recovery | Up to 35 days, no add-on; extra backup storage $0.095/GB-month |
| Automatic backups at no extra charge | 7 days by default (console); free up to provisioned storage |
| SOC 2 Type II report | AWS reports in AWS Artifact, any account |
| HIPAA BAA | Self-serve in AWS Artifact |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Milan, Spain |
| SAML SSO for the dashboard | IAM Identity Center, no extra charge |
| Branch with production data | Yes, by restoring a snapshot or point in time to a new instance |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 15, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 15, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL yet.
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, db.t4g.micro, Single-AZ (us-east-1), costs $0.016/hour.
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQLLowest pricedb.t4g.micro, Single-AZ$11.68/mo$0.016/hr in us-east-1 (2 vCPUs, 1 GiB); plus storage
- gp3 storage $0.115/GB-month, from 20 GiB
- Backup storage free up to provisioned storage
- CPU above baseline $0.075 per vCPU-hour
- Billed per second after a 10-minute minimum
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQLdb.t4g.micro, Multi-AZ$23.36/mo$0.032/hr with a standby in a second Availability Zone; gp3 $0.23/GB-month
- Automatic failover to the standby
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQLdb.t4g.small, Single-AZ$23.36/mo$0.032/hr in us-east-1 (2 vCPUs, 2 GiB)
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQLBackup storage$0.095/GB-monthOnly above your total provisioned database storage in the region
- Retention 1 to 35 days
- Manual snapshots do not expire
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-15.
Source: aws.amazon.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.