[throwusawayus]

i was talking about managed sql databases

your first two examples are nosql. third example charges by data size processed, not by rows!

rows is weird metric since some tables have tiny rows, some have huge

[derekperkins]

The point is that the market has shown there is a huge appetite for alternative database billing models other than a fixed cost per month. From my limited personal interactions, I'm aware of 10-20 developers who are using Planetscale in large part because of their billing model. They would have never considered a SQL database before because of the fixed cost.

Those nosql options (probably the most popular in the world) also have the issue that row sizes are different, and if you're super cost conscious, you can change your architecture to take advantage of it. For example with Planetscale, you could store a lot more in JSON columns instead of other tables to reduce costs if that was your primary objective.

Is your frustration that you'd like to use Planetscale or a managed Vitess, but you are worried about locking yourself into a pricing model that you don't think will work for you?