Tinybird vs ClickHouse Cloud: Complete Cost Comparison Guide (2025)

When you're choosing between different options for hosting ClickHouse^®, cost is often the deciding factor, especially when you're just getting started. Both Tinybird and ClickHouse Cloud offer ways to host ClickHouse, but their pricing models differ fundamentally in how they meter usage, scale resources, and charge for additional services.

This comparison examines the actual costs you'll encounter with each platform across eight realistic use cases, from hobby projects to enterprise deployments. We'll break down not just the headline numbers, but the billing mechanisms that drive those costs.

Quick Comparison: Core Pricing Differences

Platform Positioning: What You're Actually Buying

Before diving into pricing, it's important to understand what each platform offers.

ClickHouse Cloud provides managed ClickHouse database hosting with three organizational tiers (Basic, Scale, Enterprise) that offer different scaling capabilities and features. You get the raw ClickHouse database with cloud management and a few hosted ingestion connectors (called ClickPipes), but you'll typically need to build your own API layer when integrating into an application where you require high-concurrency, low-latency access. As we outline in our Tinybird vs ClickHouse comparison, ClickHouse Cloud is designed to give you more control over compute size with pricing based on the specific machine configurations you select. However, it's important to note that auto-scaling is only available in the Scale and Enterprise tiers—the Basic tier uses fixed-size services that cannot scale automatically or manually.

Tinybird is a managed ClickHouse service that includes not only the database, but also additional tooling, infrastructure, and services for integrating ClickHouse into your application - including a hosted API layer, managed ingestion services (including an HTTP streaming endpoint), built-in auth with row-level security, serverless job queues, data sinks, etc. Tinybird's pricing uses a plan-based model (Free, Developer, Enterprise), where users can select a fixed monthly cost plan with varying amounts of compute of storage built in. All plans include automatic scaling up to 2x the baseline vCPU allocation, which consumes from your monthly vCPU-hour allowance. You'll pay the fixed plan amount unless you incur any overages. Tinybird's pricing is to abstract some of the complexity of managing and scaling compute to allow most users to have a fixed monthly cost regardless of usage variations.

Both platforms charge for infrastructure, but with different billing granularity. ClickHouse Cloud meters compute per-minute and lets you stop services entirely. Tinybird uses plan-based billing with less granular metering and maintains baseline compute allocation even when idle.

How Billing Actually Works

The fundamental difference between these platforms lies in their billing mechanisms.

ClickHouse Cloud Billing Mechanics

ClickHouse Cloud uses consumption-based pricing with four main dimensions:

• Compute: Billed per-minute in 8GB RAM increments, only when replicas are running
• Storage: Compressed data plus mandatory backups at the same rate
• Data Transfer: Public internet egress and cross-region transfer charges
• ClickPipes: Managed ingestion service with separate compute ($0.20/compute unit-hour) and data charges ($0.04/GB for streaming with Kafka, $0.20/GB for Postgres CDC)

Key billing characteristics

• Scale-to-zero capability: Idle clusters aren't billed for compute, resulting in $0 compute charges when idle (available in all tiers)
• Auto-scaling: Only available in Scale and Enterprise tiers; Basic tier uses fixed-size services
• Provider-dependent pricing: Costs vary based on cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) and specific regions within each provider
• Region-specific data transfer: Cross-region transfer rates differ depending on the specific region pairs involved

ClickHouse Cloud charges on a monthly billing cycle or any time your balance reaches $10,000 within a billing cycle.

Tinybird Billing Mechanics

Tinybird uses a plan-based model with base fees and overage charges:

• Free plan: $0 - includes 0.5 vCPU, 10GB storage, 1,000 API requests daily.
• Developer plans: range from $25-$299/month - up to 3 vCPU
• vCPU overages: $0.162/vCPU-hour beyond included allocation
• Storage overages: $0.058/GB-month beyond included storage, backups included
• Request overages: $0.0005 per request beyond included QPS
• Data transfer: $0.01/GB same-region, $0.10/GB cross-region
• Enterprise plans offer shared infrastructure up to 32 vCPU, or dedicated infrastructure at any scale, starting at 16 vCPU (2 replicas x 8 vCPU).

Key differences from ClickHouse Cloud

• Fixed monthly price: Tinybird users will only pay the fixed monthly cost of the plan regardless of usage (excluding overages). Tinybird maintains baseline compute allocation even when idle, so you don't have to worry about stopping and restarting services. While this doesn't offer the same "scale-to-zero" pricing option as ClickHouse Cloud, it does provide more price stability. Of course, for idle workspaces you can always downgrade to a Free tier at any time and upgrade again when needed.
• Ingestion included: No additional charges for ingestion services. Ingestion connectors, copy jobs, and sink jobs use your regular compute allocation.
• Backups included: Tinybird does not charge for storage backups. They are included with the storage costs.
• Quarantine included: Tinybird maintains quarantine tables for failed ingestion due to things like type mismatches. Quarantine tables consume from the storage budget, and allow you to recover failed ingestion as needed.
• Automatic scaling included: All plans auto-scale up to 2x the baseline vCPU allocation to handle traffic spikes, consuming from your monthly vCPU-hour allowance. This provides built-in burst capacity without manual configuration. You can upgrade and downgrade between plans as needed, with 1 upgrade/downgrade allowed per 24 hours.
• Free-forever plan: While Tinybird doesn't offer a scale-to-zero paid plain, it does offer a "Free Forever" plan with 10GB storage and up to 1,000 API requests (read queries) per day with no time limit or credit card required. Write requests and observability requests don't count toward this limit, so this can be good for those just getting started.
• Unified pricing model: Costs are purely based on virtual CPU usage regardless of cloud provider (AWS or GCP supported).

Side-by-Side Billing Comparison

Pricing Breakdown by Tier and Plan

ClickHouse Cloud Pricing

ClickHouse Cloud's three tiers gate both features and pricing, with significant differences in scaling capabilities:

Basic Tier ($66-$186/month)

• Fixed-size services only: 1 replica with 8GB RAM, 2 vCPU (no auto-scaling or manual scaling)
• Storage limit: Maximum 1TB compressed storage + backup
• Limited availability: Single-zone deployment only
• Backups: 1 backup every 24h, retained for 1 day
• Data transfer: 10GB public egress, 5GB cross-region transfer included
• Support: 1 business day response time
• Authentication: OAuth (Google/Microsoft) + email login only

Cost varies by usage and cloud provider/region: ~$66.52/month for 6 hours/day active, ~$186.27/month for 24/7 operation.

Scale Tier ($499+/month)

• Full scaling capabilities: 2+ replicas for high availability with automatic scaling
• Unlimited storage: No storage limits
• Multi-zone availability: 2+ zones for high availability
• Configurable backups: Flexible backup configuration
• Enhanced data transfer: 100GB public egress, 10GB cross-region included
• Support: 1-hour response (24x7 for Severity 1)
• Enterprise features: Private networking, S3 role-based access

Starting at $499.38/month for 2×8GB replicas running continuously.

Enterprise Tier ($2,669+/month)

• All Scale features plus:
• Custom hardware profiles: HighMemory (1:8 vCPU:memory ratio), HighCPU (1:2 ratio), and standard (1:4 ratio)
• Scheduled upgrades: Select day/time for database and cloud releases
• Enhanced security: SAML SSO, Customer Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK), HIPAA compliance
• Premium support: 30-minute response, named lead engineer
• Higher data transfer allowances: 1TB public egress, 500GB cross-region included

Starting at $2,669.40/month for 2×32GB replicas with 5TB storage.

Tinybird Pricing

Tinybird's plan structure bundles baseline resources with overage pricing:

Free Plan ($0)

• 0.5 vCPU burstable compute (auto-scales up to 1 vCPU when needed)
• 10GB storage
• 10 QPS maximum, 1,000 read queries/day limit
• Community Slack support
• No time limit, no credit card required

Developer Plan (5 tiers: $25-$299/month)

• $25/month: 0.25 vCPU baseline, 150 vCPU-hours, 10 QPS, auto-scales to 0.5 vCPU (2x baseline)
• $49/month: 0.5 vCPU baseline, 300 vCPU-hours, 15 QPS, auto-scales to 1 vCPU (2x baseline)
• $99/month: 1 vCPU baseline, 600 vCPU-hours, 25 QPS, auto-scales to 2 vCPU (2x baseline)
• $199/month: 2 vCPU baseline, 1,200 vCPU-hours, 40 QPS, auto-scales to 4 vCPU (2x baseline)
• $299/month: 3 vCPU baseline, 1,800 vCPU-hours, 55 QPS, auto-scales to 6 vCPU (2x baseline)
• All tiers: 25GB storage included, Slack Community support
• Auto-scaling up to 2x vCPU consumes from your monthly vCPU-hour allocation

Overages: $0.162/vCPU-hour, $0.058/GB storage, $0.0005/request

Enterprise Plan (Custom pricing)

• Starts at 8 vCPU, 0.5 - 1TB storage
• Shared and dedicated infra available
• 80+ QPS included (shared infra only, no limit for dedicated))
• 30-minute SLA, named support engineer
• AWS Private Link, SSO
• Custom pricing requires contacting sales

Real-World Cost Scenarios comparing Tinybird to ClickHouse Cloud

Let's examine eight realistic use cases to understand how pricing plays out in practice. All calculations assume both Tinybird and ClickHouse Cloud are being hosted on AWS us-east-1 region.

Use Case 1: Hobby Developer Project

Workload

Personal analytics dashboard with 3GB data, fewer than 500 queries per month, minimal ongoing ingestion.

Tinybird

Free plan covers this entirely. 3GB fits within the 10GB storage limit, and 500 queries/month is well under the 1,000/day cap. Cost: $0

ClickHouse Cloud

Basic tier, but you won't be charged for idle time. Assuming 30 hours of active compute usage per month:

• Compute: 30 hours × ($159.66/730 hours) = $6.56
• Storage: 3GB ≈ $0.15 (minimal)
• Cost: $6.71/month

Winner: Tinybird (Free tier advantage)

Use Case 2: Startup MVP Dashboard

Workload

Early-stage SaaS with 10GB storage, 5 QPS sustained load, always-on service for user-facing analytics.

Tinybird Developer Plan ($25/month tier)

• Base fee: $25
• Compute: Assume 0.25 vCPU usage × 730 hours = 183 vCPU-hours
• Overage: (183 - 150) × $0.162 = $5.35
• Storage: 10GB within 25GB included
• Total: $30.35/month

ClickHouse Cloud Basic

Always-on service, approximately 12 hours/day active usage:

• Compute: 12 hours/day × 30 days = 360 hours/month × $0.2187/hour = $78.73
• Storage: 10GB compressed data + backups ≈ $0.50
• Total: $79.23/month

Winner: Tinybird (2.6× cheaper)

Use Case 3: Growing SaaS Analytics

Workload

Customer-facing dashboards with 200GB storage, 20 QPS sustained, always-on operation.

Tinybird Developer Plan ($99/month tier for higher QPS/vCPU needed)

• Base fee: $99
• Storage overage: (200 - 25) × $0.058 = $10.15
• Compute: 1 vCPU baseline = 730 vCPU-hours
• Compute overage: (730 - 600) × $0.162 = $21.06
• QPS: 20 QPS within 25 QPS included (no overage)
• Total: $130.21

ClickHouse Cloud Scale

2×8GB replicas always-on:

• Compute: 2 replicas × 730 hours/month × $0.2187/hour = $319.02
• Storage: 200GB compressed data + backups = 400GB × $0.02/GB = $8.00
• Total: $327.02/month

Winner: Tinybird (2.5× cheaper)

Use Case 4: High-Volume Event Ingestion

Workload

Real-time event processing with 1TB/day Kafka ingestion (30TB/month), processing-heavy workload.

ClickHouse Cloud

• ClickPipes ingestion: 30TB × $0.04 = $1,200
• ClickPipes compute: Minimal for XS replica
• Database compute and storage: Additional costs not calculated
• Ingestion alone: $1,200+

Tinybird Enterprise

• Estimate 4 vCPU sustained: 4 × 730 = 2,920 vCPU-hours
• At Developer rates: 2,920 × $0.162 = $473
• Plus storage and base fees
• Estimated: $473+ (Enterprise pricing typically lower per unit)

Winner: Tinybird (2.5× cheaper for ingestion-heavy workloads)

Use Case 5: Bursty Analytics Workload

Workload

Periodic heavy processing requiring 16GB RAM, active only during business hours (12 hours/day, 5 days/week).

ClickHouse Cloud Scale

2×16GB replicas

• Active 60 hours/week = 260 hours/month
• Compute: 2 replicas × 260 hours/month × $0.437/hour = $227.24
• Storage: ~50GB compressed data + backups = 100GB × $0.02/GB = $2.00
• Total: $229.24/month

Tinybird Developer

• Continuous baseline vCPU charges even during idle periods
• Would need Enterprise tier for 16GB-equivalent processing
• Total: Potentially higher due to continuous billing

Winner: ClickHouse Cloud (could be better for intermittent workloads)

Use Case 6: Enterprise Data Warehouse

Workload

Always-on analytics with 10TB storage, 100 QPS, high-availability requirements.

ClickHouse Cloud Enterprise

2×32GB replicas with high-availability

• Compute: 2 replicas × 730 hours/month × $0.875/hour = $1,277.50
• Storage: 10TB compressed data + backups = 20TB × $0.02/GB = $400.00
• Enterprise tier features and support: ~$1,500
• Total: $3,177.50/month

Tinybird Enterprise (estimated using Developer rates)

• Baseline compute: 8 vCPU × 730 hours = 5,840 vCPU-hours
• At Developer overage rates: 5,840 × $0.162 = $946.08
• Storage: 10TB = 10,000GB × $0.058 = $580
• Enterprise features and support: ~$1,000 (estimated)
• Estimated total: $2,526.08/month
• Note: Enterprise plans typically include significant volume discounts and custom pricing, so actual costs would likely be lower

Winner: Depends on Tinybird Enterprise negotiation

Use Case 7: Multi-Region Analytics

Workload

Global deployment with 2TB/month cross-region data transfer.

Tinybird

• Inter-cloud transfer: 2TB × $0.10/GB = $200
• Plus base platform costs
• Transfer cost: $200

ClickHouse Cloud

• Cross-region rates vary by specific regions
• Basic tier includes 5GB, Scale includes 10GB
• Overage rates vary by region pair
• Transfer cost: Varies by region

Winner: Depends on specific regions and data transfer/egress patterns

Use Case 8: Postgres CDC Pipeline

Workload: Real-time change data capture from PostgreSQL with 500GB CDC data monthly.

ClickHouse Cloud:

• ClickPipes CDC: 500GB × $0.20 = $100
• ClickPipes compute: Basic tier uses 0.5 compute units × $0.10/hour × 730 = $36.50
• Storage: 500GB × $0.02/GB = $10
• Total: $146.50

Tinybird:

• Depends on ingestion method (PostgreSQL table function with copy pipes or CDC streaming service e.g. Debezium)
• Storage: 475GB overage × $0.058/GB = $27.55 (25GB included)
• Processing uses included vCPU-hours
• Total: $25-$299/month (depending on CDC compute requirements/ingestion method)

Winner: ClickHouse Cloud (included Postgres CDC connector)

Beyond the Numbers: Operational Considerations

Cost extends beyond monthly bills to operational overhead and development velocity.

Development velocity

Tinybird includes API generation and hosting, authentication, and ingestion services that require engineering effort to build and maintain separately. According to the Tinybird vs ClickHouse platform comparison, 93% of non-enterprise customers pay less than $100/month, with a median cost under $10/month for production workspaces.

ClickHouse Cloud provides the database layer but requires additional infrastructure for production use in your application. You'll need to build or integrate API layers, authentication systems, and most ingestion pipelines.

Support and SLA Differences

While ClickHouse Cloud offers better SLAs at lower-tier paid plans, some community feedback has suggested that Tinybird provides higher-quality support than ClickHouse Cloud.

Compliance and Security

ClickHouse Cloud offers HIPAA and PCI compliance only in Enterprise tier. All tiers support private networking and encryption.

Tinybird includes SOC2 Type II and HIPAA compliance across all plans.

Cost Optimization Strategies for Tinybird and ClickHouse Cloud

The "right" platform often depends on which optimization levers match your team's strengths and operational preferences. Both platforms require different approaches to cost management.

ClickHouse Cloud: Infrastructure-Focused Optimization

ClickHouse Cloud gives you direct control over infrastructure, making it ideal for teams comfortable with operational overhead in exchange for granular cost control.

Your optimization toolkit for ClickHouse Cloud

1. Active resource management - Start/stop services based on usage patterns. Development clusters can be shut down nights and weekends for significant savings.
2. Right-sizing compute - Choose exact replica configurations (8GB, 16GB, 32GB) based on workload requirements rather than fixed tiers.
3. Auto-scaling configuration - Set precise scaling limits to prevent runaway costs from expensive queries while maintaining performance (Scale and Enterprise tiers only; Basic tier uses fixed-size services).
4. Query optimization - Directly tune ClickHouse settings, materialized views, and table engines for performance.
5. Network topology - Use PrivateLink and region planning to minimize data transfer costs.

ClickHouse Cloud is best for teams that

• Have infrastructure/DevOps expertise
• Want granular control over compute resources
• Can implement automated start/stop workflows
• Prefer to optimize at the database level
• Have predictable or intermittent usage patterns

Example optimization: A development team runs their analytics cluster 8 hours/day, 5 days/week (160 hours/month instead of 730), reducing compute costs by 78%.

Tinybird: Application-Focused Optimization

Tinybird abstracts infrastructure management, shifting optimization to application design and usage patterns—ideal for teams that want to focus on building rather than managing infrastructure.

Your optimization toolkit for Tinybird

1. vCPU-hour monitoring - Track consumption through built-in analytics tables to understand which operations are most expensive.
2. Query materialization - Pre-compute expensive aggregations into Materialized Views to reduce real-time CPU usage.
3. Auto-scaling awareness - All plans automatically scale up to 2x baseline vCPU during traffic spikes, consuming from your monthly allowance. Monitor usage patterns to right-size your plan.
4. Data pipeline design - Optimize pipes to minimize processing overhead during ingestion.
5. Data retention automation - Implement TTL policies to automatically manage storage growth without manual intervention.

Tinybird is best for teams that

• Prefer application-level optimization over infrastructure management
• Want predictable monthly costs with automatic scaling
• Need rapid deployment without operational overhead
• Focus on analytics logic rather than database administration
• Have steady, always-on workloads

Example optimization: A SaaS team materializes their daily rollup queries, reducing their real-time dashboard CPU usage by 60% while maintaining sub-second response times.

Matching Optimization Style to Team Strengths

Choose ClickHouse Cloud if you:

• Have a DevOps engineer who enjoys infrastructure optimization
• Can implement monitoring and alerting for cost management
• Want to pay only for active usage (scale-to-zero scenarios)
• Enjoy the challenge of database performance tuning
• Have workloads with clear on/off periods

Choose Tinybird if you:

• Prefer focusing on business logic over infrastructure management
• Want built-in observability for cost optimization
• Need predictable monthly costs for budgeting
• Value rapid time-to-market over fine-grained control
• Have always-on workloads that benefit from included baseline resources

Hidden costs of ClickHouse Cloud vs. Tinybird

ClickHouse Cloud hidden costs

• Engineering time for infrastructure automation
• Potential for unexpected bills from long-running queries
• Additional services needed (API layer, authentication, monitoring)
• Operational complexity as you scale

Tinybird hidden costs

• Paying for baseline compute even during idle periods
• Less flexibility for workloads that truly benefit from scale-to-zero
• Potential vendor lock-in to Tinybird's abstractions

The total cost equation includes both your monthly bill and the engineering time required to optimize and maintain your chosen platform.

Deciding between Tinybird and ClickHouse Cloud on price

Choose Tinybird when:

• You need rapid time-to-market for analytics features
• Development team is small or lacks infrastructure expertise
• You want an all-in-one analytics platform with APIs included

Choose ClickHouse Cloud when:

• You have intermittent or bursty workloads that may benefit from scaling to zero
• You have existing ClickHouse expertise and prefer direct database control
• You require custom infrastructure configurations or specific hardware profiles (Enterprise tier)
• You need auto-scaling capabilities (Scale or Enterprise tiers only)
• You can work within Basic tier's fixed-size limitations for cost-sensitive projects

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I migrate from one platform to another?

Both platforms support standard SQL and can export data, but migration complexity varies. ClickHouse Cloud provides direct database access, making exports straightforward. Tinybird's data sources (tables) and pipes (SQL-based data transformations) would need to be recreated in proper ClickHouse syntax. Plan for several days to weeks depending on your setup size.

Q: How do data transfer costs compare for my specific use case?

Data transfer pricing varies by region. ClickHouse Cloud charges different rates for different region pairs, while Tinybird uses a two-tier model ($0.01/GB same region, $0.10/GB cross-region). Calculate your specific transfer patterns to determine which model is more cost-effective.

Q: What happens when I exceed plan limits?

Tinybird automatically applies overage charges at published rates. Services continue running with additional costs appearing on your next bill.

ClickHouse Cloud auto-scales within configured limits (Scale and Enterprise tiers only; Basic tier uses fixed-size services). If you hit scaling limits, queries may be throttled or fail. You can set spending alerts to avoid unexpected charges.

Q: Which platform offers better query performance?

Both platforms use the same underlying ClickHouse engine, so raw query performance is similar. Performance differences come from configuration optimization, data modeling, and infrastructure scaling. ClickHouse Cloud gives you more direct control over these factors, while Tinybird handles optimization and scaling automatically.

Q: What are the limitations of ClickHouse Cloud's Basic tier?

ClickHouse Cloud's Basic tier has several important limitations: services are fixed at 8GB RAM/2 vCPU with no auto-scaling or manual scaling capabilities, storage is capped at 1TB maximum, and deployments are limited to single-zone availability. If you need scaling capabilities or higher availability, you'll need to upgrade to Scale tier ($499+/month) or Enterprise tier ($2,669+/month).

Q: How do backup and disaster recovery costs differ?

ClickHouse Cloud includes one backup in storage pricing, with additional backups charged at the same rate as primary storage.

Tinybird handles backups automatically as part of the service. Enterprise customers can export backups to their own cloud accounts for additional redundancy.

Conclusion

Neither platform is universally cheaper—the right choice depends on your workload characteristics and organizational constraints.

Tinybird typically costs less for:

• Always-on workloads (user-facing analytics)
• Teams wanting rapid deployment without infrastructure work
• Product engineering teams or SaaS builders with fewer infrastructure/platform resources

ClickHouse Cloud typically costs less for:

• Intermittent or development workloads that can scale to zero
• Large-scale enterprise deployments with needs for fine-tuned control over dedicated infrastructure
• Teams with existing ClickHouse expertise who want direct database control

For most startups and growing SaaS companies, Tinybird's all-inclusive approach and lower entry costs make it the more economical choice. For enterprises with specific requirements or teams with ClickHouse expertise, ClickHouse Cloud's flexibility may justify the higher costs.

The best approach: start with realistic usage estimates, calculate costs for your specific use case using both platforms' pricing calculators, and factor in the engineering time required to build supporting infrastructure if choosing ClickHouse Cloud.

Pricing information accurate as of August 2025. Both platforms update pricing periodically—check official pricing pages for current rates.