Introducing Always-On pricing: automatic savings for Databricks Lakebase

DATA + AI SUMMIT ![Image 3: Data+ai summit promo JUNE 15–18|SAN FRANCISCO Join us at the world’s largest data, apps and AI event. Register](https://www.databricks.com/dataaisummit?itm_source=www&itm_category=home&itm_page=home&itm_location=navigation&itm_component=navigation&itm_offer=dataaisummit)

All blogs
/ Platform

Table of contents

ProductMay 27, 2026

Introducing Always-On pricing: automatic savings for Databricks Lakebase

by Kunal Kande and Mike Jerome

Summary

New Always-On pricing eliminates the serverless-vs-provisioned tradeoff for Databricks Lakebase: Serverless flexibility with a 25% lower price on baseline capacity, no long-term commitments required, autoscaling still absorbs spikes.
One-toggle activation with automatic billing optimization: disable scale-to-zero and set the autoscaling range; after 24 hours of continuous use, baseline capacity bills at the Always-On rate and usage above the baseline bills at standard Autoscaling rates; HA replicas and the largest instances qualify automatically.
Best fit for established production workloads with a consistent baseline: scale-to-zero remains the default for new or intermittent workloads where load history is unknown; stack the additional 50% promotional discount through January 31, 2027.

Most managed operational databases force you into a corner: choose "Serverless" for flexibility but pay a premium, or choose "Provisioned" for a lower unit price but lose agility. That’s a false choice. Today, we’re introducingAlways-On pricing for Databricks Lakebase: Serverless flexibility with a predictable, low price for baseline usage. Set your compute scaling parameters and automatically receive a25% lower price on your baseline capacity.

Why this matters:

No Optimization Chores: No more manual rightsizing or long-term use-it-or-lose-it commitments to save costs.
Seamless Elasticity: Your database still autoscales to handle spikes; you just pay less for the baseline resources.
Total Transparency: One toggle, one low price, zero friction.

Stop spending your evenings and weekends tuning instances. Flip the toggle, keep your performance, and keep more of your budget.

Expand

Get the best rates automatically: no long-term contracts required

Expand

Stop paying for idle compute: Legacy Peak Provisioning vs. Lakebase Elasticity

The tradeoff we’re removing

Postgres products in the cloud have historically forced operators to choose between two options. Legacyprovisionedproducts require payment for peak usage continuously, resulting in oversizing to absorb demand spikes.Serverless products scale elastically, but the per-hour rate is materially higher, making it expensive for workloads that never go idle. Switching between the two meant downtime or maintenance.

Lakebase has already removed several Postgres trade-offs, such as separating storage from compute, pushing full-page writes into the storage layer, and adding instant branching. Always-On pricing innovates the commercial model: the tradeoff between a _predictable, lower-cost baseline_ and _elastic compute that absorbs spikes_ is gone. You don’t pick one architecture for each. You get both on the same database.

How Always-On pricing works

Disable scale-to-zero and set the autoscaling range:On any Lakebase Postgres Autoscaling project, turn off scale-to-zero and set the autoscaling range. The minimum capacity becomes your Always-On baseline, i.e, the compute capacity your database always has available.
Baseline capacity is billed at the lower Always-On rate: After 24 hours of continuous use, your baseline usage is billed at the lower ‘Always-On’ rate. No commitment, no over-provisioning. We automatically bill you at the best rate for your workload.
Autoscale above the minimum at the standard rate: Lakebase will autoscale, up to the maximum capacity set in the autoscaling range, when your database load spikes above the baseline capacity. Usage above the baseline is billed at the regular Autoscaling rates.

If needed, turn it back on later, and your instance reverts to standard autoscaling pricing.

Image 6: 2026-05-blog-introducing-always-on-pricing-for-lakebase-inline-960x498-2x

Expand

How this compares to other Postgres options

Most managed PostgreSQL products force a structural choice between a provisioned and a serverless version at provisioning time. To get a better price for your 24/7 workloads, you can either choose a provisioned product and pay for underutilized capacity or make a multi-year, use-it-or-lose-it commitment on a serverless product.

LakebaseLeading Serverless PostgreSQL productsLeading Provisioned PostgreSQL products Lower baseline rate without commitment✅❌

Requires a 1 to 3-year commitment❌

Provision for peak, not the baseline No penalty for changing your baseline✅❌

You continue to pay for reservations or a savings plan regardless of the usage❌

You pay for underutilized provisioned capacity or deal with downtime to migrate to a smaller provisioned compute instance Autoscaling for unpredictable peaks on the same instance✅✅❌

What does that buy you in practice?

Commitment-free pricing:Automatically get the best price without making long-term commitments or over-provisioning capacity. You can change database configuration and scaling parameters at any time as your requirements change.
One unified product: A single offering that scales with your workload, eliminating the upfront choice between 'provisioned' and 'serverless' instances.
All qualifying instances, including HA instances, benefit automatically: High Availability replicas and the largest Lakebase instances don’t scale to zero by design. With Always-On, they are now billed at the lower rate without any configuration change.

When to use Always-On and when to keep scale-to-zero

Use Always-On for established baselines. Production workloads whose load history shows a consistent floor of activity with peaks layered on top never benefited from scale-to-zero because the compute never idled. Until today, they had been paying the standard Autoscaling rate for every CU-hour. From today, the baseline portion bills at a 25% lower price, and autoscaling still handles the peaks.

Keep scale-to-zero for new or intermittent workloads. For a new project, you usually don't know. You don't have the load history to set a sensible minimum CU, and the cost of guessing wrong is real: too high and you'll pay for headroom you don't need; too low and autoscaling will spend most of its time above the minimum, defeating the point of the lower rate. This is exactly why scale-to-zero is now the default for new projects. Learn the workload's shape over a few weeks, then make an informed call.

For a workload with an intermittent load, keep scale-to-zero enabled. For a database that's idle 75% of the time, you are much better off paying $0 for those hours. If your autoscaling history shows the compute spending much of its time at zero, leave scale-to-zero enabled.

Ready to stop paying the elasticity tax?

Open your Lakebase project, turn off scale-to-zero, and set a minimum CU that reflects your real baseline. That is the entire configuration change. After 24 hours of continuous use, your baseline capacity is billed at the Always-On rate automatically, and autoscaling remains in place when traffic spikes. No commitment to sign, no new product to provision, no downtime to schedule.

Stack the additional 50% promotional discount running through January 31, 2027, on top, and your Postgres bill just got a lot smaller. Get started with Lakebase today or review the full pricing athttps://www.databricks.com/product/pricing/lakebase.

Get the latest posts in your inbox

Subscribe to our blog and get the latest posts delivered to your inbox.

Sign up

*

Work Email

*

Country Country*

By clicking “Subscribe” I understand that I will receive Databricks communications, and I agree to Databricks processing my personal data in accordance with its Privacy Policy.

Subscribe

View all blogs

Why Databricks

Discover

Customers

Customer Stories

Partners

Why Databricks

Discover

Customers

Customer Stories

Partners

Product

Databricks Platform

Pricing

Open Source

Integrations and Data

Product

Databricks Platform

Pricing

Open Source

Integrations and Data

Solutions

Databricks For Industries

Cross Industry Solutions

Data Migration

Professional Services

Solution Accelerators

Solutions

Databricks For Industries

Cross Industry Solutions

Data Migration

Professional Services

Solution Accelerators

Resources

Documentation

Customer Support

Community

Learning

Events

Blog and Podcasts

Resources

Documentation

Customer Support

Community

Learning

Events

Blog and Podcasts

About

Company

Careers

Press

Security and Trust

About

Company

Careers

Press

Security and Trust

Databricks Inc.

160 Spear Street, 15th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94105

1-866-330-0121

[](https://www.linkedin.com/company/databricks)
[](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Databricks/560203607379694)
[](https://twitter.com/databricks)
[](https://www.databricks.com/feed)
[](https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Databricks-EI_IE954734.11,21.htm)
[](https://www.youtube.com/@Databricks)

See Careers

at Databricks

[](https://www.linkedin.com/company/databricks)
[](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Databricks/560203607379694)
[](https://twitter.com/databricks)
[](https://www.databricks.com/feed)
[](https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Databricks-EI_IE954734.11,21.htm)
[](https://www.youtube.com/@Databricks)

We Care About Your Privacy

Databricks uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, personalize content and ads, and as further described in our Cookie Notice. To disable non-essential cookies, click “Reject All”. You can also manage your cookie settings by clicking “Manage Preferences.”

Manage Preferences

Reject All Accept All

Privacy Preference Center

Opt-Out Preference Signal Honored

Privacy Preference Center

### Your Privacy
### Strictly Necessary Cookies
### Performance Cookies
### Functional Cookies
### Targeting Cookies
### TOTHR

#### Your Privacy

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

#### Opting out of sales, sharing, and targeted advertising

Depending on your location, you may have the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information or the processing of your personal information for purposes of online “targeted advertising.” You can opt out based on cookies and similar identifiers by disabling optional cookies here. To opt out based on other identifiers (such as your email address), submit a request in our Privacy Request Center.

More information

#### Strictly Necessary Cookies

Always Active

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They assist with essential site functionality such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will no longer work.

#### Performance Cookies

[x] Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.

#### Functional Cookies

[x] Functional Cookies

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

#### Targeting Cookies

[x] Targeting Cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant advertisements on other sites. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

#### TOTHR

[x] TOTHR

Cookie List

Consent Leg.Interest

[x] checkbox label label

[x] checkbox label label

[x] checkbox label label

Clear

- [x] checkbox label label

Apply Cancel

Confirm My Choices

Allow All

Introducing Always-On pricing: automatic savings for Databricks Lakebase

TL;DR · AI 摘要

核心要点

结构提纲

思维导图

金句 / Highlights

Introducing Always-On pricing: automatic savings for Databricks Lakebase | Databricks Blog

Introducing Always-On pricing: automatic savings for Databricks Lakebase

**The tradeoff we’re removing**

**How Always-On pricing works**

**How this compares to other Postgres options**

**What does that buy you in practice?**

**When to use Always-On and when to keep scale-to-zero**

**Ready to stop paying the elasticity tax?**

Get the latest posts in your inbox

Sign up

We Care About Your Privacy

Privacy Preference Center

Privacy Preference Center

Cookie List

The tradeoff we’re removing

How Always-On pricing works

How this compares to other Postgres options

What does that buy you in practice?

When to use Always-On and when to keep scale-to-zero

Ready to stop paying the elasticity tax?