Weaviate Pricing: Plans & Cost Calculator 2026
Go from free sandbox testing to the $45/mo Flex plan for an open-source vector database that avoids vendor lock-in.
Weaviate plans and pricing
Open-Source
Good for self-hosting and full control over your vector database
Sandbox
Ideal for testing and development without commitment
Flex
Prototypes, pilots, small use cases
Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)
Weaviate runs the managed database inside your own AWS, GCP, or Azure account for maximum control and compliance
Weaviate pricing: the quick answer
Weaviate is free to start as of July 16, 2026. Self-host the open-source build under BSD-3 at no cost, or use the managed Sandbox free for 14 days. Paid cloud begins at Flex, a $45 a month minimum billed pay-as-you-go: $0.01668 per million vector dimensions plus $0.255 per GiB of storage. Premium is a higher-throughput cloud tier from $400 a month with a cheaper $0.00975 dimension rate. Weaviate meters by total dimensions, objects times embedding size, not tokens. Managed embeddings and the Query Agent are separate charges.
- Open-SourceFree
- SandboxFree
- Flex$45/mo
- PremiumCustom
- Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)Custom
At $45/mo to start, Weaviate sits 55% below the $99/mo median across 7 vector databases tools we track.
Weaviate cost calculator
Weaviate Hidden Costs & Pitfalls
Weaviate bills by total vector dimensions, so the base plan is a minimum, not a cap. Storage, backups and the embedding and agent add-ons all stack on top of that per-dimension rate.
Weaviate pricing, read against its live plans and category
Positioning
Weaviate gives you two free paths, the BSD-3 open-source build you self-host and a 14-day managed Sandbox, then meters paid cloud by total vector dimensions. Flex is a $45/mo minimum at $0.01668 per million dimensions plus $0.255/GiB storage. Premium starts from $400/mo and drops the dimension rate to $0.00975, a 41.5% cut. The dimension-based model is unusual and rewards compression, but it also means the base plan is a floor you pay regardless of a quiet month.
Cost drivers
- 1Every paid tier carries a monthly minimum you pay even on low usage: $45 on Flex and from $400 on Premium.
- 2Backups bill on top by volume and retention, at $0.0264/GiB on Flex.
- 3Managed embeddings run $0.025 to $0.065 per million tokens and the Query Agent is $30/org/mo above the free 1,000 requests, so the add-ons stack on the database charge.
Watch-outs
Users warn that cloud cost can climb unpredictably as dimensions and query volume grow, and the step from the flat Flex minimum into consumption-based enterprise pricing is not transparent, which makes budgeting hard for a scaling startup.
Strengths
- Open source plus a managed cloud gives you real deployment flexibility.
- Built-in vectorizers cut pipeline complexity.
- Cross-references and hybrid BM25 plus vector search in one engine.
Editor’s take
Startups prototyping RAG should begin on the free Sandbox or the $45/mo Flex plan and watch the dimension count as data grows. Teams with strict security needs should look at BYOC to keep data in their own cloud. If Weaviate's dimension-based scaling looks too unpredictable for your workload, compare a flat-rate managed option like Pinecone.
Oleh KemFounder & Lead AnalystWeaviate price history
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Frequently asked questions
Sources & verification
| Source | What was checked | Last checked |
|---|---|---|
| Official Pricing Page | Source of verified tiers | July 16, 2026 |
| Official Website | Official vendor website | — |
| G2 | G2 verified user reviews · 4.6/5 · 29 reviews | — |
| TrustRadius | TrustRadius verified reviews | — |
| PeerSpot | PeerSpot enterprise peer reviews | — |
Every fact on this Weaviate pricing page is tied to a named source and a verification date. Freshness-sensitive figures trace to the sources above; verify against the vendor before relying on them.
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