---
title: "Railway pricing in 2026: how much does your app cost?"
url: https://while.sh/en/comparisons/railway-pricing/
author: "Grégoire Mougeolle, co-founder of Nextmap"
updated: 2026-11-02
---

# Railway pricing in 2026, explained, and the same app on while

Railway bills a subscription, which works as credit, then what your app uses. Here's how to read its price list, what three typical apps cost, and the same app on while.

## How Railway bills

- **The subscription works as credit.** Hobby costs $5 per month and includes $5 of usage, Pro costs $20 with $20 of usage. Beyond that, you pay the difference (source 1).
- **Compute is billed by the minute.** You pay $20 per vCPU and $10 per GB of memory, per month, based on what your app really uses (source 1).
- **The database is a service like any other.** It's billed for the CPU, memory and disk it uses (source 1).
- **The spending cap stops everything, production included.** At the limit you set, Railway stops your services (source 3).

## Railway's plans

| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, after a 30-day trial | $1 of usage per month, 0.5 GB of memory per service (source 2) |
| Hobby | $5 per month | $5 of usage, one person (source 2) |
| Pro | $20 per month | $20 of usage, members at no extra cost (source 2) |
| Enterprise | On quote | SSO, dedicated machines (source 2) |

## The database, storage and traffic

| Item | At Railway |
|---|---|
| Disk | $0.15 per GB per month (source 1) |
| Database backups | Daily ones kept 6 days, weekly ones 27 days, monthly ones 89 days (source 5), and point-in-time recovery over about 4 weeks, as an option (source 6) |
| Outbound traffic | $0.05 per GB (source 1) |
| File storage | $0.015 per GB per month (source 2) |

## Three typical apps, per month

| App | At Railway | On while |
|---|---|---|
| A small always-on API (0.25 vCPU, 0.5 GB) and its database | $15.30 on Hobby, about €13.64, $20 on Pro, about €17.83 | At most €13.75, point-in-time recovery included |
| The same API with 1 vCPU and 2 GB, and its database | $45.30, about €40.39 | At most €39.25 |
| An app asleep most of the time, with its database | $5.68 on Hobby, about €5.06, with the database always on | About €5.96, for the database and 60 hours of activity |

Calculated on November 2, 2026 from the public price lists (sources 1 and 2), excl. VAT, in euros at the November 2 exchange rate (source 7). The sleeping app is active 60 hours per month, at Railway as on while. A lightly loaded app costs less than these maximums, on either one.

## What you pay on while

On while, you pay for what an app uses: €17 per vCPU and €8.50 per GiB of memory, per month, counted by the second. An S database costs €5 per month, and its disk €0.25 per GiB, backups included: one per day, with point-in-time recovery, and for a production database, a test restore every day proves it starts again. Each project has its budget: a change that would exceed it waits for your approval, an alert goes out at 80% and at 100%, and a live app is never cut off. Your AI agent, Claude Code or Cursor for example, deploys on its own, and everything runs in France.

## Which one to choose

- **Choose Railway** if your apps must stop dead at a spending limit, production included, and your data can stay outside France.
- **Choose while** if you want to pay in euros, with your backups included, in France, and for your AI agent to deploy without breaking anything.

## Next steps

- [Compare Railway and while](/en/comparisons/while-vs-railway/)
- [while pricing](/en/pricing/)
- [Deploy a Node.js API and its PostgreSQL database](/en/guides/deploy-node-api-postgresql/)

## Sources

1. [Railway, plans and price list](https://docs.railway.com/pricing/plans), 2026-11-02
2. [Railway, the pricing page](https://railway.com/pricing), 2026-11-02
3. [Railway, cost control](https://docs.railway.com/pricing/cost-control), 2026-11-02
4. [Railway, PostgreSQL (backups, point-in-time recovery)](https://docs.railway.com/databases/postgresql), 2026-11-02
5. [Railway, volume backups](https://docs.railway.com/volumes/backups), 2026-11-02
6. [Railway, point-in-time recovery (optional)](https://docs.railway.com/volumes/point-in-time-recovery), 2026-11-02
7. [European Central Bank, the euro exchange rate on November 2, 2026 (€1 = $1.1216)](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/euro_reference_exchange_rates/html/eurofxref-graph-usd.en.html), 2026-11-02

## Questions

### Is Railway free?

After a 30-day trial, the Free plan gives $1 of usage per month (source 2). On while, the Free plan costs nothing: you only pay for resources.

### How much does a PostgreSQL database cost at Railway?

What it uses: about $4.80 per month for a small database running all the time, based on its price list (source 1). On while, an S database costs €5 per month, plus its disk.

### Does Railway have a region in France?

No, its European region is in Amsterdam. while hosts everything in France.