Vector Database Cost Planner
Compare monthly pricing for Pinecone, Qdrant, and Milvus based on dimensions and query volumes.
What is the Vector Database Cost Planner?
The Vector Database Cost Planner is a developer decision engine built to compare hosting costs across leading vector databases: Pinecone, Qdrant Cloud, and Milvus (Zilliz Cloud). It calculates memory size requirements in GB based on vector quantities and dimension scales, then projects monthly billing under serverless or dedicated pod allocations.
How Does the Vector Database Cost Planner Work?
1. Enter Vector Count â Number of embeddings you need to store.
2. Define Dimensions â Standard sizes are 1536 (OpenAI text-small), 3072 (OpenAI text-large), or 768 (Gemini).
3. Input Monthly Queries â Expected read queries or vector search requests per month.
4. Choose Hosting Format â Serverless cloud vs dedicated server pods.
5. Compare Database Bills â Review monthly estimates side-by-side to optimize backend budgets.
Formula & Calculation Method
Memory Size and Pricing Metrics:
- Raw Memory Required: Vector Count à Dimensions à 4 bytes (float32). HNSW index search structures add a ~30% size overhead.
- Pinecone Serverless: $0.33/GB-month + $8.25 per million queries.
- Qdrant Cloud: $25 base compute + $0.45/GB-month + $4.00 per million queries.
- Milvus Cloud (Zilliz): $73 base compute + $0.50/GB-month + $3.50 per million queries.
Example Calculation
Example: Indexing 1,000,000 vectors with 1536 dimensions, serverless hosting, 500,000 monthly queries.
- Index Size: 1M Ã 1536 Ã 4 Ã 1.3 = 7.4 GB
- Pinecone Bill: (7.4 Ã $0.33) + (0.50 Ã $8.25) = $2.44 + $4.13 = $6.57 / mo
- Qdrant Bill: $25.00 + (7.4 Ã $0.45) + (0.50 Ã $4.00) = $25 + $3.33 + $2.00 = $30.33 / mo
- Milvus Bill: $73.00 + (7.4 Ã $0.50) + (0.50 Ã $3.50) = $73 + $3.70 + $1.75 = $78.45 / mo
- Winner: Pinecone Serverless is highly cost-efficient for smaller indexes!
Frequently Asked Questions
**Memory Size and Pricing Metrics:** - **Raw Memory Required:** Vector Count à Dimensions à 4 bytes (float32). HNSW index search structures add a ~30% size overhead. - **Pinecone Serverless:** $0.33/GB-month + $8.25 per million queries. - **Qdrant Cloud:** $25 base compute + $0.45/GB-month + $4.00 per million queries. - **Milvus Cloud (Zilliz):** $73 base compute + $0.50/GB-month + $3.50 per million queries.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided for informational and calculation purposes. Output values are estimates based on standard user inputs.