$10/day is a pretty beefy RDS instance (an m6g.large Postgres RDS instance costs ~$3.81/day). What instance size did you provision? How much disk space did you provision? Did you enable Multi-AZ? a billing issue or random charges Highly doubtful that this is a billing issue or a 'random charge'. More likely you misconfigured something and didn't realize it. Answer from joelrwilliams1 on reddit.com
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AWS
aws.amazon.com › amazon rds › amazon rds for postgresql › pricing
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Pricing
1 week ago - Dedicated Log Volumes are priced ... io1 Dedicated Log Volume attached to a Single-AZ instance in RDS for PostgreSQL would cost $0.125 x 1024 GiB plus $0.10 x 3000 IOPS, or $428/month....
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › why is rds so incredibly expensive
r/aws on Reddit: Why is RDS so incredibly expensive
May 23, 2022 -

I created an RDS postgres database with the lowest settings - literally free tier on everything, but apparently I don't qualify for that anymore.

I was never able to figure out how to create a table, put data into it, or connect to it.

However, I was charged $10 a day for a few days, so I killed it and won't be going back. I've had multiple similar experiences with AWS and I never get an explanation for the charged from AWS.

Is there any explanation for this? I use heroku and firebase and never have nearly as much difficulty using those and I've never had a billing issue or random charges.

Update:Here is a detail for the billing. How did this happen?

Update 2:
After feedback here that the costs came from the storage type, I went back and looked at the creation process to see what happened. In selecting the "Easy Create" process for a postgres RDS database, the more expensive storage type was the "default". That's pretty upsetting to me and I really wish that there was something that told you the project cost prior to activation, but at least I figured out what happened. I'm gonna recreate and see if I can't get it cheaper.

Thanks for the help.

Discussions

Why Postgres RDS didn't work for us
The article also doesnt mention anything about using provisioned IO instances. Nor any mention of which architectures have the highest PIOPs ceiling · I've built block devices using the highest IOPS (fulfilling all the necessary requirements) at well as extremely large block devices (64TB) ... More on news.ycombinator.com
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103
February 6, 2024
Amazon RDS Extended Support for Postgres 11
On the Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL pricing page (https://aws.amazon.com/rds/postgresql/pricing/#Amazon_RDS_Extended_Support_costs) there is a table that can be expanded out. The price increases are per vCPU hour and can differ per region. More on repost.aws
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0
February 19, 2024
database - AWS RDS MySql or Postgres - performance wise and cost wise? - Stack Overflow
I am not able to decide which RDS I should choose over MySql or Postgres? Both price wise and performance wise according to aws pricing policy. More on stackoverflow.com
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Cost wise to run Postgres is it EC2 < Runner < RDS?
RDS is as managed service. If your time spent maintaining and monitoring the database server costs nothing, than EC2 will be cheaper. Especially if you go for the reserved instances. Otherwise stick with RDS. More on reddit.com
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April 24, 2024
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AWS
aws.amazon.com › products › database › amazon rds
Managed Relational Database - Amazon RDS Pricing - Amazon Web Services
1 week ago - For provisioned instances on Amazon Aurora, RDS for MySQL, and RDS for PostgreSQL, RDS Extended Support is priced per vCPU per hour. For Aurora Serverless v2, RDS Extended Support is priced per Aurora Capacity Unit (ACU) per hour consumed by your database.
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Cloudchipr
cloudchipr.com › blog › rds-pricing
The Ultimate Guide to AWS RDS Pricing: A Comprehensive Cost Breakdown 2025
We’ll examine how each database engine is priced, why two identically sized instances can bill very differently, and where storage choices quietly stack dollars over time. Real-world scenarios—from weekend prototypes to payment-heavy production clusters—show how to match configuration to need and sidestep surprise costs. When you drill into RDS Pricing, the first—and often largest—variable is the database engine itself ... AWS lets you pick from Amazon Aurora, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and even IBM Db2.
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Amazon Web Services
amazonaws.cn › en › rds › pricing
Amazon RDS Pricing
1 week ago - Amazon RDS T4g and T3 DB instances run in Unlimited mode, which means that you will be charged if your average CPU utilization over a rolling 24-hour period exceeds the baseline of the instance. CPU Credits are charged at ¥0.477 per vCPU-Hour.
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Amazon EC2
instances.vantage.sh › rds
Amazon RDS Instance Comparison
A free and easy-to-use tool for comparing RDS Instance features and prices.
Find elsewhere
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Bytebase
bytebase.com › blog › understanding-aws-rds-pricing
Understanding AWS RDS Pricing (2025)
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) offers a fully managed database solution that simplifies setup, operation, and scaling of relational databases in the cloud. While it's easy and relative cheap to get started, the bill can accumulate pretty fast as this heated Reddit Postgres RDS is too ...
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TigerData
tigerdata.com › blog › understanding-rds-pricing-and-costs
Why Is RDS So Expensive? Understanding RDS Pricing ...
February 7, 2024 - AWS support is priced separately and not included in your RDS pricing calculations. Support plans can range from $100 to $15,000 per month, depending on your needs, and with Enterprise Support starting at $5,500 per month, it can become a high cost.
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CloudZero
cloudzero.com › home › blog › a beginner’s guide to amazon rds pricing
A Beginner’s Guide To Amazon RDS Pricing
June 23, 2025 - But PostgreSQL instances are up to 10% costlier per hour, depending on their size, but all the open-source DBs share pricing for storage, provisioned I/O, and RDS data transfer. For Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server DB pricing, licensing costs ...
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Medium
jaychapel.medium.com › aws-postgres-pricing-comparison-3b9e956105a8
AWS Postgres Pricing Comparison
August 16, 2019 - Additional performance tuning that ... to the Postgres configuration files is also possible with this method. If your database doesn’t require custom configuration or community projects to run, then using the AWS RDS service may work for you. This hosted service comes with some great options that you may not take the time to implement with your own installation, including: ... These features are all fantastic, but they do come at a price...
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Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Why Postgres RDS didn't work for us | Hacker News
February 6, 2024 - The article also doesnt mention anything about using provisioned IO instances. Nor any mention of which architectures have the highest PIOPs ceiling · I've built block devices using the highest IOPS (fulfilling all the necessary requirements) at well as extremely large block devices (64TB) ...
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Economize
economize.cloud › blog › aws-rds-pricing
AWS RDS Pricing Guide – Storage, Instances & Deployments
December 5, 2024 - AWS RDS Pricing Guide – Storage, Instances & Deployments
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Bytebase
bytebase.com › blog › postgres-hosting-options-pricing-comparison
PostgreSQL Hosting Options in 2025: Pricing Comparison
AWS offers two primary managed PostgreSQL options: Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora (PostgreSQL-compatible edition).
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CloudySave
cloudysave.com › aws › rds › aws-postgresql-pricing
AWS PostgreSQL Pricing - CloudySave
AWS PostgreSQL pricing for Single-AZ as well as that for Multi-AZ deployments, is calculated per consumed DB instance-hour, from the start
Published   February 8, 2023
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AWS Fundamentals
awsfundamentals.com › blog › aws-rds-pricing
Understanding AWS RDS Pricing: A Comprehensive Guide
This is the standard option for storing your data in RDS. General Purpose Storage saves your data on an SSD and is a cost-effective storage type. General Purpose Storage is normally only used for development or testing workloads. The size of general-purpose storage depends on the engine: MariaDB, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL: 20 GiB - 64 TiB
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Learnaws
learnaws.io › aws-calculator › rds
RDS Pricing Calculator | AWS SQL Database Pricing
Calculate Amazon RDS database costs by selecting database engine (Postgres, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server), Memory (RAM) and storage you need.
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AWS
aws.amazon.com › databases › amazon rds › amazon rds for postgresql
Hosted PostgreSQL - Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL - AWS
7 hours ago - Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL gives you access to the capabilities of the familiar PostgreSQL database engine. This means that the code, applications, and tools you already use today with your existing databases can be used with Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL currently supports PostgreSQL 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.
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Rapydo
rapydo.io › blog › aws-rds-pricing-a-comprehensive-guide
AWS RDS Pricing: A Comprehensive GuideDatabase
With these practices in place, you'll be well-equipped to make informed decisions about your RDS deployments, ensuring you get the best value from your database infrastructure while supporting your organization's growth and innovation. ... Relational databases are evolving rapidly, blending SQL strength with AI, automation, and distributed architectures. PostgreSQL and MySQL lead with advanced performance, JSON handling, and vector search for modern AI use cases.
Top answer
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This can be very broad and may be opinionated , I would try to keep it short as i read it somewhere:

MySQL would be very good for any CMS Site as it works very well with it and MyISAM tables are quite nice here.

From What I read where PostgreSQL does better than MySQL:

  • Multi-application databases
  • Advanced data modelling

What Advance Data Modelling means is that PostgreSQL is far more mature at doing complex data modelling than MySQL is. It has a very mature extensible type system, a wide range of procedural languages, and a great deal of flexibility in how these languages can be plugged into existing queries.

If that wasn't enough, the fact is that you can essentially build your data model in PostgreSQL based not only on what information you are storing but what information is commonly derived from what you are storing. This makes things like not-first-normal-form actually sane to use where they are needed. Add collections and multiple inheritance in table structure and you have a very sophisticated data modelling platform, this blog would help you understand it better.

Besides the content management system market, MySQL's other major market is in applications where data is not expected to be exposed to more than one writing application at a time. This leads to a significant difference in handling data validation, etc.

In PostgreSQL validation is always equally strict. If the app expects special error treatment it had better call functions or casts to handle this explicitly.

MySQL however places the application in charge of defining the data validation rules.So while PostgreSQL allows the relational and object-relational interface to serve as a public API, it is essentially intended largely to be a private API for applications in MySQL. This is a huge difference and not readily understood by many people trying to make the choice. This leads to major differences in application design.

MySQL is a data storage and reporting solution for your application. PostgreSQL is a data centralization, modelling, and reporting solution for your organization. The two are remarkably different.

Now coming to Second Question based on pricing as you can see from MySQL Pricing Page and PostgreSQL Pricing Page MySQL is bit cheaper than PostgrSQL , reading on the answer you can make informed decision what would be best for you.

Hope this Helps!

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I'm gonna offer you a 3rd option: Aurora - try it. It's cheaper than those 2 and is MySQL compatible. This article may be of help to you when deciding.

For simple blog-like thingie I'd go with MySQL (or Aurora MySQL compatible version) For data-critical and highly relational solutions I might also consider Postgres (Aurora)