Is Google Cloud SQL or Upstash Redis cheaper in 2026?

Neither can be scored across all three workloads, because at least one of them does not publish a rate for every axis this category bills on.

Which has the better free tier, Google Cloud SQL or Upstash Redis?

Upstash Redis does — 500,000 commands per month. Google Cloud SQL bills from the first unit of usage.

What do these estimates not include?

Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.

Google Cloud SQL vs Upstash Redis

Google Cloud SQL and Upstash Redis cannot be scored on the same axes — one of them does not publish a rate for everything managed databases bills on.

List prices checked May 2026

Rate cards side by side

Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.

Billing axis	Google Cloud SQL	Upstash Redis	Difference
Entry plan	$9.37/mo	$10.00/mo	1.1× Google Cloud SQL
Storage	$0.170/GB-mo	—	—
Free tier	No	Yes	—

Source: Google pricing (May 2026) · Upstash pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.

Monthly cost for three real workloads

The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.

Workload	Google Cloud SQL	Upstash Redis	Cheaper
Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process.	$13	—	Not comparable
Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers.	$94	—	Not comparable
Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought.	$349	—	Not comparable

Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.

What each one is for

Google Cloud SQL

by Google

Managed MySQL, Postgres, and SQL Server on Google Cloud, billed per instance-hour with automatic storage growth that is easy to leave running unnoticed.

Upstash Redis

by Upstash

Redis billed per request rather than per hour, reachable over HTTP so it works from edge runtimes that cannot hold a TCP connection.

Free tier: 500,000 commands per month

Common questions

Is Google Cloud SQL or Upstash Redis cheaper in 2026?: Neither can be scored across all three workloads, because at least one of them does not publish a rate for every axis this category bills on.
Which has the better free tier, Google Cloud SQL or Upstash Redis?: Upstash Redis does — 500,000 commands per month. Google Cloud SQL bills from the first unit of usage.
What do these estimates not include?: Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.