Question 1

How much storage do one million vectors need?

Accepted Answer

A 1,536-dimension float32 vector is 6,144 bytes. One million vectors are 6.14 GB raw. With a 2x index overhead that is about 12.3 GB, which stores for a few dollars a month on a managed database.

Question 2

Is storage or compute the bigger vector database cost?

Accepted Answer

Compute usually dominates. A serving fleet of three pods at $70 each costs $210 a month, while 10 million vectors use about 14 dollars of storage. In the default model compute is about 94 percent of the bill.

Question 3

Is pgvector cheaper than a managed vector database?

Accepted Answer

pgvector adds vector search to a Postgres instance you already pay for, so there is no separate storage fee. A managed vector database adds pods and a per-vector price but removes the tuning. Set the pod count to zero to model a pgvector-only bill.

Vector Database Cost Calculator

Perplexity: Eleven Words In, Twelve Thousand Out

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Perplexity: Eleven Words In, Twelve Thousand Out

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