Databricks cost calculator
Choose the cloud, region and kind of compute. For a cluster, choose the worker type and how many, and see what Databricks charges in DBUs and what the cloud charges for the machines, an hour, a run and a month. For serverless and SQL warehouses, see the price of the DBUs they use. Every price comes from Databricks, Microsoft, AWS and Google's own price lists.
The Databricks cost calculator
Classic compute on your own cloud account: DBUs and machines.
Clusters a job starts and stops: the cheapest DBUs.
The faster engine, at more DBUs an hour.
r6id, 8 GB a vCPU.
8 vCPUs, 64 GB, 2.04 DBUs an hour, 5.92 with Photon.
Besides the driver. For autoscaling, the average.
From the cluster starting to it stopping, idle time included.
The cost
4 workers and a driver of r6id.2xlarge on Jobs Compute in US East (N. Virginia) cost $4.55 an hour: $1.53 to Databricks for 10.2 DBUs and $3.02 to AWS for the machines.
- An hour
- $4.55
- $0.15 a DBU
- A run
- $4.55
- 1 hour
- A month
- $137
- 30 runs, 30 hours
Photon makes an hour of this cluster cost $7.46 instead of $4.55, so it costs less only if the job finishes more than 39 percent faster.
This cluster on each kind of compute
| Compute | A DBU | An hour | A month |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.15 | $4.55 | $137 | |
| $0.15 | $7.46 | $224 | |
| $0.55 | $8.63 | $259 | |
| $0.55 | $14.24 | $427 | |
| $0.20 | $5.06 | $152 | |
| $0.20 | $8.94 | $268 | |
| $0.25 | $5.57 | $167 | |
| $0.25 | $10.42 | $313 | |
| $0.36 | $6.70 | $201 | |
| $0.36 | $13.67 | $410 |
This cluster in each region
| Region | Databricks an hour | Machines an hour | A month |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1.53 | $3.02 | $137 | |
| $1.53 | $3.02 | $137 | |
| $1.53 | $3.02 | $137 | |
| $1.53 | $3.17 | $141 | |
| $1.53 | $3.36 | $147 | |
| $1.53 | $3.48 | $150 | |
| $1.53 | $3.55 | $152 | |
| $1.53 | $3.63 | $155 | |
| $1.53 | $3.63 | $155 | |
| $1.53 | $3.65 | $156 | |
| $1.53 | $3.65 | $156 |
Cheapest first. 5 regions of this list do not offer r6id.2xlarge.
List prices in US dollars, on demand, before tax. Not counted: disks, network traffic, storage, spot machines, and discounts agreed with Databricks or AWS. Prices from Databricks and AWS.
How the calculator works it out
A cluster on classic compute is billed twice. Databricks charges DBUs, Databricks Units: each worker type uses a set number of DBUs an hour, and each DBU has a price that depends on the kind of compute, the plan and the region. The cloud charges for the machines, on your own account, at its on-demand price. The driver is a machine too, and by default of the same type as the workers, so a cluster of 4 workers is 4 and 1 machines.
The same cluster costs very different amounts depending on how it is started. A job that runs on Jobs Compute pays $0.15 a DBU on AWS Premium; the same machines left open for notebooks on All-Purpose Compute pay $0.55. Photon, Databricks' faster engine, uses more DBUs an hour, so it saves money only when the job finishes fast enough to make up for them.
Serverless compute has no machine bill: its price of a DBU includes the machines, and Databricks chooses them. So the cost of a serverless run is the DBUs it used, which Databricks records for every run in the system.billing.usage table, times the price of a DBU. A serverless SQL warehouse uses a set number of DBUs an hour for each cluster running, from 12 for a Small one.
Each worker type
The DBUs an hour of every worker type the calculator prices, and what 1 node costs on each kind of compute and in each region.
AWS
General purpose
Memory optimized
Compute optimized
Storage optimized
Azure
General purpose
Memory optimized
Google Cloud
General purpose
Memory optimized
Compute optimized
Questions
- How much does Databricks cost?
- Databricks charges by the DBU, and on classic compute the cloud charges for the machines on top. A jobs cluster of 4 workers of r6id.2xlarge in AWS US East (N. Virginia) on the Premium plan costs $4.55 an hour: $1.53 to Databricks for 10.2 DBUs and $3.02 to AWS. Run for 2 hours a day, 30 days a month, it costs $273 a month.
- What is a DBU and how much does it cost?
- A DBU, or Databricks Unit, is the unit Databricks bills compute in. Each worker type uses a set number of DBUs an hour (r6id.2xlarge: 2.04), and the price of a DBU depends on the kind of compute, the plan and the region. On AWS Premium a DBU of Jobs Compute costs $0.15 and of All-Purpose Compute $0.55; serverless jobs cost $0.35 a DBU in US East, machines included.
- How do I calculate the cost of a Databricks cluster?
- Add the driver to the workers, multiply by the worker type's DBUs an hour and the price of a DBU, then add the cloud's price an hour for the same number of machines. 4 workers and a driver of r6id.2xlarge use 10.2 DBUs an hour, $1.53 at $0.15, plus $3.02 for the machines: $4.55 an hour. Multiply by the hours the cluster runs, from start to stop.
- Why does all-purpose compute cost more than jobs compute?
- Databricks prices a DBU of All-Purpose Compute, for notebooks and people working together, higher than a DBU of Jobs Compute, for clusters a job starts and stops: $0.55 against $0.15 on AWS Premium. The example cluster costs $8.63 an hour as all-purpose compute and $4.55 as jobs compute. Run scheduled work as jobs, not from an open notebook.
- Does Photon cost more on Databricks?
- Yes, by the hour. Photon uses more DBUs an hour: on AWS Jobs Compute, r6id.2xlarge uses 5.92 DBUs an hour with Photon against 2.04 without. The example cluster then costs $7.46 an hour instead of $4.55, so Photon costs less only if the job finishes more than 39 percent faster.
- How much does a Databricks SQL warehouse cost?
- A serverless SQL warehouse uses a set number of DBUs an hour for each cluster running, from 4 for a 2X-Small to 528 for a 4X-Large, at $0.70 a DBU in AWS US East on Premium, machines included. A Small warehouse uses 12 DBUs an hour, $8.40 an hour. It adds clusters when queries queue, and costs nothing once it has stopped.
- Is serverless Databricks cheaper than a classic cluster?
- Not by the DBU: serverless jobs cost $0.35 a DBU in AWS US East against $0.15 for Jobs Compute, because the serverless price includes the machines. A serverless run pays for no start-up time and no idle machines, so compare what your jobs used: the DBUs of a serverless run in system.billing.usage against the hours of the classic cluster.
- How is Azure Databricks priced?
- Microsoft sells Azure Databricks, so the DBUs and the virtual machines are both on the Azure bill. Since 1 October 2026 every workspace is on the Premium plan: Standard tier workspaces were upgraded on that day. In East US a DBU of Jobs Compute costs $0.30 and of All-Purpose Compute $0.55.
- How do I see what my Databricks jobs actually cost?
- Query the system tables. system.billing.usage records the DBUs every job, cluster and warehouse used, and system.billing.list_prices the price of each, so joining them gives what each run cost at list price. The machines of classic compute are on your cloud bill, not in these tables.
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Where each fact comes from
- 1Databricks: pricing
- 2Databricks: pricing on AWS (the price of a DBU for each kind of compute and plan)
- 3Databricks: pricing on Google Cloud
- 4Databricks: pricing calculator and instance types (the DBUs an hour of each worker type, with and without Photon)
- 5Microsoft: Azure Databricks pricing
- 6Microsoft Learn: end of life for Standard tier workspaces on Azure Databricks
- 7AWS: Amazon EC2 on-demand pricing
- 8Google Cloud: general-purpose machine pricing
- 9Databricks: compute configuration reference (the driver is the workers' type by default)
- 10Databricks: configure a pipeline (the Core, Pro and Advanced editions)
- 11Databricks: SQL warehouse sizing, scaling and queuing
- 12Databricks: Photon
- 13Databricks: billable usage system table (system.billing.usage)
- 14Databricks: pricing system table (system.billing.list_prices)