---
title: 'Overview on Prisma Postgres'
sidebar_label: 'Overview'
metaTitle: 'Overview | Prisma Postgres'
metaDescription: 'Learn everything you need to know about Prisma Postgres.'
tocDepth: 3
toc: true
---

[Prisma Postgres](https://www.prisma.io/postgres?utm_source=docs) is a managed PostgreSQL database service that easily lets you create a new database, interact with it through Prisma ORM, and build applications that start small and cheap but can scale to millions of users.

It supports the following workflows:

- Schema migrations and queries (via [Prisma ORM](https://www.prisma.io/orm) or any other ORM/database library)
- Connection pooling and caching
- Local database workflows via [`prisma dev`](/postgres/database/local-development)

## Usage metrics

You can view the following usage metrics in your Console Dashboard:

- Key metrics
    - Estimated upcoming invoice
    - Total storage used
    - Total DBs
- Overall usage
    - Cumulative operations
    - Operations per day

For details into individual databases in your workspace, each database has it's own metrics report
as well. You can view the following: 

- Average response size
- Average query duration
- Total egress
- Total operations
- Cache utilization

## Billing 

### Usage-based pricing

Prisma Postgres charges for:
- number of operations
- storage (in GiB)

An _operation_ is counted each time you perform a create, read, update, or delete, regardless of how simple or complex the underlying SQL is. Whether it's a single-row lookup or complex JOIN query, it still counts as one operation and costs the same. Read our blog post on [operations-based billing](https://www.prisma.io/blog/operations-based-billing?utm_source=docs) for more details.

By treating every operation equally, you don't have to worry about write-heavy workloads driving up your bill or high-bandwidth requests ballooning costs unexpectedly. You can [directly correlate your database costs to real product usage and user behavior](/postgres/more/faq#is-there-a-sample-workload-to-estimate-my-expected-charges), making forecasting and budgeting simple and predictable.

Learn more on our [pricing page](https://www.prisma.io/pricing).

### Spend limits

Prisma Postgres allows you to set limits to ensure you never get a surprise bill. You'll receive alerts when you reach 75% of your set limit, and if you reach 100%, your database will be paused. This ensures you'll never have an unexpected bill, and you can always be in complete control of your spending.
Spend limits are available on the Pro plan and higher. Please note that the spend limit must be set higher than the base cost of the selected plan. For example, if you're on the Pro plan, your spend limit should exceed the base plan cost of $49.

### Restarting your database when changing your subscription

When changing your subscription from Free to Starter/Pro/Business or from Starter/Pro/Business to Free, your database instance is being restarted. This may cause a downtime of ~1second.

:::note
This is temporary. In the future, there won't be any downtime when up- or downgrading a plan.
:::

## Technical details

### PostgreSQL version

Prisma Postgres is based **PostgreSQL v17**.

### Architecture

Prisma Postgres uses a unique architecture to deliver unmatched efficiency, safety and ease of use. It is deployed on bare metal servers using unikernels (think: "hyper-specialized operating systems").

Learn more about the architecture in this article: [Prisma Postgres®: Building a Modern PostgreSQL Service Using Unikernels & MicroVMs](https://pris.ly/ppg-early-access?utm_source=docs).
