MongoDB pricing: what does it cost and how to get a discount

How much does MongoDB cost?

While MongoDB publicly lists its product prices and pay-as-you-go fee breakdowns on its pricing page, we’ve summarized each of the different plans below.

Before we dive into the numbers though, it is important to be aware that the exact cost will depend on several factors such as your cluster size, the region of your clusters, your cloud provider and any additional services you opt for.

MongoDB Atlas pricing

MongoDB’s flagship product, Atlas, is a fully managed on-demand service that runs on AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. According to MongoDB’s pricing page, there are three unique pricing tiers available; Shared, Serverless and Dedicated.

But what does each one entail?

1. Shared

With MongoDB’s shared cluster pricing model, users have access to basic configuration options, making it ideal for both training purposes and exploring the platform.

The exact cost of this plan, however, depends on which of the cluster tiers you opt for; M0 being the free version that is ideal for getting started but not suitable for production environments, M2 having a base price of $9 per month for shared RAM and vCPUs and 2Gb of storage, and M5 costing $25 per month, also with shared RAM and vCPUs, but with 5GB of storage.

2. Serverless

MongoDB’s offering for serverless applications is suitable for those with “variable or infrequent traffic”, and is priced based on usage. The vendor specifically charges $0.10 per million read operations per day, with lower fees for reads in excess of 50 million.

Other notable charges include $1 per million write actions and $2.50 per hour for standard backup download or restoration. This tier offers up to 1 TB of storage with scalable CPU and RAM configurations.

3. Dedicated

Charged at a variable $57 per month (estimated based on usage of $0.08 per hour), MongoDB Atlas’ Dedicated plan is recommended for production applications with “sophisticated workload requirements”. The tier offers advanced configuration and feature access, including 10GB to 4TB of storage and scalable RAM up to 768GB, depending on the type of clusters used.

MongoDB Enterprise Pricing

MongoDB also offers an advanced version of its product known as Enterprise Advanced, fit for on-premise or private cloud use. Enterprise Advanced boasts many unique features including the MongoDB Enterprise Server, added integrations, and consultative organization support.

But how much does MongoDB Enterprise cost?

As with the majority of SaaS vendors, MongoDB advises that you contact its sales team directly for its enterprise-level pricing information.

Alternatively, talk to Vertice and find out what other companies are paying for their plan.

Is it possible to get a MongoDB discount?

MongoDB is an example of a vendor that offers a good degree of pricing transparency, as demonstrated by the detailed structures listed on its website. But while MongoDB calculates its rates mostly based on usage, this doesn’t necessarily mean that prices are set in stone.

This is because subscription pricing for Enterprise-level plans is customizable and therefore often negotiable. You just need the right leverage and strategies for securing the best possible deal.

Question is, what are these strategies?

Only sign up for the services you require

The MongoDB Atlas and Enterprise Advanced packages each cover a wide range of features that organizations may benefit from. While the majority of these features are priced based on data usage, some extra functions such as higher-levels of support and maintenance are charged as an add-on fee across certain cluster groups.

There are, however, a number of scenarios where your company may not require these extra features, such as if you have limited usage or a dedicated IT team to address any database tool challenges encountered. So, this might reflect one feature that your enterprise could choose to opt out of to cut costs and further optimize SaaS spend.

Gain leverage with competitor price rates

Many different vendors operate in the developer data market, including Oracle, Couchbase and Cassandra. While the specific functionality of different database tools vary, as with their different strengths and weaknesses, these alternative programs can still provide you with insight into the pricing structures of MongoDB’s main competitors.

Insight that could enable your procurement team to negotiate a better deal for your organization. For example, you may find a competitive rate for read actions to compare against the fee that MongoDB charges, and propose that MondoDB matches or beats this rate.

Secure the best possible MongoDB pricing with Vertice

Negotiation can be a challenging territory to navigate, especially when a vendor charges based on usage. To secure your organization the best possible pricing for MongoDB, Vertice can negotiate for you using our extensive database of vendor pricing benchmarks.

In fact, you can leave your procurement in our hands, safe in the knowledge that our team of negotiators have the expertise and years of experience necessary to achieve the best deal and contract terms for your organization.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help to optimize your SaaS procurement and how much you could expect to save, not only on the cost of MongoDB, but on all of your SaaS contracts.