Database reads/writes are really hard (read: impossible) to predict unless you are already in production. Leading to thoughts like: "1 Billion reads!! I'll never use that much..." Once you cross the line, the overages kick in.

That being said, this does appear to be absurdly cheap compared to competitors. Amazon Aurora appears to be sitting at around $200 a month for 1 billion reads, excluding writes/transfer/storage/etc.

CockroachDB Serverless includes 250M "request units" (request units include reads and writes and individual requests can costs multiple units depending on size). They charge an extra $1 per month per 10M "request units," so $75 to get to 1B reads at least.

Am I missing something? What's the catch?