Dagster vs Prefect: Self-Serve Plans Compared
A year ago we launched self-serve plans for Prefect Cloud. Dagster recently updated theirs. If you're evaluating orchestration platforms for a small team or solo project, here's how the two compare as of April 2026.
What changed at Dagster
Effective May 1, 2026, Dagster+ Solo and Starter plans no longer include any credits. Previously, the Solo plan came with 7,500 credits and Starter came with 30,000, enough for most small teams to operate without overage charges. Under the new model, every credit is billed from zero at $0.035–$0.040 each, on top of the same base fee.
One Starter customer estimated their bill would rise from $100/month to over $1,000 at the same usage. Another calculated that the Solo plan at full credit usage would jump from $10 to $310. Existing customers were given approximately 20 days notice. There is no grandfathering. The new rates apply automatically to all accounts.
Plans at a glance
| Dagster+ Solo | Dagster+ Starter | Prefect Hobby | Prefect Starter | Prefect Team | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base price | $10/mo | $100/mo | Free | $100/mo | $100/user/mo |
| Usage charges | $0.040/credit | $0.035/credit | None | None | None |
| Included serverless | None | None | 500 min | 75 hrs | 225 hrs |
| Serverless overage | $0.010/min | $0.010/min | N/A | $0.005/min | $0.005/min |
| Users | 1 | Up to 10 | 2 | 3 | 4-8 |
| Deployments | Unlimited | Unlimited | 5 | 20 | 100 |
| Bring your own infra | Yes (Hybrid) | Yes (Hybrid) | No | Yes | Yes |
On Dagster+, one credit equals one asset materialization, observation, or check. Serverless compute is charged at $0.010/min on top of credits, with no minutes included in any plan. On Prefect Cloud, there are no per-task or per-run charges. Pricing is based on seats, with serverless hours included in each plan and overages at $0.005/min, half the cost of Dagster+ Serverless.
What does it actually cost?
The base price doesn't tell the full story on Dagster+ since credits scale with usage. Here are three pipeline scenarios with estimated monthly costs on each platform.
Small dbt project
A dbt project with 50 models, materialized once per day.
On Dagster+, that's 50 credits/day, or roughly 1,500 credits/month.
| Platform | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Dagster+ Solo | $10 + (1,500 × $0.040) = $70 |
| Dagster+ Starter | $100 + (1,500 × $0.035) = $153 |
| Prefect Hobby | $0 |
| Prefect Starter | $100 |
Growing startup
200 dbt models run 4 times daily, plus 20 Python ingestion jobs that each trigger one run per day. On Dagster+, that's approximately 800 asset materializations/day from dbt plus 20 from jobs, totaling roughly 24,600 credits/month.
| Platform | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Dagster+ Solo | $10 + (24,600 × $0.040) = $994 |
| Dagster+ Starter | $100 + (24,600 × $0.035) = $961 |
| Prefect Starter | $100 |
| Prefect Team (4 users) | $400 |
Active production team
500 dbt models run 4 times daily, 50 Python jobs, and event-triggered pipelines adding roughly 5,000 additional materializations per month. On Dagster+, that's approximately 65,000 credits/month.
| Platform | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Dagster+ Starter | $100 + (65,000 × $0.035) = $2,375 |
| Prefect Team (4 users) | $400 |
A note on Dagster's virtualized assets: Dagster 1.13 introduced virtualized assets, which allow dbt views to be represented without consuming credits on materialization. If a significant portion of your dbt models are views rather than tables, this could reduce your credit consumption. It doesn't change the per-credit billing model, but it's worth factoring into your estimate.
Beyond pricing
Pricing is one dimension. Here are a few other differences relevant to someone evaluating a switch.
Programming model. Dagster is built around Software-Defined Assets. You structure your code around an asset graph, with IO managers handling reads and writes. Prefect wraps existing Python functions with @flow and @task decorators, and also supports assets for teams that want lineage and materialization tracking. Assets are opt-in on Prefect rather than a prerequisite. If your team already thinks in assets and uses dbt heavily, both platforms support that workflow. Prefect also has native dbt integration that turns a dbt project into a production pipeline in minutes. If you want to orchestrate existing Python code without restructuring it, Prefect requires less upfront change.
Compute model. Both platforms offer a hybrid model where you bring your own infrastructure (ECS, Kubernetes, Docker, etc.) and a managed serverless option. On Dagster+, serverless compute costs $0.010/min on top of credit charges, and hybrid deployments have no compute charge. On Prefect Cloud, each plan includes serverless minutes, and hybrid deployments are available on Starter and above.
Open source. Both Dagster and Prefect have fully featured open-source versions that you can self-host. If managed pricing on either platform doesn't work for your budget, self-hosting is always an option.
For a more detailed feature-by-feature comparison, see Prefect vs Dagster.
Getting started
If you want to try Prefect, the Hobby tier is free. Deploy up to 5 workflows with 500 minutes of serverless compute, no credit card required.
When you're ready for production, explore our pricing page or talk to our team.