Neon vs Loops
Serverless Postgres with branching and bottomless storage
vs. Email marketing for SaaS — loops, transactional, campaigns in one
Pricing tiers
Neon
Free
100 projects, 0.5 GB storage + 100 CU-hours each. Great for prototypes and preview envs.
Free
Launch
Usage-based, no minimum. Small production workloads. $0.35/GB-month storage, $0.106/CU-hour.
$0 base (usage-based)
Scale
Usage-based, higher compute tier + faster instances ($0.222/CU-hour). Up to 30-day PITR, 1,000 projects.
$0 base (usage-based)
Business
Usage-based with 99.95% SLA, HIPAA available. Private networking $0.01/GB.
$0 base (usage-based)
Loops
Free
1,000 subscribed contacts. 4,000 sends/month. All features. Loops footer on emails.
Free
Paid — 1.5k
1,500 contacts. Unlimited sends. No footer.
$15/mo
Paid — 5k
5,000 contacts. Unlimited sends.
$49/mo
Paid — 10k
10,000 contacts.
$99/mo
Paid — 25k
25,000 contacts.
$199/mo
Paid — 50k
50,000 contacts.
$349/mo
Custom
>100k contacts — contact sales.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Neon vs free on Loops.
| Metric | Neon | Loops |
|---|---|---|
| branches per project | 10 branches | — |
| cu hours per project | 100 CU-hours/month | — |
| egress gb month | 5 GB/month | — |
| pitr retention hours | 6 hours | — |
| projects | 100 projects | — |
| storage gb per project | 0.5 GB | — |
| team members | 3 users | — |
Features
Neon · 14 features
- Autoscaling — Compute scales CPU + memory between min and max CU in seconds based on load.
- Branching — Git-like DB branches: copy-on-write snapshots of data + schema. Instant, cheap. …
- Data API (REST) — PostgREST-compatible REST endpoint auto-generated from your schema. Uses Postgre…
- IP Allowlist — Restrict DB access to specific CIDRs. Launch+.
- Launchpad — One-click create-a-database link that can be embedded in OSS repos (DATABASE_URL…
- Logical Replication — Publish changes to Snowflake, BigQuery, Kafka, or other Postgres. Subscribe from…
- Monitoring — Built-in dashboards for CPU/RAM/connections/slow queries. Prometheus export on B…
- Neon Auth — Stack Auth integrated: users table auto-synced into your Postgres (public.users_…
- Point-in-Time Restore — Restore DB to any moment in the retention window (6h free → 30d Scale) via branc…
- Private Networking — AWS PrivateLink / VPC peering. Business plan.
- Read Replicas — Create a read-only compute endpoint on the same branch. Zero replication lag (re…
- Scale to Zero — Compute suspends when idle — no charge for compute while paused. Cold-start ~300…
- Schema Diff — Compare schema between branches — build PR checks and preview migrations safely.
- SQL over HTTP — Serverless driver lets you query Postgres over HTTPS — works in edge runtimes (V…
Loops · 12 features
- API Keys — Scoped keys for testing vs production.
- Audiences (Segments) — Filter contacts by properties + event behavior.
- Campaign Analytics — Open/click/unsubscribe rates, heatmaps, A/B significance.
- Campaigns — One-off broadcasts to audience segments. Schedule + A/B test subject.
- Contacts — Contact records with custom properties (strings, numbers, booleans, dates).
- Email Editor — Visual block-based + Markdown + HTML modes.
- Events — Send events to trigger loops/journeys or filter audiences.
- Loops (Automations) — Event-triggered automation flows with delays + conditions.
- Mailing Lists — Opt-in lists with subscribe/unsubscribe preferences per list.
- Template Library — Pre-built templates for SaaS use cases (onboarding, digest, launch).
- Transactional API — Send transactional emails (receipts, password resets) via /transactional endpoin…
- Webhooks — Subscribe to contact/event changes.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Neon | Loops |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Neon CLI | — |
| SDK | @neondatabase/serverless | @loops/loops, loops-py |
| REST | Management / Control Plane API, Neon Data API (REST), SQL over HTTP | Loops REST API |
| MCP | Neon MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Postgres Wire Protocol | Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Neon and Loops are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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