Superset Pricing and Apache Superset Cost With Preset Pricing Per User
Superset itself costs nothing. Running it does, and so does Preset once a sixth person logs in. Here are both bills side by side, with the team size where each one wins.
$0
Superset license
$20
Preset, per user a month
$59
AgentSQL Team, 10 seats
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Direct answer
Apache Superset is free: it is open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no user limit. The paid option is Preset, the managed Superset cloud, which costs $0 for up to 5 users, then $20 per user per month billed annually ($25 billed monthly) on Professional, with Enterprise by quote. Self-hosting instead costs roughly $99 a month in cloud infrastructure for a small deployment, about $1,193 a year, plus the engineer time to patch and upgrade it. On those numbers Preset is the cheaper route up to about 5 users on infrastructure alone, and up to about 25 users once you count four hours of maintenance a month. Prices were read from preset.io on 7 October 2026.
›_ superset pricing, the four ways to pay
Apache Superset pricing and Preset pricing on one table.
Preset rows quoted from preset.io/pricing. The first row is the open source project itself.
| Option | Price | Billing | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Superset, self-hosted | $0 license | Apache 2.0, any number of users | Every open source feature. You supply the servers, the metadata database, the cache, upgrades and security patches. |
| Preset Starter | $0 | Forever, for up to 5 users | One workspace, unlimited dashboards and charts, the no-code chart builder, the SQL editor and the semantic layer. |
| Preset Professional | $20 | Per user per month billed annually, $25 billed monthly | Unlimited users, 3 workspaces, role-based access control, scheduled email reports and alerts, Slack alerts, standard support, a 14-day AI Chatbot trial. |
| Preset Enterprise | Custom | Quote from sales | Single sign-on and SCIM, audit logs, dbt integration, SSH tunnels, Managed Private Cloud, the AI Chatbot with your own model key, the MCP server. |
The cliff
User six costs $1,440 a year
Starter stops at 5 users. Add one more and all six move to Professional at $20 each, so the bill goes from $0 to $1,440 a year in one step. Plan for it before you invite the sixth person.
The monthly premium
Paying monthly adds 25 percent
Professional is $25 a user billed monthly against $20 billed annually. For 25 users that is $7,500 a year instead of $6,000. Start monthly only if you are still deciding.
The add-on
Embedding starts at $500 a month
Dashboards embedded in your own product need Embedded Dashboard Viewer Licenses, sold from $500 a month for 50 viewers on Professional and Enterprise. Self-hosted Superset embeds with no such fee.
›_ apache superset cost, self-hosted
What free Superset costs once it is running in production.
An estimate for a small deployment at cloud on-demand list prices, US East, 730 hours a month.
| Piece | Size | List rate | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application server and workers | One t3.large, 2 vCPU and 8 GiB | $0.0832 an hour | $60.74 |
| Metadata database | Managed Postgres, db.t3.small | $0.036 an hour | $26.28 |
| Cache and task queue | Managed Redis, cache.t3.micro | $0.017 an hour | $12.41 |
| Estimated infrastructure | Before storage, backups, load balancer and data transfer | $99.43 |
Superset is not a single binary. A production install runs a web application, a metadata database for dashboards and permissions, a Redis cache, and background workers that handle long queries, scheduled reports and alerts. The table prices the smallest shape of that we would call production: $99.43 a month, or about $1,193 a year. That equals five Preset Professional seats.
The bigger line is the one no cloud invoice shows. Someone has to apply security patches, run version upgrades with their database migrations, fix the report worker when a scheduled email stops arriving, and manage logins. Put your own number on it. As a worked assumption, four hours a month at a loaded $100 an hour is $4,800 a year, which takes the real cost of free Superset to about $5,993. That is the price of 25 Preset Professional seats.
›_ superset cost by team size
A year of Superset against Metabase Cloud and Power BI at 5 to 100 users.
Annual billing, list prices from each vendor's pricing page on 7 October 2026. Self-hosted is our infrastructure estimate with no engineer time.
Preset has the steepest line on the chart. It is the cheapest hosted option for a team of five and the most expensive one for every size after that, because it has no bundle of included users once you leave Starter.
Metabase Cloud Starter costs $1,080 a year with 5 users included and $65 for each one after, so it undercuts Preset Professional from the sixth user on. Power BI Pro at $168 a user sits between them from 8 users up; below that it is the cheaper of the two.
The flat dotted line is why data teams self-host: infrastructure does not care how many people log in. It is honest only if you add your own maintenance hours on top.
| Users | Preset | Metabase Cloud Starter | Power BI Pro | Self-hosted Superset, infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $0 on Starter | $1,080 | $840 | $1,193 |
| 6 | $1,440 | $1,145 | $1,008 | $1,193 |
| 10 | $2,400 | $1,405 | $1,680 | $1,193 |
| 25 | $6,000 | $2,380 | $4,200 | $1,193 |
| 50 | $12,000 | $4,005 | $8,400 | $1,193 |
| 100 | $24,000 | $7,255 | $16,800 | $1,193 |
Every tier behind those columns is on its own page: Metabase pricing covers Starter, Pro and the $20,000 Enterprise floor, and Power BI pricing covers Pro, Premium Per User and Fabric capacity. For features instead of cost, read Metabase vs Superset.
›_ asking in plain english
What it costs to let business users ask Superset a question.
On Preset
A 14-day trial, then a sales quote
Preset's pricing page lists an AI Chatbot for conversational analytics. Professional includes it as a 14-day trial. Ongoing access is on Enterprise, priced by quote, where you also bring your own model API key and pay that provider for usage. Self-hosted Superset gives analysts SQL Lab and a chart builder, so a manager without SQL still asks an analyst.
On AgentSQL
$59 a month for a team of ten
The Team plan is $59 a month billed yearly for up to 10 seats and 1,500 questions a month, with the model included. Ten people on Preset Professional pay $200 a month before any AI. Each answer comes back as a chart, a table, a one-line summary and the SQL that produced it.
AgentSQL connects read-only to Postgres, MySQL, Snowflake and BigQuery. You type a question, it writes the SQL against your schema, runs it and shows the result with the query visible, so an analyst can check the logic in seconds. There is nothing to host and no dashboard to build first. The console at the top of this page is the same one customers use, and the full plan list is on our pricing page.
Where we are the wrong tool: Superset connects to dozens of engines and we connect to four. We do not build pixel-tuned dashboards for a wall screen or embed charts in your product. Teams that need those keep Superset for dashboards and add text to SQL for the questions nobody built a chart for, which is where most of the request queue comes from.
›_ which bill to choose
Self-hosted Superset, Preset or something lighter.
Self-host if
You already run Kubernetes or containers with on-call cover, you have more than about 25 users, or data cannot leave your network. Past that size the flat infrastructure line beats every per-user plan, and embedding carries no viewer fee.
Buy Preset if
You want Superset without operating it and your team is small. Five people pay nothing. Up to roughly 25 users, $20 a seat is less than the maintenance hours you would spend, and you get access control, alerts and support without building them.
Go lighter if
The people who need numbers do not write SQL and nobody has time to build charts for them. A dashboard tool, free or not, leaves that queue in place. An AI data analyst on the same database answers the question directly for a flat team price.
›_ how to price superset for your team
Four numbers to write down before you choose.
01
Count logins a year out
Preset bills every user the same, readers included. Use the headcount you expect in twelve months, since that is the annual contract you sign.
02
Multiply by $240
That is Preset Professional for a year. Add $6,000 if you need 50 embedded viewers. This is your managed number.
03
Price your own hours
Take about $1,193 of infrastructure and add monthly maintenance hours times your loaded engineer rate times twelve. This is your self-hosted number.
04
Split builders from askers
Count who will build charts and who only wants answers. If most are askers, price a flat plan for them and keep BI seats for the builders.
›_ frequently asked
Superset pricing questions, answered.
Is Apache Superset free?
Yes. Apache Superset is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, so there is no license fee and no user cap, including for commercial use. What you pay for is running it: servers, a metadata database, a cache, and the engineering time for upgrades and security patches. A small deployment on cloud list prices comes to roughly $1,193 a year in infrastructure.
How much does Preset cost?
Preset Starter is $0 for up to 5 users. Preset Professional is $20 per user per month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly, with unlimited users. Enterprise is a custom quote. Embedded dashboards are an add-on that starts at $500 a month for 50 viewer licenses. These are the prices on preset.io on 7 October 2026.
What is the difference between Preset and Superset?
Superset is the open source project you install and run yourself. Preset is a company, founded by Superset's original creator, that sells a hosted and managed version of it. With Preset you skip the servers and upgrades and pay per user; with Superset you pay nothing for the software and carry the operations yourself.
How much does it cost to self-host Superset?
Budget for infrastructure plus people. A small production setup (one application server, a managed Postgres metadata database and a managed Redis cache) is about $99 a month at cloud on-demand list prices. The larger line is maintenance. At four engineer hours a month and $100 an hour, the yearly total is close to $6,000.
Is Superset cheaper than Metabase?
Self-hosted, both are free. Hosted, it depends on headcount. Preset is free for 5 users while Metabase Cloud starts at $1,080 a year. From the sixth user Preset Professional costs $240 a user a year against Metabase's $65 for each extra user, so Metabase Cloud Starter is cheaper for every team of 6 or more.
Is Superset cheaper than Tableau?
Almost always. Preset Professional is $20 a user a month for every user. Tableau charges $75 a month for a Creator, $42 for an Explorer and $15 for a Viewer, billed annually. Only a team with one Creator and at least twelve Viewers averages below $20 a seat, and self-hosted Superset has no license cost at all.
Does Superset have AI features?
Preset sells them. Its pricing page lists an AI Chatbot for asking questions in plain language and an MCP server for AI clients. Professional includes a 14-day chatbot trial; ongoing use sits on Enterprise, where you bring your own model API key. Open source Superset on its own is a SQL editor and chart builder.
Can I use Apache Superset for commercial use?
Yes. The Apache 2.0 license allows commercial use, modification and distribution without a fee, and it does not require you to publish your own code. That is a looser license than the AGPL used by the Metabase open source edition, which matters most if you plan to embed dashboards inside a product you sell.
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