GraphQL federation
Each provider is profiled from its own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure. All three compose subgraphs into one graph and all three hand you the router to run yourself — then they disagree entirely about the bill: one charges per million requests, one a flat monthly fee, and one will not publish a number at all.
GraphQL federation
| Provider | Entry paid plan | Self-hostable | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo GraphOS | Developer starts at $5 per million requests, billed monthly, with a $0 plan base price and automatic volume discounts — a per-request rate rather than a plan fee, so no magnitude is recorded. New signups get $50 of usage credit and a card is required. | Supported | Per request, with a $0 plan base. Every query and mutation counts as a standard operation whichever runtime processes it, and subscription update events are metered independently on top. |
| Grafbase | Not published. The pricing page offers the free open-source edition or an Enterprise tier marked Custom pricing with a Contact Sales button, and names no figure between the two. | Supported | Two options and no ladder: run the open-source gateway for nothing, or contact sales for an enterprise contract. The page's own headline says pricing scales with usage, but no rate is given. |
| WunderGraph Cosmo | $499/month for Launch: two federated graphs, up to 250 million requests a month and email support. Scale is $3,499/month for five graphs and up to 1 billion requests. | Supported | Flat monthly plans bounded by two things at once: how many federated graphs you run, and how many requests a month they serve. Both ceilings rise together tier by tier. |
Which to consider
A federated graph whose traffic is spiky or unknown, where a $0 plan base and $5 per million requests means the bill tracks usage instead of a tier — and where metering subscription update events separately is a feature rather than a surprise.
Running the whole platform yourself. The gateway is open source under what Grafbase describes as no feature gating, it is written in Rust, and the enterprise tier is explicitly fully self-hostable rather than a managed service you rent.
Teams who would rather buy a ceiling than a meter: $499 a month covers two federated graphs and 250 million requests, with the router self-hosted and nothing counted per query.