Infrastructure as code tools, compared
Each provider is profiled from its own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure. The tools themselves are open source and free; what is priced is the platform that runs them for you — and each of these meters something different, so the column that matters is not the number but what it counts.
Infrastructure as code
| Provider | Entry paid plan | Self-hostable | What is metered |
|---|---|---|---|
| HCP Terraform | $0.0001359 per managed resource per hour on the Essentials plan, with no monthly plan fee to clear first. HashiCorp's own worked example is 1,000 resources held continuously for a month, which it totals at $97.85. | Supported — As Terraform Enterprise, a separate self-hosted distribution of the same application | Per managed resource, per hour. The charge follows the peak resource count within each hour, so resources created and destroyed inside one hour are still billed for it: HashiCorp's own example bills an hour at a peak of 2,000 after 1,000 were added and 500 destroyed. Contract plans are offered at lower rates for larger organisations. |
| OpenTofu | None. OpenTofu is the tool rather than a platform: there is nothing to buy, no hosted state and no vendor to bill you — which is the reason the other three in this category exist. | Supported | Nothing is metered because nothing is sold. Governance rather than price is the pitch: the project is held by the Linux Foundation specifically so a licence change cannot happen to it again. |
| Pulumi | $40/month for Team, which includes 40 Credits at $1 each and up to 500 resources; beyond that usage is billed on demand at $0.1825 per IaC resource per month. | Supported — Listed as a line item on the plan comparison, not a separate product | Per resource under management, converted through a credit: 1 Credit = $1, one IaC resource costs 0.1825 a month and one managed secret 0.50. Workflow minutes are metered separately at $0.01 past 500 free. |
| Scalr | $0.99 per run past the free 50 a month, with volume discounts — Scalr's own example is 100 runs for $99. There is no monthly plan fee to clear first. | Limited — Self-hosted agents, unlimited on both plans; the control plane is Scalr's | Per run, and nothing else — the page states there are no per-user fees and no per-resource charges, which is the distinction from Pulumi and from the seat-based tools it competes with. Both plans start with five concurrent runs. |
| Spacelift | $20,000 for Starter +, printed with no period attached — the plan card shows the figure beside the tier name and a trial button, and nothing on the page says whether it is monthly or annual. Recorded without a magnitude for that reason. | Not documented | By concurrent private worker: Starter + includes one, and what a plan buys beyond that is features rather than volume — Spaces, workflow customization, policy, drift detection and cloud cost estimation. |
Which to consider
Running the reference implementation with a bill that starts at nothing and then tracks inventory: 500 managed resources free, and $0.0001359 per resource per hour after that with no plan fee to clear first.
Not having a vendor. OpenTofu is a drop-in replacement for Terraform held by the Linux Foundation specifically so a licence change cannot happen to it again — free, self-hosted, with providers and modules from its own registry.
Infrastructure written in a language you already know, with a managed cloud that is free forever for individuals and open source — one user, unlimited projects and state management at $0.
A bill that follows activity rather than inventory: $0.99 a run past 50 free a month, no per-user fee and no per-resource charge, with unlimited users and environments on both plans.
Orchestrating more than one IaC tool under one policy engine — Terraform, OpenTofu and Pulumi together — with drift detection, policy as code and an audit trail as the product rather than an add-on.
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