Databricks Mosaic AI pricing is anchored by a consumption-based model starting at $0.07 per DBU. This allows organizations to build and deploy generative AI applications with per-second billing granularity, ensuring costs align directly with compute usage rather than seat counts or flat subscriptions.
For teams moving from experimentation to production, the cost structure scales based on the specific workload. While AI and Genie tasks share the $0.07 entry rate, supporting activities like data engineering and interactive development are priced higher at $0.15 and $0.40 per DBU, respectively.
Verified pricing (official source)
| Plan / rate |
Verified price |
Unit |
Notes |
| Databricks Platform — Free Edition |
$0 |
free |
Learn professional Data and AI tools for free |
| Databricks Community Edition — Community Edition |
$0 |
free |
Free for educational use. |
| Databricks — Operational Database |
$0.07 |
usage based |
Starting price. Billed per CU (Compute Unit). |
| Databricks — Artificial Intelligence |
$0.07 |
usage based |
Starting price. Billed per DBU (Databricks Unit). |
| Databricks — Genie |
$0.07 |
usage based |
Starting price. Billed at $0.07 per DBU beyond free usage. |
| Databricks — Data Engineering |
$0.15 |
usage based |
Starting price. Billed per DBU (Databricks Unit). Includes Pay-as-you-go billing with no up-front costs and pe |
| Databricks — Data Warehousing |
$0.22 |
usage based |
Starting price. Billed per DBU (Databricks Unit). Includes Pay-as-you-go billing with no up-front costs and pe |
| Databricks — Interactive workloads |
$0.4 |
usage based |
Starting price. Billed per DBU (Databricks Unit). Includes Pay-as-you-go billing with no up-front costs and pe |
| Databricks Platform — Pay as you go |
Not stated on page |
usage based |
No up-front costs. Only pay for the products you use at per second granularity. Pricing for Azure Databricks i |
| Databricks Platform — Committed Use Contracts |
Custom — contact sales |
usage based |
Contact for details. Access discounts and other benefits when committing to certain usage levels. Options to u |
| Databricks — Committed Use Contracts |
Custom — contact sales |
usage based |
Contact sales for details. Offers discounts and benefits when committing to certain levels of usage. |
Every price above was retrieved from the official vendor page. Plans without a published number are shown exactly as the vendor states them — never estimated.
How does DBU-based billing impact AI budgets?
Databricks Units (DBUs) act as a normalized measure of processing power. For AI leaders, this means budget forecasting requires understanding the intensity of model training and inference tasks. With pay-as-you-go billing, there are no up-front costs, making it easier to pilot Mosaic AI features without a capital commitment.
What are the paths to lower unit costs?
Organizations with predictable, high-volume workloads can move from pay-as-you-go to committed use contracts. These custom agreements, negotiated through sales, offer discounts in exchange for guaranteed usage levels. This is the primary mechanism for Finance and CIOs to improve the unit economics of their AI platform spend as adoption grows.
To justify Mosaic AI spend, you must measure the output value against DBU consumption. NetLift automates this by comparing the time saved in model development and deployment against manual baselines, providing a clear net return figure. This ensures that a $0.07 DBU cost is evaluated by the business value it generates rather than just as a technical expense.
Sources
All pricing on this page comes from official vendor pages: