Tool profile
Mage: cost, fit and limits
Mage is a managed data pipeline orchestration service made by Mage Technologies, Inc. that runs and monitors pipelines for small teams, sold in Starter, Team and Enterprise plans with per-execution-minute usage billing and monthly AI credits.
What to know first
Mage prices Starter at $29 a month for one developer seat and Team at $100 a month for up to 10 seats, both plus $0.0167 per execution minute. Enterprise is a custom annual quote. Starter includes 50 AI credits a month and Team 250 shared credits. A 7-day trial needs no credit card, and the privacy policy cites a SOC 2 Type II report.
Mage at a glance
| Maker | Mage Technologies, Inc., United States |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Free trial only |
| Entry price | $29 per month (Starter) plus $0.0167 per execution minute |
| API access | No |
| Category | Best AI Data Orchestration Tools in 2026, rank 6 of 12 |
| Website | mage.ai |
Who Mage is best for
Solo data engineers
Starter gives one developer seat, one development environment, managed orchestration, alerts and monitoring for $29 a month, plus minutes for whatever actually runs.
Small teams that want lineage
Team adds lineage and deployment workflows for up to 10 developer seats, which suits a group that wants to see dependencies without buying an enterprise catalog.
Buyers who need a SOC 2 statement
The privacy policy states a SOC 2 Type II report, which gives a procurement team a document to request before pilot data is loaded.
Mage plans and pricing
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 per month plus usage | 1 developer seat, 1 development environment, managed orchestration, alerts and monitoring and 50 AI credits each month. Billed monthly plus $0.0167 per execution minute. |
| Team | $100 per month plus usage | Up to 10 developer seats, 1 environment included, lineage, deployment workflows and 250 shared AI credits a month. |
| Enterprise | Custom quote | Private and hybrid deployment, custom governance and security controls, dedicated onboarding and SLAs and custom AI credits, billed annually at contracted rates. |
Checked November 2026.
What Mage does
- Execution-minute billing
- A standard minute is 1 CPU and 4 GB RAM while work runs, and larger sizes use more minutes, so cost follows compute time rather than the number of pipelines defined.
- Lineage on Team
- Team lists lineage, which shows which downstream pipelines depend on a given block or table. That is useful when a source changes and someone asks what breaks next.
- Deployment workflows
- Team lists deployment workflows for moving changes between environments, though extra environments beyond the included one are added at additional cost on the plan, which the pricing page does not itemize.
- AI credits
- Starter carries 50 AI credits a month and Team 250 shared credits. The pricing page opened does not describe the AI feature they pay for, so check that in a trial.
- Alerts and monitoring
- Starter includes managed orchestration with alerts and monitoring, so a solo engineer gets failure notices from day one without wiring up a separate observability tool first.
- Billing toggle
- The pricing page shows a monthly and annual billing toggle, although annual prices were not visible in the captured page, so confirm them with sales before budgeting.
How Mage handles your data
The Mage privacy policy states a SOC 2 Type II report and says its AWS databases are located in the United States. It allows the company to create aggregated, de-identified or anonymous data for research and development, and it does not state whether customer data trains models. No retention period is stated on the pages opened. Enterprise lists private and hybrid deployment for buyers who need data to stay in their own environment. Ask which data types the AI credits send to a model provider, because the pricing page does not describe that.
Where Mage falls short in practice
- One environment on small plans. Starter and Team include one development environment each, so a team that wants separate staging and production environments must pay extra for the additional ones.
- Credits without explanation. The page opened lists AI credit amounts per plan but does not say what a credit buys, so the value of that line item cannot be judged.
- No permanent free tier. Only a 7-day trial is offered, so a team that wants a lasting free sandbox has to look at a self-hosted or open source option instead.
Works with
Alternatives to Mage
Mage: common questions
How much does Mage cost?
Starter is $29 a month for one developer seat and Team is $100 a month for up to 10 seats, with both adding $0.0167 per execution minute. Enterprise is a custom annual quote. Annual prices were not visible on the captured pricing page, so ask for them if you plan to prepay.
What is an execution minute at Mage?
A standard minute is one CPU and 4 GB of RAM while work runs, and larger sizes use more minutes. The usage fee of $0.0167 per minute applies on Starter and Team. A pipeline that runs for 30 minutes a day would use roughly 900 minutes a month.
Does Mage have a free plan?
No permanent one is described. The pricing page offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card. After that, Starter at $29 a month is the lowest tier. If a lasting free tier is a must, compare Kestra Open Source or Prefect Hobby.
What do Mage AI credits do?
Starter includes 50 AI credits a month and Team 250 shared credits, but the pricing page opened does not describe the AI feature itself or how many credits one action uses. Test it in the trial and read the usage counter before relying on it.
Is Mage SOC 2 compliant?
The privacy policy states a SOC 2 Type II report. It does not say who audited it or for which period, so ask for the report itself under NDA. The same policy states that AWS databases are located in the United States, which matters for residency rules.