Postgres Egress Optimizer

When to Use

Use this skill when you need diagnose and fix excessive Postgres egress (network data transfer) in a codebase. Use when a user mentions high database bills, unexpected data transfer costs, network transfer charges, egress spikes, "why is my Neon bill so high", "database costs jumped", SELECT * optimization, query...

Guide the user through diagnosing and fixing application-side query patterns that cause excessive data transfer (egress) from their Postgres database. Most high egress bills come from the application fetching more data than it uses.

Step 1: Diagnose

Identify which queries transfer the most data. The primary tool is the pg_stat_statements extension.

Check if pg_stat_statements is available

SELECT 1 FROM pg_stat_statements LIMIT 1;

If this errors, the extension needs to be created: