Postgres Egress Optimizer

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:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_stat_statements;

On Neon, it is available by default but may need this CREATE EXTENSION step.

Handle empty stats

Stats are cleared when a Neon compute scales to zero and restarts. If the stats are empty or the compute recently woke up: