SimpleBackups charges $29–$99 a month to run pg_dump on a timer — and wants your production database credentials on their cloud. The DIY cron script is free but fails silently until the day you need the backup. Vaultkeeper fixes both: scheduled, encrypted dumps of Postgres, MySQL, SQLite and MongoDB, shipped to disk, S3 or FTP, pruned by retention policy, with alerts the moment a run fails. $99, once, on your own hardware.
This is the full pricing breakdown: what SimpleBackups actually costs over one, two and three years, what Vaultkeeper gives you for $99 paid once, and the honest cases where the subscription is still the right call.
What SimpleBackups actually costs you
At $29/mo, one SimpleBackups subscription adds up to $348 every year — $1,044 over a three-year window, for software you stop owning the day you cancel. Vaultkeeper is $99 the day you buy it, and the meter never runs again.
| Vaultkeeper | SimpleBackups | |
|---|---|---|
| Sticker price | $99 once | $29/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $99 | $348 |
| Cost after 2 years | $99 | $696 |
| Cost after 3 years | $99 | $1,044 |
Three years in, the gap is $945 — and every year after that adds another $348 to the subscription side of the ledger.
Vaultkeeper vs SimpleBackups, feature by feature
Price is only half the story — here's how the two line up on the things that decide day-to-day use:
| Vaultkeeper | SimpleBackups | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $99 once | $29–$99/mo ($348–$1,188/yr) |
| Cost over 3 years | $99 | $1,044+ |
| Postgres / MySQL / Mongo / SQLite | All four | Yes |
| Your DB credentials | Stay on your box, encrypted at rest | Stored on their cloud |
| Encryption format you can decrypt yourself | Documented VK1 + age, decrypt script included | Partial |
| Works fully offline | Yes | No |
| Failure alerts (webhook + email) | Yes | Yes |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
What you get for $99, once
Postgres, MySQL, SQLite & Mongo dumps on cron — encrypted, shipped to S3/FTP/disk, with failure alerts. The highlights:
- 🗄️ Four engines — PostgreSQL (pg_dump), MySQL/MariaDB (mysqldump), MongoDB (mongodump) — and SQLite via the online backup API, safe on live WAL databases with nothing installed.
- ⏰ Real scheduling — Cron expressions with presets, per-job timezone, next-3-runs preview, and a per-job lock so runs never overlap.
- 🔐 Encryption you can restore without us — age if installed, or built-in AES-256-GCM with a documented open format and a dependency-free decrypt script — your backups are never hostage.
- 📦 Three destination types — Local disk, any S3-compatible bucket (AWS, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, MinIO — multipart uploads), and FTP/FTPS.
SimpleBackups is $348+ per year. Vaultkeeper pays for itself in under 4 months — then your backups run free, forever.
Switching is 3 steps
- Buy once on Whop. One-time $99 for the packaged 1-click Windows installer with everything pre-wired, plus lifetime updates.
- Run it anywhere. Desktop app for local databases, or docker compose up on a $5 VPS — the Docker image bundles all four engine CLIs and age.
- Schedule, encrypt, sleep. Point it at your databases, pick a cron schedule and a destination. If a run ever fails, the webhook and email tell you immediately — with the actual error.
When paying SimpleBackups is still the right call
Being straight about it: the subscription earns its keep in three situations. If your team is large enough that SimpleBackups's collaboration features, permissions and admin controls are genuinely load-bearing; if your workflow is built on its integrations and leaving means rebuilding that plumbing; or if you have enterprise requirements — SSO, audit logs, SLAs, a vendor to call — that a pay-once app doesn't come with. Everyone else is paying $29/mo for a job that runs fine on hardware they already own.
If that's you, Vaultkeeper is $99, once. For the deeper dive, read the Vaultkeeper vs SimpleBackups head-to-head or the full SimpleBackups comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/vaultkeeper-mvp, always. The $99 buys the packaged installer and funds development. One month of the competition, forever.
What happens to my backups if Vaultkeeper disappears?
They still open. The VK1 encryption format is documented in the README (AES-256-GCM, scrypt key derivation) and the repo ships a zero-dependency decrypt script — plus you can use age instead. Your backups outlive the software by design.
Do I need database tools installed?
For Postgres/MySQL/Mongo, yes — Vaultkeeper shells out to the official dump tools, and a tool-check panel shows what's found on PATH with install hints. SQLite needs nothing installed. The Docker image bundles all of them.
Is restore one-click?
Deliberately not. The restore helper generates the exact command chain — download, decrypt, gunzip, psql/mysql/mongorestore — so you can read every command before it touches your production database. SimpleBackups' managed one-click restores are genuinely more convenient; we chose transparency.
Why not just a cron script?
Because your script doesn't alert you when it silently breaks — the classic failure mode is a backup job that's been exiting 1 for six weeks. Vaultkeeper adds encryption, retention pruning, checksums, and loud failure alerts around the same dump tools you'd script by hand.
More on SimpleBackups pricing
Vaultkeeper — product page, demo & full feature list · All OneTimeSuite pricing breakdowns
Try Vaultkeeper — $99, once
Postgres, MySQL, SQLite & Mongo dumps on cron — encrypted, shipped to S3/FTP/disk, with failure alerts.