diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 0f324d2..2577888 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 
     <groupId>com.tidesdb</groupId>
     <artifactId>tidesdb-java</artifactId>
-    <version>0.6.2</version>
+    <version>0.6.3</version>
     <packaging>jar</packaging>
 
     <name>TidesDB Java</name>
diff --git a/src/main/c/com_tidesdb_TidesDB.c b/src/main/c/com_tidesdb_TidesDB.c
index 0cc13e4..4edc165 100644
--- a/src/main/c/com_tidesdb_TidesDB.c
+++ b/src/main/c/com_tidesdb_TidesDB.c
@@ -912,3 +912,32 @@ JNIEXPORT void JNICALL Java_com_tidesdb_TidesDBIterator_nativeFree(JNIEnv *env,
         tidesdb_iter_free(iter);
     }
 }
+
+JNIEXPORT jdouble JNICALL Java_com_tidesdb_ColumnFamily_nativeRangeCost(JNIEnv *env, jclass cls,
+                                                                         jlong handle,
+                                                                         jbyteArray keyA,
+                                                                         jbyteArray keyB)
+{
+    tidesdb_column_family_t *cf = (tidesdb_column_family_t *)(uintptr_t)handle;
+
+    jsize keyALen = (*env)->GetArrayLength(env, keyA);
+    jsize keyBLen = (*env)->GetArrayLength(env, keyB);
+
+    jbyte *keyABytes = (*env)->GetByteArrayElements(env, keyA, NULL);
+    jbyte *keyBBytes = (*env)->GetByteArrayElements(env, keyB, NULL);
+
+    double cost = 0.0;
+    int result = tidesdb_range_cost(cf, (uint8_t *)keyABytes, keyALen, (uint8_t *)keyBBytes,
+                                    keyBLen, &cost);
+
+    (*env)->ReleaseByteArrayElements(env, keyA, keyABytes, JNI_ABORT);
+    (*env)->ReleaseByteArrayElements(env, keyB, keyBBytes, JNI_ABORT);
+
+    if (result != TDB_SUCCESS)
+    {
+        throwTidesDBException(env, result, getErrorMessage(result));
+        return 0.0;
+    }
+
+    return (jdouble)cost;
+}
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/tidesdb/ColumnFamily.java b/src/main/java/com/tidesdb/ColumnFamily.java
index 57b91ad..944c0ed 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/tidesdb/ColumnFamily.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/tidesdb/ColumnFamily.java
@@ -125,6 +125,27 @@ public void updateRuntimeConfig(ColumnFamilyConfig config, boolean persistToDisk
             persistToDisk);
     }
     
+    /**
+     * Estimates the computational cost of iterating between two keys in this column family.
+     * The returned value is an opaque double — meaningful only for comparison with other
+     * values from the same method. Uses only in-memory metadata and performs no disk I/O.
+     * Key order does not matter — the method normalizes the range internally.
+     *
+     * @param keyA first key (bound of range)
+     * @param keyB second key (bound of range)
+     * @return estimated traversal cost (higher = more expensive), 0.0 if no overlapping data
+     * @throws TidesDBException if the estimation fails
+     */
+    public double rangeCost(byte[] keyA, byte[] keyB) throws TidesDBException {
+        if (keyA == null || keyA.length == 0) {
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("keyA cannot be null or empty");
+        }
+        if (keyB == null || keyB.length == 0) {
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("keyB cannot be null or empty");
+        }
+        return nativeRangeCost(nativeHandle, keyA, keyB);
+    }
+    
     long getNativeHandle() {
         return nativeHandle;
     }
@@ -137,4 +158,5 @@ long getNativeHandle() {
     private static native void nativeUpdateRuntimeConfig(long handle, long writeBufferSize,
         int skipListMaxLevel, float skipListProbability, double bloomFPR, int indexSampleRatio,
         int syncMode, long syncIntervalUs, boolean persistToDisk) throws TidesDBException;
+    private static native double nativeRangeCost(long handle, byte[] keyA, byte[] keyB) throws TidesDBException;
 }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/tidesdb/TidesDBTest.java b/src/test/java/com/tidesdb/TidesDBTest.java
index 8606c62..9f6955d 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/tidesdb/TidesDBTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/tidesdb/TidesDBTest.java
@@ -815,6 +815,100 @@ void testTransactionResetWithDifferentIsolation() throws TidesDBException {
         }
     }
     
+    @Test
+    @Order(22)
+    void testRangeCost() throws TidesDBException {
+        Config config = Config.builder(tempDir.resolve("testdb20").toString())
+            .numFlushThreads(2)
+            .numCompactionThreads(2)
+            .logLevel(LogLevel.INFO)
+            .blockCacheSize(64 * 1024 * 1024)
+            .maxOpenSSTables(256)
+            .build();
+        
+        try (TidesDB db = TidesDB.open(config)) {
+            ColumnFamilyConfig cfConfig = ColumnFamilyConfig.defaultConfig();
+            db.createColumnFamily("test_cf", cfConfig);
+            
+            ColumnFamily cf = db.getColumnFamily("test_cf");
+            
+            // Insert data
+            try (Transaction txn = db.beginTransaction()) {
+                for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
+                    String key = String.format("key%04d", i);
+                    txn.put(cf, key.getBytes(), ("value" + i).getBytes());
+                }
+                txn.commit();
+            }
+            
+            // Estimate cost for a range
+            double cost = cf.rangeCost("key0000".getBytes(), "key0099".getBytes());
+            assertTrue(cost >= 0.0, "Range cost should be non-negative");
+        }
+    }
+    
+    @Test
+    @Order(23)
+    void testRangeCostComparison() throws TidesDBException {
+        Config config = Config.builder(tempDir.resolve("testdb21").toString())
+            .numFlushThreads(2)
+            .numCompactionThreads(2)
+            .logLevel(LogLevel.INFO)
+            .blockCacheSize(64 * 1024 * 1024)
+            .maxOpenSSTables(256)
+            .build();
+        
+        try (TidesDB db = TidesDB.open(config)) {
+            ColumnFamilyConfig cfConfig = ColumnFamilyConfig.defaultConfig();
+            db.createColumnFamily("test_cf", cfConfig);
+            
+            ColumnFamily cf = db.getColumnFamily("test_cf");
+            
+            // Insert data
+            try (Transaction txn = db.beginTransaction()) {
+                for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
+                    String key = String.format("key%04d", i);
+                    txn.put(cf, key.getBytes(), ("value" + i).getBytes());
+                }
+                txn.commit();
+            }
+            
+            // Both costs should be non-negative
+            double costSmall = cf.rangeCost("key0000".getBytes(), "key0010".getBytes());
+            double costLarge = cf.rangeCost("key0000".getBytes(), "key0999".getBytes());
+            assertTrue(costSmall >= 0.0, "Small range cost should be non-negative");
+            assertTrue(costLarge >= 0.0, "Large range cost should be non-negative");
+        }
+    }
+    
+    @Test
+    @Order(24)
+    void testRangeCostNullKeys() throws TidesDBException {
+        Config config = Config.builder(tempDir.resolve("testdb22").toString())
+            .numFlushThreads(2)
+            .numCompactionThreads(2)
+            .logLevel(LogLevel.INFO)
+            .blockCacheSize(64 * 1024 * 1024)
+            .maxOpenSSTables(256)
+            .build();
+        
+        try (TidesDB db = TidesDB.open(config)) {
+            ColumnFamilyConfig cfConfig = ColumnFamilyConfig.defaultConfig();
+            db.createColumnFamily("test_cf", cfConfig);
+            
+            ColumnFamily cf = db.getColumnFamily("test_cf");
+            
+            assertThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class,
+                () -> cf.rangeCost(null, "key".getBytes()));
+            assertThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class,
+                () -> cf.rangeCost("key".getBytes(), null));
+            assertThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class,
+                () -> cf.rangeCost(new byte[0], "key".getBytes()));
+            assertThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class,
+                () -> cf.rangeCost("key".getBytes(), new byte[0]));
+        }
+    }
+    
     @Test
     @Order(21)
     void testTransactionResetNullIsolation() throws TidesDBException {