Supabase Free Tier Guide: Postgres, Auth, Storage, Edge Functions, and Realtime
Supabase is an open-source Firebase alternative built around Postgres. This guide explains what the free plan includes, where it is useful, and when developers should watch for limits.
Best for prototypes, SaaS MVPs, auth-backed dashboards, and small production apps that benefit from hosted Postgres.
Be careful with long-inactive projects, storage-heavy apps, realtime-heavy products, and workloads that need backups or predictable production support.
Verified against official Supabase pages on 2026-05-22.
Supabase Free Plan Limits
The numbers below are the practical limits developers should check before choosing Supabase Free.
| Area | Free allowance | Developer note |
|---|---|---|
| Free projects | 2 active projects | Project limit applies across organizations where you are owner or admin. |
| Database | 500 MB per project | Dedicated Postgres database on shared free compute. |
| Auth | 50,000 MAU | Includes monthly active users and third-party active users on the Free plan. |
| Storage | 1 GB storage | Free projects cannot set a global file size limit above 50 MB. |
| Egress | 5 GB monthly egress | Good for APIs and small apps, not media-heavy workloads. |
| Edge Functions | 500,000 invocations | Free functions also have 256 MB memory and 150s wall-clock duration limits. |
| Realtime | 2M messages / 200 peak connections | Enough for small collaborative apps, not high-volume chat products. |
| Inactivity | Paused after 1 week | Free projects can pause after inactivity; paid organizations avoid this behavior. |
How developers should use Supabase Free
Supabase Free is strongest when it replaces several small backend building blocks at once: a relational database, authentication, storage, realtime events, and lightweight functions.
The tradeoff is that it is still a hobby-tier platform. Before using it for production, verify backup needs, project pause behavior, database size growth, traffic, and how much support your app needs.
Cloudflare Pages + Supabase + Resend
Use Cloudflare Pages for the frontend, Supabase for auth and Postgres, and Resend for transactional email. This covers a real MVP while keeping each free-tier boundary easy to monitor.
Best Supabase use cases
SaaS MVP with login and database
Use Supabase Auth, Postgres, Row Level Security, and Storage to ship a full-stack prototype without building user management from scratch.
Postgres-backed admin dashboards
Great when your app needs relational data, SQL queries, and quick browser-based inspection during development.
Realtime collaboration experiments
Realtime channels and database changes are useful for small collaborative tools, internal dashboards, and presence experiments.
Edge APIs near your database stack
Edge Functions are convenient for webhooks, lightweight API glue, auth hooks, and integrating external services such as Resend.
Alternatives to compare
Supabase Free Tier FAQ
Is Supabase free enough for a real MVP?+
Yes, for many MVPs. The free tier includes Postgres, Auth, Storage, Edge Functions, and Realtime quotas. The main risks are database size, egress, inactivity pauses, and missing production features such as backups.
Does Supabase Free require a credit card?+
Supabase lets developers start on the Free plan. Always check the current sign-up and billing flow before presenting a hard requirement, because payment method requirements can change.
What happens when a Supabase free project is inactive?+
Supabase states that free projects are paused after 1 week of inactivity. This makes Free excellent for experiments, but less ideal for unattended production apps.
Is Supabase better than Firebase?+
It depends on your data model. Supabase is often better if you want Postgres, SQL, relational constraints, and open-source portability. Firebase can be better for Google-native mobile apps and NoSQL-first workflows.
What should I avoid building on the Supabase free tier?+
Avoid media-heavy apps, high-throughput realtime chat, projects needing guaranteed uptime, and apps that cannot tolerate project pauses or missing backups.