FREE TOOLS

Supabase: Postgres backend with a genuinely usable free tier

By AiCoN | Published 22 October 2026 | Sources checked 22 October 2026

Supabase gives your app a real Postgres database, login system, file storage and realtime updates - without building a backend yourself. Its free tier is genuinely usable for learning and side projects: 500 MB database, 1 GB storage and unlimited API requests, with a couple of limits to know about.

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Image: official Supabase Studio screenshot, from the Supabase GitHub repository.

Quick facts

What it is: an open-source backend platform - often called the open-source alternative to Firebase. Every project is a full Postgres database plus auth, file storage, realtime subscriptions and Edge Functions.
Free tier: $0 - 500 MB database size, 1 GB file storage, 5 GB egress (bandwidth), 2 active projects, unlimited API requests. Free projects pause after 1 week of inactivity and can be unpaused from the dashboard.
Paid: Pro from $25/month (about ₹2,360), which includes $10/month compute credits covering one project - 8 GB disk, 250 GB egress, 100 GB storage, and no pausing. Dollar conversion uses the mid-market rate of about ₹94 per US dollar (rateswale.com, 22 October 2026) and is approximate.
Use it your way: connect with psql, Prisma, Drizzle or any Postgres client; you do not have to use every feature - but compute is billed per project, so costs are per project, not per product.
Best for: students and developers building real apps - chat apps, dashboards, final-year projects - who want SQL skills that transfer to jobs.

What it is

Instead of stitching together a database, login system and file storage, Supabase hands you all of them as one project with instant APIs. Because it is real Postgres underneath, everything you learn (SQL, joins, indexes) is a standard, hireable skill - not a proprietary system. Row Level Security lets you control who can read or write which rows. The platform is open source, so you can also self-host it later if a project outgrows the hosted service.

Is it free?

There is a real free tier, yes - the official pricing page confirms the Free plan is $0 with a 500 MB database, 1 GB file storage, 5 GB egress and unlimited API requests, limited to 2 active projects. It is a free tier, not unlimited free hosting. The one behaviour to know: free projects are paused when they show low activity over a 7-day period - the official pausing guide says a few user database requests a day is typically enough to stay active, and Supabase emails a warning about a week before pausing. Visiting the project in the Supabase Dashboard or generating API activity prevents the pause. A paused project can be restored from the dashboard for up to 1 year after it was paused; backups are retained only for a limited period, so do not leave a project paused indefinitely. Pausing makes the free tier wrong for always-on production apps. Projects on paid plans cannot be paused and are not subject to automatic pausing for inactivity (Pro starts at $25/month, about ₹2,360). Compute is billed per project; Pro and Team plans include $10/month in compute credits, which covers one Micro instance. All figures are the vendor's published pricing, checked 22 October 2026.

India

When creating a project you choose a server region - pick one close to your users for lower latency.
The free tier needs no card to start - good for students.
Postgres + auth skills map directly to what Indian product companies and startups use.

Good to know

Watch egress: 5 GB/month on the free plan is fine for learning but easy to cross with image-heavy apps - serve big media from a CDN or compressed formats.
Watch for Supabase's warning email about a week before a pause; opening the project in the dashboard or making a few API calls keeps it active, per the official guide.
Enable Row Level Security on every table before putting real user data in - the dashboard warns you, follow it.
Database backups and point-in-time recovery are paid features; export your data yourself on the free plan.

AiCoN checkSource-based verification on 22 October 2026: we read the official Supabase pricing page and used the project's own dashboard screenshot above. Free-tier limits (500 MB database, 1 GB storage, 5 GB egress, 2 active projects), unlimited API requests on all plans, Pro pricing with compute credits and per-project compute billing are from the pricing page; the 7-day low-activity pause rule, the dashboard-visit prevention step, the warning email and the 1-year restore window are from the official pausing guide; they are the vendor's published figures, not something we purchased or tested. We did not create a project for this article.

Frequently asked questions

Is Supabase free?

It has a genuine free tier: $0 with a 500 MB database, 1 GB storage, 5 GB egress and unlimited API requests. Free projects pause after 1 week of inactivity, and heavier usage needs a paid plan.

What happens when my free project pauses?

It stops serving requests until you restore it from the dashboard - possible for up to 1 year after pausing. Backups are retained only for a limited period, so restore sooner rather than later.

Supabase vs Firebase?

Supabase is open source and uses standard Postgres (SQL), while Firebase is Google's proprietary platform. Supabase skills transfer anywhere SQL is used.

Sources: Supabase pricing, Supabase, Supabase pausing guide, USD-INR rate. Checked 22 October 2026.