Supabase Free Tier Limits: What Actually You Need to Know in 2026

BLUF – Supabase free tier is permanent and requires no credit card. But there is one operational detail that catches most developers off guard: free projects pause automatically after 7 days without a database request. The limits are easy to find. What to do about the pause is not. This post covers both.

If a free Supabase project stays inactive for 7 days, Supabase automatically pauses it. This happens because free projects run on shared infrastructure, and keeping unused projects active still costs resources. Pausing inactive projects helps Supabase maintain its free tier sustainably.

When a project is paused, it does not count against your 2-project limit. However, it becomes completely unavailable until you log into the Supabase dashboard and manually unpause it.

The honest reality is that this pause is a genuine operational problem for projects with irregular traffic. If you are building an internal tool that your team uses a few times a week, or a side project you check on weekends, your project can pause between sessions. That is a real disruption, and it is worth planning for.

The 3 Keep-Alive Workarounds (And What Each One Costs You)

All three options below prevent the pause by sending a database request before the 7-day window closes. None of them are perfect, and all of them add something to maintain.

Workaround 1: Cron Job Ping

Set up a scheduled script that sends a lightweight query, such as a simple SELECT, to your Supabase database every 5 to 6 days. Setup takes around 15 minutes. The risk is that this workaround depends entirely on your cron host staying online. If the cron service goes down, your project still pauses.

Workaround 2: GitHub Actions Scheduled Workflow

Create a .github/workflows YAML file with a schedule trigger that runs a curl command or Supabase CLI command against your project. Setup takes around 20 minutes. The workflow is version-controlled, and GitHub Actions uptime is generally reliable.

If your repo is public, this runs for free.

If your repo is private, it counts against your GitHub Actions minutes, which have their own free tier limit. Verify your usage before relying on this for a private repo.

Note that GitHub integration became available on the free plan in April 2026, so this workaround no longer requires a Pro subscription.

Workaround 3: Uptime Robot Monitor

Configure a free HTTP monitor in Uptime Robot pointing at your Supabase project URL. It pings every 5 minutes by default. Setup takes around 5 minutes and requires no code. Uptime Robot’s free tier supports up to 50 monitors. The downside is that you are adding another third-party service to your stack, and Uptime Robot’s free tier has its own limits.

All three workarounds are reasonable for genuine side projects and MVPs in active development. They are not appropriate for any project where uptime reliability actually matters to real users.

When to Stop Going For Work Arounds and Just Upgrade

The Supabase Pro plan costs $25 per month per project. Upgrading removes the inactivity pause entirely. It also adds daily backups and email support.

Upgrade when any of these conditions are true: the workaround is taking more than 30 minutes per month to maintain, your project has real users who will notice downtime, or uptime has started to matter for your use case.

Do not upgrade just because of the pause if your project is genuinely low-stakes. A developer with a hobby project and 20 minutes to set up a GitHub Actions workflow does not need to pay $25 per month.

Also note that the pause is not the only reason to upgrade. If you are hitting the 500MB database storage limit or approaching 50,000 monthly active users, those limits are the real signal to upgrade, not the pause. The Pro plan raises both of those ceilings significantly.

If you are reconsidering Supabase entirely, see our list of Supabase alternatives worth considering.

What Changed for Free Tier Users in 2026

The core free tier limits, which are 500MB database storage, 50,000 monthly active users, and 5GB outbound bandwidth, have not changed in 2026.

Two updates are worth knowing about.

• First, GitHub integration is now available on all plans including free, as of April 2026. This makes the GitHub Actions workaround accessible without a Pro subscription.
• Second, Supabase is rolling out a change to how tables are exposed through the Data API.

New projects created after May 30, 2026 must add explicit Postgres grants for PostgREST access. Existing free projects are affected from October 30, 2026. If your project queries data through the auto-generated REST API, check whether you need to add explicit grants before that date. Confirm the exact scope of this change for your specific project before October 30.

The Actual Limits at a Glance (2026)

Row Level Security is available on the free tier. If you are running into RLS policy issues, see our guide on how to fix Supabase RLS errors. pgvector is also included on all plans including free, which is useful if you are building with AI embeddings.

Ship Faster with IT Path Solutions

If you are spending time managing keep-alive scripts and infrastructure workarounds, that time is not going into your product. IT Path Solutions helps early-stage teams build and ship faster without getting stuck on backend configuration.

Know more about how we work with our ship faster projects at IT Path Solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Supabase free tier forever?

Yes. Supabase’s free tier has no time limit and requires no credit card. Projects remain on the free plan indefinitely as long as you stay within the resource limits, which are 500MB database storage, 50,000 monthly active users, and 5GB outbound bandwidth. The only caveat is that individual free projects pause automatically after 7 days without a database request. You need to manually unpause them through the Supabase dashboard.

2. Does Supabase free tier pause projects?

Yes. Any free tier project that receives no database requests for 7 consecutive days is automatically paused by Supabase to reclaim shared compute resources. The project does not count against your 2-project limit while paused, but it will be unavailable until you log in to the Supabase dashboard and manually unpause it. Three workarounds can prevent the pause: a cron ping, a GitHub Actions scheduled workflow, or an Uptime Robot monitor.

3. What are the limits of Supabase free tier?

Supabase’s free tier in 2026 includes 500MB database storage, 500MB shared RAM, 50,000 monthly active users, 1GB file storage, 5GB outbound bandwidth, 500,000 Edge Function invocations per month, and unlimited API requests. You can have up to 2 active projects. Free projects pause after 7 days of inactivity. Commercial use is permitted and no credit card is required. The core resource limits have not changed in 2026.

4. Is Supabase free tier for commercial use?

Yes. Supabase explicitly permits commercial use on the free tier. You can launch a real product and serve paying customers without upgrading. The practical constraints are operational, not legal. The 7-day inactivity pause, the 500MB database cap, and the 50,000 monthly active user limit are the points where a commercial project typically needs to upgrade to Supabase Pro at $25 per month per project.

5. Did Supabase change its free tier in 2026?

The core resource limits, which are 500MB database storage, 50,000 monthly active users, and 5GB bandwidth, remain unchanged in 2026. Two updates affect free tier users. GitHub integration is now available on all plans including free, as of April 2026. A new explicit Postgres grants requirement for the Data API is rolling out for new projects from May 30, 2026 and for existing projects from October 30, 2026. Confirm how this affects your specific project before the October 30 deadline.

6. How does Supabase free tier compare to Firebase?

Supabase’s free tier offers a dedicated Postgres database, Row Level Security, and 50,000 monthly active users. Firebase’s Spark plan uses a NoSQL Firestore model with different read and write quotas. Supabase’s primary operational disadvantage is the 7-day inactivity pause, which Firebase does not impose. For teams comfortable with SQL and open-source tooling, Supabase’s free tier is generally considered more capable for structured data use cases. Verify current Firebase Spark plan limits before making a direct comparison, as those figures change independently.