Last updated: February 2026
When comparing Supabase and AWS, the key question isn't just about raw features, it's about how much functionality you get per dollar and how easily you can scale from a free plan to enterprise-grade infrastructure.
TL;DR — Supabase's free tier never expires and includes a full backend stack. The Pro plan ($25/mo) works for most production apps. The biggest cost surprises come from bandwidth ($0.09/GB), auth MAUs ($0.00325/user), and compute upgrades ($10–$3,730/mo). At 100K MAUs, Supabase costs ~$630/mo vs ~$3,180/mo on AWS. At 10M+ MAUs, consider migrating to AWS.
In this guide, we first break down Supabase pricing in detail — plans, overages, and what actually drives your bill — then compare each service to its closest AWS counterpart:
- Supabase Database → AWS RDS PostgreSQL
- Supabase Auth → AWS Cognito
- Supabase Storage → AWS S3
- Supabase Edge Functions → AWS Lambda
- Supabase Realtime (Messages) → AWS SQS/SNS
Supabase Pricing
Supabase uses a tier-based pricing model with usage-based overages. There are four plans:
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | Side projects, prototyping |
| Pro | $25/month | Production apps, small teams |
| Team | $599/month | Scaling teams, SOC2 compliance |
| Enterprise | Custom | Large orgs, SLAs, dedicated support |
Free vs Paid
The Free plan is generous — you get a full-stack backend (database, auth, storage, edge functions, realtime) with no time limit. But it comes with hard caps: 500MB database, 1GB storage, 50K auth users, and shared compute. Projects also pause after 1 week of inactivity.
The Pro plan at $25/month removes pausing, bumps the database to 8GB, storage to 100GB, and bandwidth to 250GB. Beyond those limits, you pay per-unit overages. For most production apps, the Pro plan is where real usage starts.
What Drives Real Cost
At scale, three factors dominate your Supabase bill:
- Bandwidth — At $0.09/GB beyond the included 250GB, egress adds up fast. A media-heavy app serving 5TB/month could see $400+ in bandwidth alone.
- Auth MAUs — Free up to the plan's included MAUs, but at $0.00325/MAU on the Pro/Team plan, 1M active users means $2,925/month just for auth.
- Compute add-ons — The base Pro plan uses a small instance. Upgrading to a dedicated 2-core/8GB instance costs $110/month; a 16-core/64GB instance is $960/month.
Database storage and file storage overages exist but are relatively cheap ($0.125/GB and $0.021/GB respectively). The real surprise on most bills comes from bandwidth and compute, not storage.
Supabase Pricing Breakdown: Free vs Paid
| Resource | Free Plan | Paid Plans (Pro $25/mo+) |
|---|---|---|
| Database | 500MB, shared CPU | 8GB included, then $0.125/GB |
| Auth (MAUs) | 50,000 | 100,000 included, then $0.00325/MAU |
| Storage | 1GB | 100GB included, then $0.021/GB |
| Bandwidth | 5GB | 250GB included, then $0.09/GB |
| Edge Functions | 500K invocations | 2M included, then $2/million |
| Realtime | 500K messages | 2M included, then $2/million |
| Backups | 7-day snapshots | 7-day (Pro) / 14-day (Team) |
| Compute | Shared, pauses after 1 week | Dedicated from $10/mo, up to $3,730/mo |
For a deeper look at database-specific costs, see Supabase vs AWS Database Pricing (2026).
Common Supabase Pricing Questions
Is Supabase free?
Yes. Supabase offers a permanent free tier with 500MB database, 1GB storage, 50K monthly active users, and 500K edge function calls. Unlike AWS, there is no 12-month expiration. The main limitation is that free projects pause after one week of inactivity.
How much does Supabase cost for production?
Most production apps run on the Pro plan at $25/month plus overages. A typical small-to-medium app (10K MAUs, 20GB database, 50GB storage) costs around $27/month. A growing app (100K MAUs, 200GB DB, 5TB bandwidth) can reach $630/month, with bandwidth being the largest cost driver.
What are the hidden costs of Supabase?
The biggest surprises come from bandwidth overages ($0.09/GB beyond 250GB), compute add-ons (required for performance-sensitive apps), and auth MAU charges at scale. Compute add-ons are billed independently of the spend cap, meaning they can increase your bill even with the cap enabled.
Is Supabase cheaper than AWS?
At startup and mid-scale, yes — significantly. A startup running 10K MAUs pays ~$27/month on Supabase vs ~$75/month on AWS. A growing business at 100K MAUs pays ~$630/month on Supabase vs ~$3,180/month on AWS. However, at hyperscale (10M+ MAUs), Supabase hits architectural limits and AWS becomes more viable. Many teams start on Supabase and migrate to AWS as they scale.
Who This Pricing Model Fits
- Startups and indie developers — Supabase's free tier and $25/month Pro plan are hard to beat for getting a full-stack backend running fast. No AWS accounts, no infrastructure management, no surprise bills from misconfigured services.
- Growing product teams — Up to ~100K MAUs and a few TB of data, Supabase remains cost-effective and operationally simple. The biggest decision is when to upgrade compute and whether bandwidth costs justify a CDN.
- Regulated or large organizations — Supabase's Team ($599/mo) and Enterprise plans offer SOC2, SSO, and extended support. But at enterprise scale, teams often need finer control over database change management, networking, and compliance — which may mean supplementing Supabase with dedicated tooling or migrating parts of the stack to AWS.
Supabase vs AWS: Feature by Feature
🗄️ Database: Supabase DB vs AWS RDS
Supabase: Built-in PostgreSQL with real-time, REST API, and simple pricing.
AWS RDS/Aurora: Fully managed PostgreSQL with high configurability, performance tuning, and multi-AZ support.
🧬 Supabase is easier and more predictable. RDS gives more control and is better for compliance-heavy or complex workloads.
See our full comparison here: Supabase vs AWS Database Pricing (2026)
- Supabase bundles compute, storage, backup, and bandwidth into flat tiers.
- AWS RDS offers cheaper options if you commit to Reserved Instances, but requires piecing together compute, storage, backup, and bandwidth costs.
➡️ If you want more predictable cost and fast setup, choose Supabase. If you need performance tuning or compliance, go with RDS.
🔐 Auth: Supabase Auth vs AWS Cognito
Supabase: Easy-to-use auth system with social login, magic links, phone support, and DB integration.
AWS Cognito: Feature-rich identity management with SSO, federation, and enterprise IAM support.
🧬 Supabase Auth is simpler and developer-friendly, great for fast setup and apps with straightforward auth needs. Cognito is better for enterprises that require SSO, security compliance, and deep AWS integration.
| Feature | Supabase Auth | AWS Cognito |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | 50,000 MAUs | 10,000 MAUs |
| Paid Pricing | $0.00325/MAU | $0.015/MAU (Essentials) |
| SSO Support | Enterprise plan only | Included (OIDC, SAML) |
| MFA / Passwords | Included | Included |
| Rate Limits | Generous | Strict (especially SAML) |
➡️ Choose Supabase if you want fast, simple auth for your apps. However, as your business grows, your team will likely need a more sophisticated auth solution. Cognito is one option, but many teams also consider Okta, Azure Entra, or WorkOS.
📦 Storage: Supabase Storage vs AWS S3
Supabase: S3-compatible storage with built-in access control, REST API, and CDN.
AWS S3: Scalable object store with advanced features and global durability.
🧬 Supabase is easier to use for app developers. S3 is more powerful and flexible for enterprise-scale needs.
| Feature | Supabase Storage | AWS S3 |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | 1GB | 5GB (12 months only) |
| Paid Pricing | $0.021/GB | $0.023/GB (Standard) |
| API | Simple REST | REST/S3 SDKs |
| Permissions | Built-in (row-level) | IAM Policies |
| CDN | Included | Optional (CloudFront) |
➡️ It seems that Supabase Storage is built on top of AWS S3, providing an easy-to-use interface and lower pricing—likely due to volume discounts they can secure. The tradeoff is reduced flexibility in managing the underlying S3 buckets directly.
⚙️ Edge Functions: Supabase vs AWS Lambda
Supabase: Deno-based edge functions with tight database integration and minimal cold starts.
AWS Lambda: Flexible, multi-runtime functions with deep AWS service integration.
🧬 Supabase is simpler for edge APIs. Lambda is better for complex logic, language flexibility, and AWS ecosystem workflows.
| Feature | Supabase Edge Functions | AWS Lambda |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | 500,000 invocations | 1 million requests/month |
| Runtime | Deno | Node.js, Python, etc. |
| Cold Starts | Minimal | Varies by region |
| Region | Global edge | Region-based |
| Request Cost | $2 per million (includes compute) | $0.20 per million (requests only) |
| Compute Cost | Included in flat price | Additional: $0.00001667 per GB-s |
- Supabase charges a flat fee per call — simpler but may appear higher at first glance.
- AWS Lambda splits billing into two parts:
- Requests (cheap)
- Compute (based on memory x execution time), which can add up.
➡️ Supabase Edge charges only an invocation fee, while AWS Lambda has separate charges for invocations and compute time, measured in GB-seconds. Additionally, AWS Lambda supports a wider range of runtimes.
📡 Realtime: Supabase Messages vs AWS SQS/SNS
Supabase: WebSocket-based realtime updates triggered by PostgreSQL changes. Great for simple in-app messaging and live UIs.
AWS SQS/SNS: Scalable, fully managed messaging services. Ideal for decoupled, event-driven architectures and backend pipelines.
🧬 Supabase is great for realtime UX. AWS is better for complex, distributed systems.
| Feature | Supabase Realtime | AWS SQS / SNS |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | 500,000 messages/month | 1 million requests/month |
| Pub/Sub | Built-in | SNS only |
| Queueing | Limited | SQS provides advanced queueing |
| Integration | PostgreSQL triggers | Broad: Lambda, S3, EC2, etc. |
| Pricing | $2 per million messages (flat) | $0.40–$0.50 per million requests + delivery & data transfer costs |
- Supabase charges a flat fee per message, making pricing simple and predictable.
- AWS SQS/SNS charges separately for requests, message delivery, and data transfer, offering greater flexibility and scalability for complex event-driven systems.
- SQS Standard: ~$0.40 per million requests
- SNS: ~$0.50 per million publishes
- Additional charges: Message delivery (e.g., to Lambda, HTTP endpoints, or SQS) and Data transfer if messages cross regions
➡️ Supabase Realtime charges a flat fee per message, making pricing simple and predictable. AWS SQS/SNS charges separately for requests, message delivery, and data transfer, offering greater flexibility and scalability for complex event-driven systems.
💰 Pricing Comparison by Tier
💡 About AWS Reserved Pricing
The AWS prices shown below are based on on-demand usage, which is flexible but more expensive. If you commit to 1-year or 3-year Reserved Instances (RIs), you can cut costs by 30–70% — especially for RDS and Lambda.
For example:
- RDS db.m5.large (Multi-AZ) drops from $250+/mo to ~$145/mo (1-year RI, no upfront)
- Lambda and compute costs can be reduced via Compute Savings Plans
✅ Use on-demand for flexibility. 🔐 Use Reserved pricing for long-term, cost-optimized workloads — but it comes with lock-in.
🧪 0. Free Tier
| Feature | Supabase | AWS |
|---|---|---|
| Database | ✅ Shared CPU /500MB PostgreSQL | ⚠️ 2 vCPU (burstable) / 1GB RAM for t4g.micro (12 months) |
| Auth | ✅ 50K MAUs | ⚠️ 10K MAUs (Cognito) |
| Storage | ✅ 1GB w/ CDN | ⚠️ 5GB (12 months, no CDN) |
| Functions | ✅ 500K Edge calls | ✅ 1M Lambda calls |
| Messaging | ✅ 500K Realtime messages | ✅ 1M SQS/SNS messages |
🔍 Supabase offers a complete full-stack platform for free, with no expiration. AWS has generous limits — but database and storage expire after 12 months.
🚀 1. Startup (10K MAUs, 20GB DB, 50GB Storage, 500GB bandwidth)
Supabase – $26.50/month
| Included Service | Details |
|---|---|
| Pro Plan | 8GB DB, 100GB storage, 250GB bandwidth |
| DB Storage Overage | 12GB extra @ $0.125/GB = $1.50 |
| Auth, Functions, Messaging | Included in plan |
| Bandwidth | Still within free 250GB – no charge |
✅ Flat, all-inclusive plan with tiny storage add-on.
AWS – $75.00/month (on-demand)
- 1-Year RI Estimate: ~$67.73/month
- 3-Year RI Estimate: ~$59.47/month
| Service | Cost (On-Demand) | 1-Year RI (est. -30%) | 3-Year RI (est. -60%) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDS (db.t3.small) | $24.82 | $17.37 | $9.93 | 1 vCPU, 2GB RAM |
| RDS Storage (20GB) | $2.30 | — | — | General-purpose SSD |
| Cognito (10K MAUs) | $0.00 | — | — | Within free tier |
| S3 (50GB) | $1.15 | — | — | $0.023/GB |
| Bandwidth (500GB) | $45.00 | — | — | $0.09/GB |
| Lambda (1M execs) | $2.73 | $1.91 | $1.09 | 512MB, 200ms duration |
| SQS (1M requests) | $0.50 | — | — | SNS publish cost |
⚠️ Most cost comes from bandwidth. Setup involves configuring 5+ services.
📈 2. Growing Business (100K MAUs, 200GB DB, 1TB Storage, 5TB bandwidth)
Supabase – $630.40/month
| Service | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pro Plan Base | $25.00 | Includes basic DB, auth, 100GB storage |
| Extra DB Storage (192GB) | $24.00 | $0.125/GB beyond included 8GB |
| Compute Upgrade | $60.00 | 2-core ARM, 4GB RAM |
| Extra Storage (900GB) | $18.90 | $0.021/GB beyond included 100GB |
| Bandwidth (4.75TB) | $427.50 | $0.09/GB beyond 250GB included |
| Edge Functions | $50.00 | Estimate for high usage |
| Messaging | $25.00 | Estimate for 10M events |
✅ Integrated platform; all services billed under one umbrella.
AWS – $3,180.59/month (on-demand)
- 1-Year RI Estimate: ~$2,855.69/month
- 3-Year RI Estimate: ~$2,530.79/month
| Service | Cost (On-Demand) | 1-Year RI (est. -30%) | 3-Year RI (est. -60%) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDS (db.m5.large Multi-AZ) | $249.66 | $174.76 | $99.86 | 2 vCPU, 8GB RAM |
| RDS Storage (200GB) | $46.00 | — | — | SSD, replicated |
| Cognito (90K MAUs) | $1,350.00 | — | — | $0.015/MAU |
| Lambda (50M execs) | $833.33 | $583.33 | $333.33 | 1GB, 500ms execs |
| S3 (1TB) | $23.00 | — | — | $0.023/GB |
| Bandwidth (5TB) | $450.00 | — | — | Tiered pricing |
| API Gateway | $175.00 | — | — | 50M HTTP requests |
| CloudWatch | $50.00 | — | — | Monitoring |
| SQS (10M requests) | $3.60 | — | — | $0.40 per million |
⚠️ More expensive due to metered pricing across services. Complex to manage.
🏢 3. Enterprise (1.5M MAUs, 2TB DB, 50TB Storage, 100TB bandwidth)
Supabase – $19,383.40/month
| Service | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Team Plan | $599.00 | Enterprise features + support |
| DB Storage (2TB) | $249.00 | Extra beyond base plan |
| Compute (4XL) | $960.00 | 16-core ARM, 64GB RAM |
| Auth (1.5M MAUs) | $4,550.00 | $0.00325 per MAU beyond 100K included |
| Storage (50TB) | $1,047.90 | $0.021/GB beyond 100GB |
| Bandwidth (100TB) | $8,977.50 | $0.09/GB beyond 250GB |
| Edge Functions | $2,000.00 | Custom pricing |
| Messaging | $1,000.00 | Custom pricing |
✅ Predictable, transparent billing; all services built-in.
AWS – $73,122.81/month (on-demand)
- 1-Year RI Estimate: ~$62,330.91/month
- 3-Year RI Estimate: ~$51,539.00/month
| Service | Cost (On-Demand) | 1-Year RI (est. -30%) | 3-Year RI (est. -60%) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDS (r5.4xlarge Multi-AZ) | $2,639.68 | $1,847.78 | $1,055.87 | 16 vCPU, 128GB RAM |
| RDS Storage (2TB IOPS) | $2,500.00 | — | — | High-performance SSD |
| Cognito (1.5M MAUs) | $22,350.00 | — | — | $0.015/MAU (Essentials) |
| Lambda (1B execs) | $33,333.33 | $23,333.33 | $13,333.33 | 2GB RAM, 1s duration |
| S3 (50TB) | $1,100.00 | — | — | Tiered pricing |
| Bandwidth (100TB) | $7,000.00 | — | — | Tiered egress |
| API Gateway | $3,500.00 | — | — | 1B HTTP requests |
| CloudWatch | $500.00 | — | — | Logging + monitoring |
| SQS (500M messages) | $199.80 | — | — | $0.40 per million messages |
⚠️ Enterprise-grade everything — but costs are 3–4x higher.
🧠 4. Hyperscale (10M MAUs, 10TB DB, 200TB Storage, 500TB Bandwidth)
At this scale, you're operating at a level that most platforms — including Supabase — aren't built to serve out of the box.
Supabase – ❌ Not Recommended at This Scale
Supabase’s architecture is optimized for small to mid-sized applications. While enterprise plans exist, the platform:
- Does not offer horizontal scalability for PostgreSQL (no native sharding or clustering).
- Becomes cost-prohibitive with 10M+ MAUs due to flat per-user pricing.
- Lacks fine-grained controls over networking, observability, and infrastructure.
- May require custom support contracts and offloading core services (e.g., auth to WorkOS, storage to S3) to be viable.
⚠️ Supabase is a great tool for rapid product development, but most teams at this scale migrate to cloud-native stacks like AWS, GCP, or Azure for performance, reliability, and cost control.
✅ If you're approaching hyperscale, you can still start with Supabase — but architect with portability in mind.
AWS – $247,742.81/month (on-demand)
| Service | On-Demand | 1-Year RI (est. -30%) | 3-Year RI (est. -60%) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDS (r6i.8xlarge Multi-AZ) | $10,560.00 | $7,392.00 | $4,224.00 | 32 vCPU, 256GB RAM x2 |
| RDS Storage (10TB IOPS) | $12,500.00 | — | — | High IOPS SSD |
| Cognito (9.99M MAUs) | $149,850.00 | — | — | $0.015/MAU (Essentials) |
| Lambda (10B execs) | $33,333.33 | $23,333.33 | $13,333.33 | 2GB, 1s exec duration |
| S3 (200TB) | $4,000.00 | — | — | Tiered pricing |
| Bandwidth (500TB) | $35,000.00 | — | — | Tiered egress |
| API Gateway (10B reqs) | $6,000.00 | — | — | $3.50/million HTTP requests |
| CloudWatch | $1,000.00 | — | — | Extended logs and metrics |
| SQS (1B messages) | $499.48 | — | — | $0.40 per million messages |
✅ AWS is built for hyperscale: global infra, granular optimization, and predictable cost control through Reserved Instances and architectural tuning.
🧠 Final Thoughts
Supabase is a fantastic platform for startups and growing teams — offering a unified experience, generous free tier, and simple pricing across auth, database, storage, edge functions, and realtime.
It’s ideal for:
- Prototypes and MVPs
- Small-to-mid-scale production apps
- Teams that want to move fast without managing infrastructure
But as your product reaches hyperscale — millions of users, terabytes of data, and high-throughput compute — Supabase starts to hit architectural and economic limits:
- PostgreSQL isn’t horizontally scalable in their setup
- Auth and bandwidth costs grow steeply
- Fine-grained performance tuning and compliance become difficult
🛣️ Scale Path
➡️ Many teams start with Supabase to move quickly, then gradually offload services (auth, compute, storage) to cloud-native infrastructure like AWS, GCP, or Azure as scale and complexity grow.
✅ Choose Supabase if you want a fast, simple way to build and scale to your first million users. ✅ Choose AWS if you need performance at scale, deep customization, or global enterprise-grade infrastructure.
👉 For a deep dive into database-specific pricing, see: Supabase vs AWS Database Pricing (2026)
