# Supabase vs AWS: Feature and Pricing Comparison (2026)

> Supabase pricing starts free. We break down real costs for Pro ($25/mo) and Team ($599/mo) plans, explain overages, and compare each service head-to-head with AWS.

Adela | 2026-02-06 | Source: https://www.bytebase.com/blog/supabase-vs-aws-pricing/

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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

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## 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:

1. **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.
2. **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.
3. **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)](/blog/supabase-vs-aws-database-pricing/).

---

## 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](/blog/how-to-migrate-from-supabase-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](/blog/what-is-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)](/blog/supabase-vs-aws-database-pricing/)

- 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)](/blog/supabase-vs-aws-database-pricing/)