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  2. Supabase vs Firebase vs Neon for an app database

Supabase vs Firebase vs Neon for an app database

Picking a database is usually the first big decision in a new app, so here's the straight version. All three start free. Supabase charges a flat monthly fee once you outgrow its free plan, Firebase charges for every read and write, and Neon charges for the hours your database is awake. So the cheapest one depends on how your app behaves, not just how big it gets.

Priced from vendor pages
Prices checked
21 Oct 2026
Exchange rate
1 USD = £0.7489
Sources
5
How we check

The answer

For a small app that's busy every day, Firebase is cheapest at about £0.89 a month, then Neon at £7.67 and Supabase Pro at £18.72. Supabase barely moves as you grow (£18.91 in our bigger example), while Neon climbs fastest if it's awake around the clock (£31.60). Firebase only stays cheap while your screens read data sensibly: one query that loads a whole collection can multiply the bill. All three cost £0.00 to start.

What does an app database cost, from first user to a busy little app?

Supabase

Free (500 MB database, pauses after a week idle) or Pro $25/mo (8 GB disk included)

  • Real Postgres with sign-in, file storage and security rules in the same project. Once you're on Pro the bill hardly changes as you grow, which makes budgeting easy.

The free plan caps the database at 500 MB and pauses after a week with no activity, so most live apps end up on Pro. Disk beyond the 8 GB included costs $0.125 per GB.

Free plan Free (pauses after 1 week idle)Small live app: 2 GB of data, used every day £18.72Growing app: 10 GB of data, always on £18.91

Firebase

Spark (free, no card) or Blaze (pay as you go, with the same free daily quotas)

  • Tiny bills for apps with modest traffic, because the free daily quotas carry over onto the paid plan. A natural fit for mobile apps that want sign-in and data from one place.

You pay per document read, so the bill follows how your app is written, not how many users you have. Firestore stores documents rather than tables, which makes reporting, or moving to SQL later, harder. File storage and phone sign-in need Blaze with a card on file.

Free plan FreeSmall live app: 2 GB of data, used every day £0.89Growing app: 10 GB of data, always on £9.03

Neon

Free (100 compute hours a month, 1 GB per project) or Launch (pay as you go, no monthly minimum)

  • Plain Postgres that switches itself off when nobody's using it, so a quiet app costs very little. You only pay for the hours it's awake.

An app that's busy around the clock costs more here than on Supabase Pro. Neon is just the database: sign-in and file storage have to come from somewhere else.

Free plan Free (sleeps after 5 min idle)Small live app: 2 GB of data, used every day £7.67Growing app: 10 GB of data, always on £31.60
Free planFree (pauses after 1 week idle)
Free planFree
Free planFree (sleeps after 5 min idle)
Small live app: 2 GB of data, used every day£18.72
Small live app: 2 GB of data, used every day£0.89
Small live app: 2 GB of data, used every day£7.67
Growing app: 10 GB of data, always on£18.91
Growing app: 10 GB of data, always on£9.03
Growing app: 10 GB of data, always on£31.60

Monthly cost in pounds, from each vendor's pricing page. Lowest figures compared for the usage examples described.

How we worked it out

  • Supabase Pro $25 × 0.7489 = £18.72 (18.7225). The free plan's 500 MB limit means a 2 GB database needs Pro.
  • Supabase growing app: Pro $25 + 2 GB of disk over the 8 GB included × $0.125 = $25.25 × 0.7489 = £18.91 (18.9097). We assumed compute stays on the Micro size that Pro's $10 compute credit covers.
  • Firebase small app: 150,000 reads, 25,000 writes and under 20,000 deletes a day. Reads over the free 50,000 a day: 3,000,000 a month × $0.03 per 100,000 = $0.90. Writes over the free 20,000 a day: 150,000 × $0.09 per 100,000 = $0.135. Storage over the free 1 GiB: 1 GiB × about $0.15 = $0.15. Total $1.185 × 0.7489 = £0.89 (0.8874).
  • Firebase growing app: 1,000,000 reads and 100,000 writes a day with 10 GiB stored. Reads 28,500,000 × $0.03 per 100,000 = $8.55; writes 2,400,000 × $0.09 per 100,000 = $2.16; storage 9 GiB × about $0.15 = $1.35. Total $12.06 × 0.7489 = £9.03 (9.0317).
  • Google lists Firestore storage at $0.000205479 per GiB and says storage is charged per GiB-month, calculated daily; we've worked that out as about $0.15 per GiB a month. We used the first rates Google lists. Some locations cost more, so check yours.
  • Neon small app: a 0.25 CU compute (about 1 GB of RAM) awake 12 hours a day = 90 CU-hours × $0.106 = $9.54, plus 2 GB × $0.35 = $0.70. Total $10.24 × 0.7489 = £7.67 (7.6687). The free plan's 1 GB storage limit means this needs Launch.
  • Neon growing app: 0.5 CU awake all month (730 hours) = 365 CU-hours × $0.106 = $38.69, plus 10 GB × $0.35 = $3.50. Total $42.19 × 0.7489 = £31.60 (31.5961).
  • These are worked examples, not quotes. They exclude VAT, backups, extra data transfer and add-ons.

Sources