Supabase vs Convex 2026: Per-Project vs Per-Dev Pricing

Pick Supabase if you want Postgres and SQL, or if more than one or two developers will touch the backend; pick Convex if you are a small TypeScript team building a realtime app and want the database, functions and sync in one reactive layer. Both paid plans start at $25 a month, but Supabase Pro charges per organization plus compute, while Convex Professional charges that amount for each developer.

That difference decides the bill more than any usage line. A solo developer pays the same on either. A five-person team pays Supabase for compute and Convex for headcount, and by ten developers the gap is large enough to matter in a seed-stage budget.

Prices were read on 19 October 2026 on Supabase's pricing page and billing docs, and on Convex's pricing page, its pricing FAQ and its limits documentation. Toolradar data: Supabase is listed as an alternative to 80 other tools on Toolradar, second of 114 low-code backend tools, while Convex is listed as an alternative to 2, as of October 2026 (Supabase, Convex). Supabase is the backend buyers shortlist by default; Convex is the one they reach after deciding they want a reactive model.

Supabase vs Convex at a glance

Prices as of Oct 2026, verified on vendor pages. Convex resource rates are those shown for its US East (N. Virginia) region, which the pricing page lists at standard pricing.

How each one bills

Supabase bills the organization, then each project's server. One Pro subscription covers every project in the organization. Each project runs its own Postgres instance, billed by compute size: Micro at $10 a month, Small at $15, Medium at $60 and Large at $110, with larger sizes above that. Paid plans include $10 a month in compute credits, which covers one Micro instance. Usage quotas such as egress and monthly active users are pooled across the organization.

Convex bills the people who build, then the resources they use. Professional charges a seat for each developer and includes generous resource allowances for the whole team. Usage across all projects is summed per Convex team, so a second app does not add a fee. There is also a Starter option between the two: Free's resources with pay-as-you-go pricing beyond them instead of hard caps, for no monthly fee.

The practical difference: on Supabase, adding a teammate is free and adding a bigger server costs money. On Convex, adding a project costs nothing and adding a teammate adds a seat. Price the variable your team will grow fastest.

What a team pays each month

Our scenario: monthly cost on each vendor's published prices, read 19 October 2026, with usage inside the included quotas. Totals are our arithmetic: Supabase is the Pro fee plus compute minus the $10 credit; Convex is developers times the seat price.

Convex costs more for every team past one developer in this table, and the gap grows with headcount, not traffic. Supabase's bill grows when the database needs more memory: moving production from Large to the 16 GB XL at $210 adds $100 a month, whatever the team size.

The table understates two things on Supabase. Compute is what you pay for even when traffic is light, so an oversized instance is wasted money; and each extra preview or feature project adds its own compute. On Convex, Professional allows up to 300 deployments per team with no per-deployment fee, so preview environments cost nothing extra until usage passes the allowance.

Included usage, side by side

Supabase is roomier on egress; Convex is roomier on database storage. An app that serves large files or heavy API responses gets five times the included egress on Supabase. An app that stores a lot of structured data gets about six times the database room on Convex. The caveat: Convex's limits documentation counts each index as another copy of the table, so a heavily indexed schema fills that allowance faster than the raw data suggests.

Function calls are the Convex line to watch. Convex counts client calls, scheduled runs, subscription updates and file accesses as function calls. A live dashboard that re-runs a query for every connected user on every change can consume the 25 million allowance far faster than a request-response app; past it, each extra million costs $2. Supabase does not meter API requests at all, which makes a chatty client cheaper there, but a busy database will push you up a compute size instead.

Free plans: different ways to run out

Supabase Free gives each project a 500 MB database, 1 GB of file storage, 5 GB of egress and 50,000 monthly active users, with up to 2 active projects. Its catch is pausing: a free project that sees no activity for a week is paused, so a demo you show investors once a month will be asleep when you open it.

Convex Free covers a small team with 0.5 GB of database storage, 1 GB of file storage, 1 million function calls and 20 GB-hours of action compute a month. Its plan limits include no inactivity pause. Its catch is the hard ceiling: a Free deployment that stays over a limit for an extended period may return HTTP errors, and new writes may fail once limits are hit. Switching to Starter turns those ceilings into metered charges, for example $2.20 per extra million function calls, with no monthly fee.

For a side project that sits idle, Convex Free is the friendlier home; for a prototype with a real Postgres schema you plan to keep, Supabase Free is. Both promise not to lose data: Convex says it never deletes a record written by a successful mutation on any plan.

Security, backups and compliance

Convex puts compliance paperwork on its entry paid plan. Professional includes HIPAA and SOC 2 reports, a BAA, daily backups, custom domains, log streaming and exception reporting. SAML single sign-on and service SLAs wait for Business and Enterprise.

Supabase puts it on Team. Pro includes daily backups kept for 7 days and email support, and offers custom domains as a $10 monthly add-on. SOC 2, ISO 27001 reports, dashboard SSO and project-scoped access start on Team at $599 a month, with HIPAA as a paid add-on there.

For a three-person health-tech startup that needs a BAA, the comparison flips: Convex Professional costs $75 a month with the BAA included, while Supabase's HIPAA route starts at the $599 Team plan before the add-on.

Database model: the decision behind the price

Supabase is Postgres. You get SQL, extensions, row-level security, a dedicated instance per project and the option to connect any Postgres tool or ORM. Leaving is a database dump away. The weakness is that realtime, auth and storage are separate services stitched to the database, and you size and pay for the server yourself.

Convex is a reactive document database where queries are TypeScript functions. Clients subscribe to queries and update automatically when the underlying data changes, which removes the cache and websocket code most realtime apps need. The weakness is lock-in: your data access is written against Convex's function model, not SQL, so moving away means rewriting the backend layer, even though the backend itself is open source.

If your team already thinks in SQL, the per-developer price is a second reason to stay on Supabase. If your app is collaborative editing, chat or a live dashboard, Convex's model can save more engineering time than its seats cost.

Which one to choose

Choose Supabase for most teams of three or more, for anything that needs SQL or Postgres tooling, and for apps with heavy egress. The cost scales with the size of your database server, which you control. Read the Supabase pricing breakdown for compute sizing and the Supabase review for the full verdict; if the decision is really about databases, Neon vs Supabase compares the managed Postgres side.

Choose Convex for a solo developer or a small TypeScript team building realtime features, and for small teams that need a BAA without a $599 plan. Budget for each new hire, and watch function calls on reactive views. Our Convex review covers the product in depth.

Weighing Google's option as well? See Supabase vs Firebase, Firebase pricing and Firebase alternatives. The wider field is in best backend-as-a-service platforms and, for app teams, best backend for mobile apps. If auth is the deciding cost, our authentication pricing comparison prices dedicated providers.

How we compared

We read both vendors' pricing pages, Supabase's billing documentation and Convex's pricing FAQ and limits documentation on 19 October 2026. The scenario table uses list prices for one organization or team, with usage inside the included allowances, and excludes taxes, add-ons, overage and support plans. Supabase compute assumes each instance runs the whole month. We did not run a project on either platform for this page.

Cite this: Devshot, "Supabase vs Convex 2026: Per-Project vs Per-Dev Pricing", November 2026.

FAQ

Is Supabase or Convex cheaper in 2026?

For one developer, both entry paid plans cost the same each month. For teams, Supabase is usually cheaper because it has no seat fee: three developers with two small projects pay $35 on Supabase Pro against $75 on Convex Professional, and ten developers pay $135 against $250 in our scenario.

How does Convex pricing work?

Convex Professional costs $25 per developer per month and includes 25 million function calls, 50 GB of database storage, 100 GB of file storage and 50 GB of egress for the whole team. Usage beyond that is metered. Free is $0 for up to 6 developers, and Starter adds pay-as-you-go usage with no monthly fee.

Does Supabase charge per team member?

No. Supabase bills each organization one plan fee, starting with Pro, and lists unlimited team members. The cost grows with the compute size of each project and with usage above the organization's quotas, such as 250 GB of egress and 100,000 monthly active users.

Which free plan is better, Supabase or Convex?

Supabase Free suits a Postgres prototype: 500 MB per project and 2 active projects, but projects pause after a week without activity. Convex Free suits a small realtime side project: up to 6 developers and 1 million function calls a month, no inactivity pause in its limits, but hard limits that can cause errors when exceeded.

Is Convex worth it over Supabase?

Convex is worth its per-developer price when the app is realtime and the team is small, because reactive queries replace cache and websocket code. It also includes a BAA and SOC 2 reports on that entry plan. For larger teams or SQL-heavy apps, Supabase's per-organization pricing usually wins.

Can I move from Convex to Supabase later?

Yes, but plan for a rewrite of the data layer. Convex queries and mutations are TypeScript functions against a document database, while Supabase is Postgres accessed through SQL or its client libraries. The data can be exported, but the backend logic does not carry over.

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