Managed Postgres pricing comparator
Provider pricing is opaque and it shifted hard in 2025 to 2026. Move the sliders and estimate and compare the monthly cost of Neon, Supabase, Amazon RDS, and Google Cloud SQL, side by side.
Neon is cheapest here, about 70% less than Supabase.
Estimates from published on-demand rates, single region, excluding backups and support. Prices last verified 2026-08-01.
- On-demand compute at the size you pick (24/7, or only the active hours where a provider scales to zero)
- SSD storage (RDS gp3 general-purpose SSD, Cloud SQL SSD non-HA, Supabase SSD disk, Neon managed storage)
- Egress and monthly active users, under Advanced
- High availability or Multi-AZ, which can roughly double RDS and Cloud SQL
- Backups, provisioned IOPS, and support plans
- Data transfer beyond the listed allowances, and regional price differences
- Reserved or committed-use discounts, and promotional or included credits (so Supabase reads about $10 above a real Pro bill)
These are on-demand list prices for a single region, meant to compare the shape of the cost, not to quote a bill. For an exact figure, use the official calculator from each provider (linked below).
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How each provider charges
Neon
pricing ↗Serverless Postgres that scales compute to zero when idle. It bills usage-based, no monthly minimum, billed per compute-hour.
Supabase
pricing ↗Postgres plus a backend (auth, storage, realtime), always on. It bills $25/mo Pro floor, then compute add-ons and usage.
Amazon RDS
pricing ↗Managed Postgres on AWS, billed around the clock per instance. It bills per instance-hour, 24/7, no scale-to-zero.
Cloud SQL
pricing ↗Managed Postgres on Google Cloud, priced per vCPU and RAM. It bills per vCPU-hour + per GB-RAM-hour, 24/7.
Which is cheapest for you
Hobby app or side project (tiny, bursty traffic): Neon usually wins by a lot, because it scales to zero and you pay cents for the few hours it is awake. RDS and Cloud SQL bill 24/7 even while nobody is using it, so they start around $12 to $30 a month for the smallest instance.
Always-on production database (steady traffic, larger compute): the picture flips. The Neon per-compute-hour rate adds up when it never sleeps, and a right-sized RDS or Cloud SQL instance is often cheaper for a bare, always-on database. Supabase lands in between, and wins outright if you also want its auth, storage, and realtime.
Dev or staging database (idle most of the day): this is where Neon shines. Scale-to-zero means a database you touch a few hours a day costs a few dollars, versus $70 to $100 for an always-on instance elsewhere.
The one lesson: the single biggest factor is whether your database can idle. Scale-to-zero providers (Neon) bill only while active; RDS and Cloud SQL bill around the clock. Set the hours-active slider to your reality and the ranking changes completely.
Compare two providers head to head
Straight answers, with real numbers, for the questions people actually ask:
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest managed Postgres?
It depends on your workload. For bursty or low-traffic apps, Neon is usually cheapest because it scales compute to zero when idle. For a steady, always-on production database, Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL get competitive. Supabase makes sense when you also want auth, storage, and realtime bundled in. Use the calculator with your own numbers.
Does Neon really scale to zero?
Yes. After about five minutes idle, Neon suspends compute and you stop paying for it; the first query afterward wakes it with a short cold start. That is why Neon can be near-free for side projects and dev databases, and why the 'hours active' slider changes its cost so much.
Is Supabase cheaper than RDS?
For a bare database, RDS can be cheaper because you pay only for the instance. Supabase starts at a $25/month Pro floor but bundles a whole backend (auth, storage, realtime, edge functions). If you need those, Supabase is often the better deal; if you just need Postgres, compare the raw numbers in the tool.
Which providers have a real free tier?
Neon has an always-free tier that scales to zero and never expires. Supabase has a free tier but it pauses projects after a week of inactivity and limits you to two. RDS and Cloud SQL only offer limited introductory free credits, not an ongoing free tier.
How accurate are these estimates?
They are estimates from each provider's published on-demand rates, in a single region, excluding backups, support, IOPS, and data transfer beyond the noted allowances. Real bills vary. Prices were last verified 2026-08-01; always confirm on the provider's own pricing page before deciding.
Prices last verified 2026-08-01. Sources: Neon, Supabase, Amazon RDS, Cloud SQL.