Feature Request: Raise the 2 project free tier limit on Supabase
Web ide's like lovable, bolt and v0.dev have connected their services to supabase via official integration.
THis has been a huge benefit for me and others in the community using these tools. As a result we have switched to supabase as our primary backends. The integrations are fantastic and ive been incredibly impressed with how powerful the tools are. So big thanks to the team for making this possible.
However ive been running into issues with the free tier cap.
With most of these vibe code platforms the majority of people in the communities are building many apps, the average is 5-10. Most of these will remain prototypes. However in the end one or two tend to be released..
So having a cap of 2 active projects goes against the usual workflow for those users.
I understand you can pause the apps and have 2 active apps running. And that they automatically go to sleep after 7 days.
However ive encountered problems with the supabase project being disconnected after pausing for some reason.
So it either seems like a cash grab to require significantly more payment for essentially prototype apps that only the developer will be using. Or it seems like this aspect of that billing structure has slipped through the cracks, im assuming the latter because the devs here are quite genuine which is why im taking the time to post this request. I know some develpers with dozens of unreleased protypes connected to databases. So it would cost hundreds to actively make progress with them since to make changes with the ai coders would generally make updates to supabase, activating them. So the only option is to repeatedly pause and unpause, or to limit development to just 2 apps at a time, which for a large ammount of users isnt realistic.
3 Replies
Its fair to begin charging if its actually being used, has reasonable usage etc.
So perhaps begin charging when it reaches a certain cap for a given project in a month, thats reasonable.
But to charge for them to exist and to have to continually be pausing projects seems like a bottleneck that doesnt need to exist.
Im primarily talking about the alpha/verticle slice workflow that this doesnt seem very developer friendly in respect to.
Because during the prototype stage developers with numerous protypes in the oven often may add 5-10+ throughout the day. But the problem is even minor chancges on v0.dev or bolt activate the backend.
So this causes a LOT of friction, and essentially required develpers to be pausing and unpausing throguhout the day.
Im sure the 2 limit is to ensure when a project is live and actually has a user base, then the develper pays for use. Rather than charging for developing small scale apps personally prior to release.
If so then my request is to raise the cap of active projects significantly. And if to counter this you need to have usage caps to charge per project when their use reflects a user base, that would completely be reasonable.
Thanks!
This is a user helping user platform and not regularly monitored by the Supabase staff.
Just FYI the cost to Supabase of having a project live is the cost of an AWS EC2 nano instance 24 hours a day 7 days a week whether being used or not. It is a dedicated running server all the time so they are billed for it whether you use it or not.