Database & Backend Platform · decision tool

Cheapest database at scale

The free-tier winner rarely stays cheapest once you have real data and traffic. Ranked at large MAU, storage and egress from verified dated pricing — with the crossover points called out.

Prices verified 2026-07-15 against official pricing pages · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration

As of Jul 2026, with 500,000 monthly active users, 200 GB database size, 500 GB monthly egress, 1,000 db operations per user / month, 24 compute active hours / day, a $300 budget for this slot, Neon ranks first for these inputs at 89% fit and a StackSays-estimated $89.33/month (MongoDB Atlas: 80% fit, $56.94/month). Fit weights are our estimates; prices trace to official pages. Change any input below and the verdict recomputes.

Your situation

The verdict updates as you move these.

Monthly active userspeople actually hitting the app each monthDatabase size (GB)rows + indexes; a typical early SaaS is 1–10GBMonthly egress (GB)data served out of the DB/API to clientsDB operations per user / month≈100 light · 1,000 normal · 10,000 heavy — only per-operation DBs (Firestore) bill thisCompute active hours / daybills ONLY serverless-compute DBs (Neon); always-on (Supabase/PlanetScale/Mongo) and per-operation (Firestore/Turso) DBs ignore itBudget for this slot ($/mo)what you'd accept paying for the database layerTeam size1 = solo; bundled platforms save glue time for small teams

Clear pick for your inputs

Neonfit 89% · est $89.33/mo

Serverless Postgres with branching; compute suspends when idle

vs MongoDB Atlas: fit 89% against 80%, est $89.33 against $56.94 per month

Neonfit 89%

$89.33/mo

MongoDB Atlasfit 80%

$56.94/mo

Convexfit 78%

$124.78/mo

PlanetScalefit 78%

$15.00+/mo

Tursofit 76%

$112.92/mo

Supabasefit 48%

$1,371.50/mo

Firebase (Firestore)fit 48%

$527.20/mo

The decision, in plain words

For a team of 3 at 500,000 monthly active users and a $300.00/mo budget for the database slot, Neon leads at 89% fit and $89.33/mo. The two rules doing the work: budget fit (~$89.33/mo is 30% of your $300/mo budget); ecosystem maturity (established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool).

The gap to MongoDB Atlas (80% fit) is wide at these inputs — you'd need to change your requirements, not your taste, to flip it.

Generated from the calculation above — every number traces to the sourced data; nothing here is written by an AI making things up.

Why Neon scores 89%

Budget fit (weight 30, our estimate) — ~$89.33/mo is 30% of your $300/mo budget+30

Batteries included (weight 12, our estimate) — Bundles auth — fewer services to glue at team size 3+4

Exit cost (weight 4, our estimate) — Standard Postgres — dump and restore anywhere+4

Ecosystem maturity (weight 8, our estimate) — established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool+8

Free-tier runway (weight 10, our estimate) — Free tier exists (0.5GB storage + 100 compute-hours per project, 5GB egress, 60K auth MAU) — a cheap staging/dev lane even after you outgrow it+4

Total (lines sum exactly)50

Possible range −64…+64 (sum of active rule weights) · fit % = (total + max) / (2 × max)(50 + 64) / 128 = 89%

How the $89.33/mo estimate is calculated

Compute overage — 182.4 CU-h over 0 CU-h included × $0.106/ CU-h$19.33

Database storage overage — 200GB over 0GB included × $0.35/GB$70.00

Note — Compute billed per CU-hour ($0.106); suspended compute costs $0; storage $0.35/GB-month$0

Monthly total (lines sum exactly)$89.33

What could change this verdict

Cost risk

Estimated now (StackSays estimate, not your final bill)$89.33/mo · Launch (pay-as-you-go)

Free-tier statusFree tier exceeded (database storage 200GB > 0.5GB cap)

Next known billing thresholdLaunch (pay-as-you-go) caps at 1,000,000 auth mau — beyond that you change plans

Official prices verified 2026-07-15; calculation is deterministic code over those prices.

At a glance

Tool	Free tier	Paid entry	Verified
Supabase	500MB database, 50K MAU, 1GB file storage, 5GB egress, 2 projects	Pro plan $25/mo	2026-07-15
Neon	0.5GB storage + 100 compute-hours per project, 5GB egress, 60K auth MAU	Pay-as-you-go — Compute billed per CU-hour ($0.106); suspended compute costs $0; storage $0.35/GB-month	2026-07-15
Firebase (Firestore)	1GiB Firestore, 50K reads / 20K writes / 20K deletes per day, 50K auth MAU, 10GiB egress	Pay-as-you-go — Firestore nam5 rates: $0.06/100K reads, $0.18/100K writes, $0.18/GiB storage; deletes ($0.02/100K) not modeled. Ops derived from your per-user activity input (80/20 read/write split, our estimate)	2026-07-15
Convex	1M function calls, 0.5GB database, 1GB file storage, 1GB egress	Professional $25/mo	2026-07-15
Turso	100 databases, 5GB storage, 500M rows read / 10M rows written per month	Developer plan $4.99/mo	2026-07-15
PlanetScale	No free tier	PS-5 HA cluster $15/mo	2026-07-15
MongoDB Atlas	512MB storage, shared CPU/RAM, ~100 ops/sec cap	Flex tier $8/mo	2026-07-15

Where did you land?anonymous, one click

Data sources

Tool	Source	Verified
Supabase	Supabase pricing page	2026-07-15
Neon	Neon pricing page	2026-07-15
Firebase (Firestore)	Firebase pricing page	2026-07-15
Convex	Convex pricing page	2026-07-15
Turso	Turso pricing page	2026-07-15
PlanetScale	PlanetScale pricing page	2026-07-15
MongoDB Atlas	MongoDB Atlas pricing page	2026-07-15

A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.

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