Best offer on record: Supabase Free Plan (free tier) — Auth, Postgres, Storage, Edge Functions, Realtime. 2 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Supabase Free Plan (free tier) — Auth, Postgres, Storage, Edge Functions, Realtime high confidence
Supabase Free Plan = the genuine, perpetual free tier ($0/month). Verified limits read from supabase.com/pricing this session: 50,000 monthly active users for Auth (also 50,000 third-party MAU); 500 MB Postgres database (shared CPU, 500 MB RAM); 1 GB file storage (50 MB/file max, basic CDN); 500,000 edge-function invocations; 5 GB standard egress + 5 GB cached egress; Realtime 200 peak connections and 2M messages/month; unlimited API requests; 1-day log retention; community support only. NOT on free: SSO auth, image transforms, backups, PITR, branching, custom domains, log drains.
Eligibility
Anyone (no student or startup gate). No credit card required to start the free tier (widely confirmed by third parties; the $0 plan needs no payment method). Available globally. Hard cap of 2 active projects across all orgs where you are Owner/Admin; paused projects do not count toward that cap.
How to claim
Sign up at supabase.com and click 'Start for Free' on the pricing page, then create a project. No application and no credit card. The 2-active-project limit applies to any org where you are Owner or Administrator, so you can run one project in two free orgs.
Expiry
Free indefinitely, no renewal/annualization. But each free project auto-pauses after 1 week of inactivity; it resumes on the next API call. Pause does not delete data. Paid tiers (Pro from $25/mo) do not pause for inactivity.
Gotchas
1-week idle pause will kill dev/test or course-work deployments that sit between deadlines. Strict 2-active-project cap. No SSO, no image transforms, no backups/PITR/branching, no custom domains. Going to Pro adds a per-project compute line (Micro ~$10/mo) and charges usage beyond the included quotas (MAU beyond 100k, disk beyond 8 GB, egress beyond 250 GB, etc.). Treat the free plan as dev/prototype, not a production DB.
Supabase Startup credits program (reported by aggregators; not verifiable as an active public offer) low confidence
A Supabase startup credits program is cited by third-party aggregators but the figures contradict each other and none can be confirmed on a Supabase-owned page: 'Supabase Credits' guide claims '$2,500 in credits'; StartupPerks frames it as an ongoing free plan for pre-seed/seed/Series A companies under ~5 yrs old that raised under $5M (no funding required); guptadeepak.com's 'Supabase Startup Program' page states the program is DISCONTINUED and that supabase.com/startups returns 404 with no application form. The official startup page (supabase.com/startups -> /solutions/startups) is marketing-only: 'Why startups choose Supabase', four value props, and a single 'Get started' CTA to the dashboard — no credit amount, no eligibility, no duration, no form. The partners page offers only listing/co-marketing/trust-signal perks, no credit or plan subsidy.
Eligibility
Unverified. Per aggregator descriptions (contradictory): early-stage company (pre-seed/seed/Series A), <5 years old, <~$5M raised, no funding required; some say apply via partner/accelerator or company-domain email. No authoritative eligibility criteria found on any official page.
How to claim
No verified public application path found: no application form exists on any Supabase-owned page (the startup and partner pages are marketing-only). If the offer exists at all it appears gated through partner accelerators (Y Combinator / Techstars) or Supabase sales. Verify with Supabase sales before planning around it.
Expiry
Unknown. Program status unclear — one source (Sep 2026) reports it discontinued/404; others treat it as ongoing. No defined term on any official page.
Gotchas
Do NOT rely on the '$2,500 credits' figure: it is unconfirmed and conflicts with 'six months of the Team plan free' and '$3,000 over 12 months'. The free tier is unaffected regardless of whether a startup program exists. No official application form was located.
STUDENT/EDUCATION LICENSE: none exists. supabase.com/education returns HTTP 404, and Supabase runs no student or academic discount. Its own pricing page has no student/education tier; the founders' original goal (2020 blog) of keeping free projects available for students/hobbyists is served by the standard Free Plan, with no application process. Students should plan around the Free Plan and email support only if a course deployment needs more.\n\nSTARTUP CREDITS PROGRAM: not verifiable as an active public offer. The official startup page (supabase.com/startups, now serving /solutions/startups) is marketing-only with no application form, credit amount, eligibility, or duration. At least one source (guptadeepak.com, Sep 2026) reports supabase.com/startups now 404s and the program is discontinued. Aggregators still circulate contradictory, unverifiable figures ($2,500 credits / six months of the Team plan free / $3,000 over 12 months). Treat any startup offer as partner-gated (Y Combinator / Techstars / sales) or sunset rather than a public sign-up.\n\nTRIAL CREDITS: no native time-limited 'trial credits' program. The Free Plan is a perpetual free tier, not a trial. The only credit-style offers in the ecosystem are third-party partner perks, not Supabase's own — e.g., Mercury grants its business-account holders $300 in Supabase credits (new customers, separate conditions).\n\nNET: the only distinct, verifiable free offer for students and startups is the standard Free Plan itself (finding #1, high confidence). No separate education license or reliable public startup-credits program could be confirmed on official pages this session.\n\nNote on sourcing: the official pricing page was read directly this session (high confidence for Free Plan figures). The WebSearch budget was exhausted partway through the task, so current (2025-2026) change history for the startup program rests on aggregator claims (contradictory) plus a direct read of Supabase's own startup/partners pages showing no live program; those lower-confidence items are marked accordingly.