What Convex Is (and Who It’s For)
Convex is a reactive database platform where TypeScript query, mutation, and action functions provide the application’s data layer without a hand-built API layer, according to the Convex documentation. It may suit indie builders who want application logic close to their data; compare that model with the options in our Supabase free tier guide and Neon free tier guide.
Convex’s free plan includes more than database storage: file storage, text and vector search, crons, auth, Node.js actions, a Health & Insights dashboard, preview deployments, and a selectable data region are included. That makes it worth considering for a TypeScript application that benefits from reactive data access and an integrated backend, rather than choosing based on storage alone.
The practical comparison with Supabase or Neon is architectural, not a claim that one is universally better. Convex documents a reactive database and TypeScript functions; use the Supabase guide and Neon guide to compare their free plans on your own requirements. If you are considering embedded or edge-oriented database options too, see our Turso free tier guide.
Convex Free Tier Limits and Overage Prices (2026)
Convex Free provides built-in resources measured across a team, with listed per-unit prices for usage beyond those allowances; the official pricing page is the source for the limits and rates below. Professional costs $25 per developer/month and raises every storage allowance while lowering the per-unit rates, as shown in the table.
| Resource or plan detail | Free | Professional |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $0/month | $25 per developer/month |
| Developers | 1–6 | 1–20 |
| Database storage | 0.5 GB; $0.22/GB beyond | 50 GB included; $0.20/GB beyond |
| File storage | 1 GB; $0.033/GB beyond | 100 GB included; $0.03/GB beyond |
| Search storage | 0.5 GB; $0.55/GB beyond | 1 GB included; $0.50/GB beyond |
| Database I/O | 1 GB; $0.22/GB beyond | 50 GB included; $0.20/GB beyond |
| Search queries | 3,000 query-GBs; $0.11 per additional 1,000 query-GBs | 50,000 query-GBs; $0.10 per additional 1,000 query-GBs |
| Data egress | 1 GB; $0.132/GB beyond | 50 GB included; $0.12/GB beyond |
Convex’s official wording draws one important distinction: “Free plan has built-in resources. Starter plan is pay-as-you-go beyond free tier limits”. In practice, Free is a soft-capped plan — you get warning emails as you approach a limit, not a surprise invoice. Starter is the tier where exceeding the built-in resources triggers metered charges at the rates above.
Professional also includes daily backups, custom domains, log streaming, exception reporting, HIPAA/SOC 2 reports, and email support. Business & Enterprise has a $2,500/month minimum.
The Per-Team Aggregation Trap
Convex aggregates built-in resource usage per team, summing every project in that team, rather than giving each project a separate allowance, as stated on the pricing FAQ. That makes a collection of individually small apps capable of consuming one shared pool; review the team total, not just each project’s dashboard.
For example, imagine a team with a production app using 0.3 GB of database storage, a prototype using 0.15 GB, and a preview project using 0.1 GB. Each looks safe alone, but together they exceed the team’s 0.5 GB database storage allowance — and the same math applies to file storage, I/O, search, and egress. Ten tiny projects do not each get 0.5 GB; the team gets 0.5 GB total.
Before adding a new deployment, identify which team owns it and check existing usage across that team’s projects. If you split projects across teams for organizational reasons, treat that as a deliberate account-management decision — not a guaranteed way to expand limits. The pricing FAQ defines aggregation but does not promise that creating extra teams changes eligibility or billing.
Over-Limit Behavior and Data Safety
Convex says Free users receive warning emails as they approach a limit, and if usage remains over a limit for an extended period, the deployment may return HTTP errors on function calls; successful mutations are not deleted, according to the pricing FAQ. Plan for reliability risks, not data deletion, when monitoring resource headroom.
An HTTP error on a function call can affect user-facing behavior, so treat warnings as an operational signal rather than a notification to ignore. The pricing FAQ does not define the exact warning threshold or what “an extended period” means, so use the included Health & Insights dashboard to investigate which projects or resource categories are driving usage.
The data-safety statement is specific: Convex never deletes a record written by a successful mutation, on any plan. That reassurance does not mean an over-limit deployment will continue serving every function normally, nor does it replace backups. Daily backups are a Professional feature, so builders on Free should decide how to protect any data they cannot afford to lose.
What the Free Plan Lacks (and Free Workarounds)
Convex Free does not include an analytics engine (marked “No/Soon”), streaming data exports, log streaming, exception reporting, daily backups, custom domains, or custom roles, according to the pricing page. Each gap has a practical free workaround, summarized below.
| Free-plan gap | Free workaround |
|---|---|
| Custom domains | Host the frontend on a free host that supports custom domains and call your Convex deployment from there — see our Vercel free tier guide and Cloudflare Pages free tier guide. Convex’s backend URL keeps working regardless of the domain in the browser. |
| Daily backups | Schedule a cron that exports critical tables to file storage or an external free-tier store, and test restoration. |
| Streaming data exports | Run periodic exports from the dashboard or via application code; without streaming, exports are batch-shaped, not continuous. |
| Log streaming | Use application-level logging inside Node.js actions, forwarding to a free-tier log service. |
| Exception reporting | Wrap actions in error handlers and post failures to a free-tier error service you control. |
| Analytics engine | Store product counters in application data and read them through your own admin queries. |
| Custom roles | Implement authorization policy checks in your TypeScript functions using Convex auth. |
These options trade convenience for hands-on maintenance — in particular, a homegrown backup or authorization system can introduce its own failure modes. On Free you also miss the AI Gateway, which is Starter-plan-only and priced the same as OpenRouter; on Free you would call model providers directly instead.
Quick-Start: Running Convex on Free in 2026
You can begin a Convex project with the documented npx convex dev quick-start, then select the Free plan and watch team-wide usage; the CLI documentation and Convex start page are the official setup references. The Free plan supports 1–6 developers, so confirm that the team fits before inviting collaborators.
A practical setup sequence:
- Scaffold and develop locally with the official quick-start command,
npx convex dev, as described in the CLI docs. - Decide where application functions live. The documented
convex.jsonconfiguration supports a customfunctionspath andnode.nodeVersionvalues of 20, 22, or 24. - If using WorkOS AuthKit, the configuration integration requires the Convex npm package version 1.31.6 or later.
- Use the AI helper files for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor, and the official LLMs documentation index to point coding agents at current docs.
- Review the feature docs for what your app actually uses: file storage, search, scheduling/crons, and functions.
Keep development and production projects in view as a team-wide portfolio. A clean quick-start does not prevent a later resource surprise if multiple deployments share the same team bucket.
When You Outgrow the Convex Free Tier
A Convex upgrade makes sense when your team repeatedly approaches included resources, needs a feature Free excludes, or requires the operational protections listed for Professional; the pricing page gives the plan prices and included resources. Compare recurring overage with the cost of upgrading, and base the decision on measured team usage rather than a single project.
Concrete triggers to watch for:
- Storage headroom is consistently thin. Free includes 0.5 GB of database storage and 1 GB of file storage across the team. Professional jumps to 50 GB database and 100 GB file storage included, with cheaper per-unit rates.
- Usage is growing past the soft caps. Once you are regularly seeing limit-warning emails, moving to Starter pay-as-you-go or Professional included volumes is usually cheaper in engineering time than rationing writes.
- You need a paid-plan feature. Daily backups, custom domains, log streaming, exception reporting, and email support are Professional additions. If your product or operations require one of them, a workaround may no longer be worth maintaining.
- Your team size exceeds Free eligibility. Free lists 1–6 developers, while Professional lists 1–20.
- Your app depends on an AI Gateway. Convex’s AI Gateway is Starter-only, not Free, and follows OpenRouter pricing; review the official pricing page before adopting it.
Professional is listed at $25 per developer per month, so include developer count in your budget. Business & Enterprise starts at a $2,500 monthly minimum, a separate scale decision rather than a routine next step for most early projects.
The Bottom Line: Is Convex Free Worth It?
For an indie hacker shipping a TypeScript app, Convex Free is one of the more generous free tiers in the backend-as-a-service category: a reactive database, file storage, text and vector search, crons, auth, Node.js actions, preview deployments, and a data-region choice, all included at $0/month. The pricing FAQ confirms limits degrade softly — warnings, then temporary HTTP errors — and your data is never deleted.
The two real catches are capacity shape and operations. The per-team aggregation means your whole project portfolio shares one 0.5 GB / 1 GB bucket, and daily backups, custom domains, and log streaming require the $25 per developer/month Professional plan. Ship your frontend on a free host, add a cron-based export as a backup, and Free comfortably carries an MVP to its first real users. If frontend hosting is part of the decision, compare its limits separately in our Vercel free tier guide.
FAQ
Convex Free is best evaluated by checking the current official plan details and asking how shared limits, missing features, and over-limit behavior affect your particular application; the pricing FAQ explains the key billing and data-safety points. These answers summarize the practical questions a builder should resolve before shipping.
Does Convex Free charge for usage beyond its built-in resources?
No — the pricing FAQ says Free-plan deployments get notification emails as they approach a limit, and if a limit is exceeded for an extended period, the deployment may return HTTP errors on function calls. Metered charges apply on the Starter plan and above, which are “pay-as-you-go beyond free tier limits” per the pricing page.
Are limits separate for each Convex project?
No. Convex measures usage per team and sums usage across all projects, according to the official pricing FAQ. A prototype, production deployment, and other projects under the same team therefore draw on shared resource allowances. Check aggregate team usage when estimating headroom instead of treating each project as an independent free allocation.
Will Convex delete data if my Free deployment exceeds a limit?
Convex says it never deletes a record written by a successful mutation, on any plan. However, if a deployment remains over a limit for an extended period, function calls may return HTTP errors. That data-safety promise is not a substitute for a backup plan — daily backups require Professional.
How This Guide Was Built
This guide is based on official Convex documentation, pricing pages, and community reports — we did not run the tool hands-on. Every limit, price, and plan feature was verified against the Convex pricing page and pricing FAQ on 2026-10-07, with official docs linked inline throughout. Workaround suggestions are implementation ideas, not confirmed Convex plan features. Recheck the linked official pages before making a purchasing or architecture decision, as pricing and documentation can change.
HERO_IMAGE_PROMPT: A clean editorial illustration of a solo indie developer comparing a compact dashboard of shared database, storage, and search resource meters beside a laptop displaying TypeScript code, with a calm blue-and-violet palette and no readable text.