Resources // Developer Infrastructure

Neon

High-value

Offer Serverless Postgres, free + up to $100k

Suits for Non-VC-backedVC-backedCreatorsOpen-source

Updated Jun 2026

Apply ↗

The offer

Free plan ($0/mo, permanent, no card): serverless Postgres with 100 compute-hours/project, 0.5 GB storage/project, up to 100 projects, autoscaling to 2 CU (8 GB RAM)
Scale-to-zero after 5 min idle: suspended compute costs nothing
Includes git-like database branching, read replicas, connection pooling, pgvector / PostGIS, and built-in Auth (up to 60K MAU free)
Startup Program: up to $100,000 in Neon credits, plus Neon-engineer onboarding and co-marketing
Now a Databricks company; `neon.com` is the canonical domain

Who qualifies

Free plan: anyone, no card, permanent
Startup Program: early-stage, venture-backed startups with at least $1M in verifiable funding, building an MVP
A separate program exists for open-source projects building on Neon
Branches are forks you can't merge back, and extras beyond your allowance cost ~$1.50/branch-month

Community Insights

Neon is widely respected as the reference for storage-compute separation and copy-on-write Postgres branching. Developers love the free tier for $0 side projects and the scale-to-zero economics. Two caveats recur: occasional availability wobbles, and a lock-in worry, since Neon “branches” are hard forks you can’t merge back and managed-Postgres vendors tend to embed early. The free tier is genuinely production-capable for small apps; the big $100k credits are for funded startups only.

Best Practices (from community tips)

Keep scale-to-zero enabled on non-production branches so idle compute stays at $0.
Use branching for CI / preview environments, but treat branches as ephemeral. You can’t merge schema changes back.
Cap autoscaling per compute and set org-level spend limits (alerts at 80% / 100%).
Delete unused branches or set a TTL. Extras cost ~$1.50/branch-month.
Watch the free-tier limits (100 compute-hours / 0.5 GB / 5 GB egress). Hitting any one suspends compute until next month.
Try paid features with the $20 promo credit, or spin up a no-signup 72-hour DB before committing.