Neon Compute Time Quota Exceeded (Free Plan Limit Reached)

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

1. 1. Check usage and what keeps it awake

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   1. Open the project Overview and look at the Usage panel
   2. In Monitoring, check when the compute is active
   3. Remove or slow frequent cron jobs, uptime pings and polling
   Did this fix it? Yes No

2. 2. Cache reads and rate-limit public endpoints

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   1. Cache frequent reads in the app or at the CDN
   2. Rate-limit unauthenticated endpoints bots can hit
   Did this fix it? Yes No

3. 3. Upgrade or wait for reset

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   1. Free usage resumes next billing period
   2. Or upgrade to Launch (usage-based, no monthly minimum) from Billing in the Console
   Did this fix it? Yes No

4. 4. Still blocked after upgrade?

   1. Some users report the error persisted after upgrading; confirm the connection string points to the right project and contact Neon support
   Did this fix it? Yes No

Symptoms

Connections fail with an error about exceeded compute time quota, and the project shows compute suspended in the Console.

Why it happens

• Cron jobs, health checks, bots or pollers hitting the database every few minutes keep compute from suspending
• Compute size autoscaled up (CU-hours count size times time)
• Free plan also suspends compute at 5 GB egress per project

This guide also covers

• neon compute time quota exceeded
• neon free tier limit reached
• neon 100 compute hours

The same problem in other apps

All plan limits, paywalls & watermarks guides →

• Supabase Edge Function 546 WORKER_LIMIT Error (Supabase)
• PlanetScale Transaction Pool Connection Limit Exceeded (PlanetScale)

Other Neon errors

• Neon Connection Timeout After Scale to Zero (Cold Start)
• Neon "Remaining Connection Slots Are Reserved" (Too Many Connections)
• Neon Free Plan Storage Limit Reached (Writes Blocked)
• Neon Cannot Create Branch: Branch Limit Reached
• Neon Prisma or Drizzle Migration Fails (Pooled Connection)
• Neon SSL Required Error (Connection Is Insecure)
• Neon "The Endpoint ID Is Not Specified" / Password Authentication Failed
• Neon "Active Endpoints Limit Exceeded" / Compute Suspended