diff --git a/pkg/ccl/changefeedccl/changefeedbase/settings.go b/pkg/ccl/changefeedccl/changefeedbase/settings.go
index f9f303079326..96c7bca09f8d 100644
--- a/pkg/ccl/changefeedccl/changefeedbase/settings.go
+++ b/pkg/ccl/changefeedccl/changefeedbase/settings.go
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ var PerChangefeedMemLimit = settings.RegisterByteSizeSetting(
 	settings.TenantWritable,
 	"changefeed.memory.per_changefeed_limit",
 	"controls amount of data that can be buffered per changefeed",
-	1<<30,
+	1<<27, // 128MiB
 )
 
 // SlowSpanLogThreshold controls when we will log slow spans.