Vercel Pricing
Explained: What It Really Costs
Hobby plan is free for personal, non-commercial projects. Commercial use requires Pro at $20/user/mo, and usage charges apply on top.
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Vercel Plans & What They Include
Vercel's Hobby plan is free, which makes it look generous for frontend projects. The catch is the jump to Pro at $20/month per user, plus usage-based billing for bandwidth, serverless function execution, image optimization and edge requests that can spike unpredictably on a popular site.
Vercel is optimized for frontend and serverless, not long-running backends. Anything stateful or always-on pushes you toward add-ons or external services, and the metered components are where bills surprise people.
Personal projects only. Generous limits but non-commercial.
Commercial use, team features. Billed per seat.
SLA, SSO, dedicated support. Contact sales.
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Add-ons & Metered Costs
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Hidden Costs of Vercel
Per-seat Pro pricing
Pro is $20 per team member per month. A three-person team is $60/mo before any usage charges.
Usage-based billing spikes
Bandwidth, function execution and image optimization are all metered. A viral post or a misconfigured asset can multiply your bill overnight.
Not built for backends
Vercel is frontend-and-serverless first. Always-on backends, databases and workers live elsewhere, so the real stack cost includes a separate provider.
Runsite hosts your full stack: frontend, backend, database, in one EU platform with a permanent free tier and hard spending caps, so a traffic spike never turns into a surprise invoice.
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Runsite vs Vercel
Side-by-side. No marketing fluff, just facts.
| Feature | Runsite | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| Managed PostgreSQL | ✓ From €5/mo | Via Vercel Postgres (Neon) |
| Spending Limits | ✓ Hard cap + alerts | Soft limits only |
| Free Tier | ✓ Permanent | ✓ With limits |
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Vercel vs Runsite: What You Need to Know
Vercel is excellent for frontend and serverless, and the free Hobby plan is real, but per-seat Pro pricing and metered usage make costs unpredictable at scale, and you still need another provider for a proper backend.
Pricing FAQ
Vercel Pricing: Common Questions
Is Vercel really free?
The Hobby plan is free but limited to personal, non-commercial projects. Any commercial use requires the Pro plan at $20 per user per month, with usage-based charges for bandwidth and functions on top.
Why did my Vercel bill spike?
Vercel bills bandwidth, serverless function execution and image optimization by usage. A spike in traffic, large media assets, or heavy function calls can multiply your bill quickly because there is no hard spending cap on the standard plans.
Can I run a backend on Vercel?
Vercel is optimized for frontend and serverless functions, not long-running backends or stateful services. Most teams pair it with a separate database and backend host, which adds to the real total cost.
// same platform, other angles
Keep exploring
Predictable Pricing — in EUR, with a Hard Cap
A permanent free tier and spending limits you actually control. The opposite of a surprise Vercel bill.
Start Free on Runsite →