A small SaaS on Vercel Pro costs $20 a month per deploying seat until traffic passes 1 million requests or 1 TB a month. Then add $20, $100, or $300 for a Flat Rate CDN tier, plus any function usage above the $20 monthly credit. At 5 million requests that’s about $40 a month. At 50 million it’s about $169.
The calculator below works that out from your own traffic, with Vercel’s prices checked on 2026-10-13. It prices the same traffic on Cloudflare Workers, Railway, and a DigitalOcean Droplet next to Vercel, and can add a Postgres database. It runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Who this is for: founders and developers who are on Vercel or thinking about it, and want to know what next month’s bill will be. Who should look elsewhere: Enterprise customers, whose prices are set in a contract, and apps that lean on Vercel products we don’t price here, such as Image Optimization, Blob storage, or AI Gateway.
| Host and plan | Hosting | With database | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare WorkersWorkers Paid | $5.00 | $5.00 | |
| RailwayHobby | $6.02 | $6.02 | |
| A VPS (DigitalOcean)Basic Droplet | $7.20 | $7.20 | |
| VercelPro | $20.00 | $20.00 |
US prices before tax, from each provider's official pricing page, checked 2026-10-13. Vercel uses the iad1 region and its default 2 GB function size. It runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
The same calculator has its own page at /tools/hosting-cost-calculator/.
How Vercel bills a Pro team
Four parts make up the bill. All prices are for the iad1 region (Washington D.C.), checked 2026-10-13.
- Platform fee: $20 a month. The Pro plan docs list it as “Platform fee $20/month”, with “1 deploying team seat included” and “$20/month in usage credit”. Each extra deploying seat is $20 a month. Viewer seats are free.
- Flat Rate CDN tier: $0 to $300 a month. CDN requests and Fast Data Transfer are no longer billed per unit on Pro when Flat Rate CDN is on. Vercel’s docs say “Pro includes the lowest tier at no additional cost”: 1 million requests and 1 TB. The paid tiers are $20 for 10 million requests, $100 for 50 million, and $300 for 150 million, each with 50 TB of transfer.
- Function usage, paid from the credit first. $0.60 per million invocations, $0.128 per hour of Active CPU, and $0.0106 per GB-hour of provisioned memory (iad1 pricing). Only CPU time your code spends computing counts as Active CPU. Waiting on a database doesn’t.
- Fast Origin Transfer: $0.06 per GB. This is data between Vercel’s CDN and your functions. It is not in the Flat Rate CDN list, so it’s paid from the credit and then billed.
The Pro docs say the credit “applies to all managed infrastructure billable resources from the first unit you use,” and it “expires at the end of the month if you don’t use it.” The docs don’t say whether a paid Flat Rate CDN tier is paid from the credit, so the calculator assumes it isn’t. That gives the higher bill.
Worked example: three traffic levels
The calculator’s three starting points use the same app: 30% of requests run server code, at 20 ms of CPU and 150 ms in total each, with one deploying seat.
| Line | Launch, 500K requests, 20 GB | Growing, 5M requests, 200 GB | Busy, 50M requests, 2 TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | $20 | $20 | $20 |
| Flat Rate CDN tier | $0 (included) | $20 (10M tier) | $100 (50M tier) |
| Invocations | $0.09 | $0.90 | $9.00 |
| Active CPU | $0.11 | $1.07 | $10.67 (83.3 hours) |
| Provisioned memory | $0.13 | $1.33 | $13.25 (1,250 GB-hours) |
| Fast Origin Transfer | $0.36 | $3.60 | $36.00 (600 GB) |
| Usage above the $20 credit | $0 | $0 | $48.92 |
| Monthly bill | $20 | $40 | $168.92 |
Three things to take from it:
- Under 1 million requests, you pay for the seat. Usage at launch is $0.69. That’s why a Vercel bill for a new product looks the same every month.
- The CDN tier is the first jump. Passing 1 million requests in a month moves you to the $20 tier at the start of the next cycle. Vercel says “a one-day spike doesn’t trigger an upgrade.” The whole month has to go over.
- Origin transfer is the biggest usage line when busy. $36 of the $68.92 is data sent from functions to the CDN. Cache the responses that are the same for every user, and that line shrinks.
The calculator bills memory as if each request has its own 2 GB instance for the full 150 ms. That is Vercel’s default size: “on Pro and Enterprise, functions execute with 2 GB (1 vCPU) of memory” (memory docs). Fluid compute runs several requests on one instance, so your memory line is likely lower. Treat our number as the ceiling.
The same traffic on other hosts
| Host | Launch 500,000 requests and 20 GB a month | Growing 5 million requests and 200 GB a month | Busy 50 million requests and 2 TB a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel Pro | $20.00 | $40.00 | $169 |
| Cloudflare Workers Workers Paid | $5.00 | $5.00 | $11.90 |
| Railway Hobby | $6.02 | $20.23 | $122 |
| A VPS (DigitalOcean) Basic Droplet | $7.20 | $14.40 | $28.80 |
Cloudflare Workers is the cheapest at every level, because “there are no additional charges for data transfer (egress) or throughput (bandwidth)” (Workers pricing). Railway’s bill grows with egress at $0.05 per GB. A Droplet stays cheap, but you run the server. We compare the four in detail in Vercel vs Cloudflare vs Railway vs a VPS.
Five ways to lower a Vercel bill
- Make pages static where you can. A static page is a CDN request, inside your flat tier. A server-rendered page is also an invocation, CPU, memory, and origin transfer. Our guide to static, server-rendered, or islands explains which pages can be static.
- Cache shared responses. Anything that is the same for every visitor, such as a pricing page or a public API list, can be cached at the CDN so the function doesn’t run again.
- Right-size function memory. Pro teams can set a smaller default memory in the dashboard. Smaller sizes also get less CPU, so test before you change it.
- Count your deploying seats. Each one is $20 a month. People who only review previews can use free viewer seats.
- Watch the monthly total, not the daily peak. Run
vercel usage, which Vercel’s docs say “can break usage down by day”, and compare the month with your tier.
Before you change frameworks to save money, check what the framework ships. Our Next.js vs SvelteKit test measured the JavaScript each one sends for the same dashboard.
Every price the calculator uses
| Host | What | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Pro platform fee, includes 1 deploying seat and $20 usage credit | $20 a month |
| Vercel | Each extra deploying seat | $20 a month |
| Vercel | Flat Rate CDN, included with Pro | 1M requests and 1 TB a month |
| Vercel | Flat Rate CDN tier, 10M requests and 50 TB | $20 a month |
| Vercel | Flat Rate CDN tier, 50M requests and 50 TB | $100 a month |
| Vercel | Flat Rate CDN tier, 150M requests and 50 TB | $300 a month |
| Vercel | Function invocations (iad1) | $0.6 per 1M |
| Vercel | Fluid Active CPU (iad1) | $0.128 per hour |
| Vercel | Fluid provisioned memory (iad1) | $0.0106 per GB-hour |
| Vercel | Fast Origin Transfer (iad1) | $0.06 per GB |
| Vercel | CDN requests and Fast Data Transfer on demand (iad1) | $2 per 1M, $0.15 per GB |
| Cloudflare | Workers Paid, includes 10M requests and 30M CPU ms | $5 a month |
| Cloudflare | Requests over 10M | $0.3 per 1M |
| Cloudflare | CPU time over 30M ms | $0.02 per 1M ms |
| Cloudflare | Static asset requests, egress, bandwidth | Free |
| Railway | Hobby plan, includes $5 of usage | $5 a month |
| Railway | Pro plan, includes $20 of usage | $20 a month |
| Railway | Memory | $10 per GB-month |
| Railway | CPU | $20 per vCPU-month |
| Railway | Egress | $0.05 per GB |
| Railway | Volume storage | $0.15 per GB-month |
| DigitalOcean | Basic Droplet 512 MiB, 1 vCPU, 500 GiB transfer | $4 a month |
| DigitalOcean | Basic Droplet 1 GiB, 1 vCPU, 1,000 GiB transfer | $6 a month |
| DigitalOcean | Basic Droplet 2 GiB, 1 vCPU, 2,000 GiB transfer | $12 a month |
| DigitalOcean | Basic Droplet 2 GiB, 2 vCPU, 3,000 GiB transfer | $18 a month |
| DigitalOcean | Basic Droplet 4 GiB, 2 vCPU, 4,000 GiB transfer | $24 a month |
| DigitalOcean | Transfer over the allowance | $0.01 per GiB |
| DigitalOcean | Weekly Droplet backups | 20% of the Droplet price |
The calculator leaves out build minutes, logs and observability, Image Optimization, ISR reads and writes, Blob, firewall rules, support plans, and tax. If your app uses one of them heavily, add it from vercel.com/pricing.
FAQ
How much does Vercel cost per month?
The Pro plan is $20 a month with one deploying seat and $20 of usage credit. A small SaaS under 1 million requests and 1 TB a month usually pays just that. At 5 million requests, expect about $40 with one seat. Hobby is free but only for personal, non-commercial projects.
Is there an official Vercel cost calculator?
We didn’t find one on vercel.com. Vercel shows current usage in the dashboard and through the vercel usage command, which helps once you’re deployed. To estimate before you deploy, use the calculator above or the per-unit prices on vercel.com/pricing.
What happens if I go over the Flat Rate CDN tier?
Vercel moves you to the next tier at the start of the next billing cycle if the whole month went over. A one-day spike doesn’t count. Above the highest tier, 150 million requests, Vercel bills CDN usage on demand at $2 per million requests and $0.15 per GB.
Is Cloudflare cheaper than Vercel?
Yes, for the same traffic. Our examples cost $5, $5, and $11.90 a month on Cloudflare Workers against $20, $40, and $168.92 on Vercel Pro. Cloudflare’s runtime isn’t a full Node.js server, so check that your framework and libraries run there before you switch.
Do I need Vercel Pro for a commercial app?
Yes. Vercel’s pricing page says “Our Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use.” A product that charges customers, or a business site, needs Pro or Enterprise.
We build SaaS products and set up hosting that fits the traffic and the budget. See our web development work, or read why Postgres is our default database for the database side.