Quick Answer
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Render costs Free to $175 per month as of March 2026, with 6 plans available including a free tier. Plans: Free (free), Starter at $7/month, Standard at $25/month, Pro at $85/month, and Pro Plus at $175/month. Enterprise pricing is available on request. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: Yes

Render offers 6 pricing tiers: Free, Starter, Standard, Pro, Pro Plus, Enterprise. A free plan is available. Paid plans include Starter at $7/service/month, Standard at $25/service/month, Pro at $85/service/month. The Starter plan is small production web services and apis.

Compared to other developer tools software, Render is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • 6 documented hidden costs beyond list price

How much does Render cost?

Render offers 6 pricing plans, starting with a free tier and scaling to custom enterprise pricing. Plans include Free (free), Starter at $7/month, Standard at $25/month, Pro at $85/month, Pro Plus at $175/month, Enterprise (custom pricing).

Render Pricing Overview

Render has 6 pricing plans, including a free tier. Paid plans range from $0 to $175/month. The Free plan is free and is best for hobby projects, prototypes, and learning. The Starter plan costs $7/month, best for small production web services and apis. The Standard plan costs $25/month, best for production applications with moderate traffic. The Pro plan costs $85/month, best for high-traffic production services. The Pro Plus plan costs $175/month, best for memory-intensive workloads and large applications. The Enterprise plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for large organizations with complex infrastructure needs.

There are at least 6 documented hidden costs beyond Render's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in March 10, 2026 from 5 independent sources.

Render is a modern cloud platform for deploying web applications, APIs, background workers, cron jobs, and databases. It competes directly with Vercel, Netlify, Heroku, and Railway by offering a per-service pricing model that keeps costs predictable and granular. Render's free tier is one of the most generous in the space, making it popular for side projects and early-stage startups.

Unlike Vercel and Netlify — which are optimized for frontend and JAMstack deployments — Render natively supports full-stack architectures including persistent servers, background workers, and managed Postgres and Redis databases. Services are priced by instance size (RAM and CPU), with the smallest paid tier starting at $7/month per service. Render competes on simplicity: Git-connected deploys, automatic TLS, DDoS protection, and private networking are included at every paid tier without complex configuration.

All Render Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
Free instance_hours: 750 hours/monthbandwidth: 100 GB/month Free Custom Hobby projects, prototypes, and learning
Starter ram: 512 MBcpu: 0.5 vCPU $7 /service/month Custom Small production web services and APIs
Standard ram: 2 GBcpu: 1 vCPU $25 /service/month Custom Production applications with moderate traffic
Pro ram: 4 GBcpu: 2 vCPU $85 /service/month Custom High-traffic production services
Pro Plus ram: 8 GBcpu: 4 vCPU $175 /service/month Custom Memory-intensive workloads and large applications
Enterprise Contact Sales Contact Sales Large organizations with complex infrastructure needs
View all features by plan

Free

  • 750 free instance hours per workspace/month
  • 100 GB outbound bandwidth included
  • 500 build pipeline minutes/month
  • Web services, static sites, cron jobs
  • Free Postgres database (expires after 30 days, 1 GB storage)
  • Free Redis/Key Value instance
  • Unlimited projects

Starter

  • 512 MB RAM, 0.5 vCPU per service
  • No sleep on inactivity (always-on)
  • Custom domains with free TLS
  • Auto-deploy from Git
  • Preview environments
  • DDoS protection

Standard

  • 2 GB RAM, 1 vCPU per service
  • Always-on, no cold starts
  • Custom domains with free TLS
  • Auto-scaling support
  • Health checks and zero-downtime deploys
  • Private networking

Pro

  • 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU per service
  • Auto-scaling
  • All Standard features
  • Priority support
  • SLA guarantees

Pro Plus

  • 8 GB RAM, 4 vCPU per service
  • Auto-scaling
  • All Pro features
  • Dedicated resources

Enterprise

  • Custom instance sizes up to 32 GB RAM / 8 vCPU
  • Dedicated support and SLA
  • SSO and audit logs
  • Volume discounts
  • Custom networking and private clusters

Render Year 1 Total Cost by Company Size

Real deployment costs including licenses, implementation, training, and admin — not just the sticker price.

Hobby Developer $0 Year 1 total

Single web service on the free tier with a free Postgres database. Suitable for personal projects with low traffic. Note: free services spin down after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Small Production App $14 Year 1 total

One Starter web service ($7/month) plus a Starter Postgres database ($7/month) with about 50 GB of outbound bandwidth. Suitable for a small SaaS or internal tool with a few hundred daily users.

Growing Startup $75 Year 1 total

Two Standard web services ($25/month each) plus a Standard Postgres database ($25/month) with moderate bandwidth usage. Covers a typical web app with API and background worker.

Production SaaS with Scale $350 Year 1 total

Three Pro instances ($85/month each) with auto-scaling enabled, a Pro Postgres database, and 500 GB of bandwidth per month. Suitable for a product with thousands of daily active users.

How Render Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
Render Free $175/month
Amplitude Free $49/month
CircleCI Free $15/month
Docker $11/user/month $24/user/month
Fly.io Free $300/month
GitHub Free $21/user/month

6 Render Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, Render has at least 6 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 6 hidden costs
  • Bandwidth overage: $15 per 100 GB beyond the monthly free allowance (reduced from $30/100 GB)
  • Persistent disk storage: $0.25 per GB/month
  • Postgres database storage: $0.30 per GB/month (beyond free tier)
  • Build minute overages: charged if you exceed 500 free minutes/month on Free plan
  • Per-seat workspace fee on team plans (billed at end of month based on member count)
  • Static IP (outbound NAT gateway): additional monthly charge per service
Tip

Ask your Render sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Render Pricing FAQ

01 How much does Render cost?

Render uses a per-service pricing model. The smallest paid instance (Starter) is $7/month per service with 512 MB RAM and 0.5 vCPU. Standard instances are $25/month (2 GB RAM, 1 vCPU), Pro instances are $85/month (4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU), and Pro Plus is $175/month (8 GB RAM, 4 vCPU). Most teams run multiple services, so total monthly costs typically range from $25 to $300+ depending on the number and size of services.

02 Does Render have a free plan?

Yes. Render's free tier includes 750 instance hours per workspace per month, 100 GB of outbound bandwidth, 500 build pipeline minutes, and free Postgres and Redis instances. Free Postgres databases are limited to 1 GB of storage and expire after 30 days. Free web services spin down after 15 minutes of inactivity and experience a cold start delay on the next request, making the free tier best suited for development or low-traffic projects.

03 What are Render's hidden costs?

The main surprise costs on Render are bandwidth overages ($15 per 100 GB beyond your monthly free allowance), persistent disk storage ($0.25/GB/month), Postgres storage ($0.30/GB/month), and per-seat workspace fees on team plans. For production apps with significant traffic or large databases, these extras can add $20–$100+ to your monthly bill. Always monitor your bandwidth usage in the Render dashboard.

04 How does Render pricing compare to Vercel and Netlify?

Render, Vercel, and Netlify take different pricing approaches. Vercel charges $20/member/month on its Pro plan (Hobby is for non-commercial use only). Netlify charges $19/member/month. Render charges per service instance ($7–$175/month) rather than per seat, making it more cost-effective for small teams running multiple backend services and databases. Render also supports full-stack apps natively, while Vercel and Netlify are optimized primarily for frontend/JAMstack deployments. For projects needing a backend server and database, Render is generally cheaper than Vercel at comparable resource levels.

05 Does Render pricing scale well for startups?

Render is designed to scale gradually. You can start free and upgrade individual services as traffic grows, without paying for unused capacity across the whole team. A typical startup stack (one web service + one Postgres database) runs $32–$55/month on Standard instances. Auto-scaling is available on Pro and higher tiers, allowing services to scale horizontally during traffic spikes without manual intervention.

06 Can I host a database on Render?

Yes. Render offers managed Postgres and Redis (Key Value) databases. Free Postgres databases include 1 GB storage but expire after 30 days. Paid Postgres instances start at $7/month (Starter) and scale up to $175/month (Pro Plus) with storage billed at $0.30/GB/month beyond the included amount. Render Postgres runs on the same private network as your services, eliminating egress fees between your app and database.

Is this pricing incorrect? — we verify and update within 24 hours.