Vercel vs Netlify: real monthly cost compared
Updated 2026-10-21
For a small commercial site, Netlify is cheaper (from $9/mo on Personal) until traffic grows. By 100,000 visits a month, Vercel Pro is cheaper in our estimate because its $20 seat includes 1 TB of transfer, while Netlify charges 20 credits (about $0.13) for every GB. Vercel's free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only, so a business site starts at $20 per developer seat.
Estimated monthly cost
| Traffic / month | Vercel (Pro, 1 seat) | Netlify (cheapest plan + credit packs) |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 visits (15 GB) | $20.00 | $9.00 |
| 100,000 visits (150 GB) | $20.00 | $30.00 |
| 1,000,000 visits (1.5 TB) | $115.00 | $230.00 |
Assumptions: 1.5 MB transferred and 20 requests per visit, 20 production deploys a month. Vercel: $20 seat, 1 TB Fast Data Transfer and 10M CDN requests included, then from $0.15/GB and $2 per 1M requests; function CPU and memory beyond the included usage are not counted. Netlify: bandwidth 20 credits/GB, web requests 2 credits per 10k, production deploys 15 credits each, a small compute allowance; Personal is $9 for 1,000 credits (+500 for $5), Pro is $20 for 3,000 credits (+1,500 for $10).
What drives the difference
Bandwidth. This is the big one. Vercel Pro includes 1 TB, so most small and mid sites never pay for transfer. On Netlify every GB costs 20 credits; at the Pro pack rate that is about $0.13/GB from the first GB. At 1M visits that alone is 30,000 credits.
Seats. Vercel charges $20 per developer seat (viewers are free). Netlify Pro is $20 with unlimited members. A 3-developer team pays $60 on Vercel before any usage.
Deploys. Netlify charges 15 credits for each production deploy (Deploy Previews and branch deploys are free; failed deploys and rollbacks are free). Vercel deployments are unlimited, though build minutes on Pro are billed from $0.007/minute on basic machines.
Functions. Vercel bills Fluid Active CPU (from $0.128/hour), provisioned memory (from $0.0106/GB-hr) and invocations (1M included, then from $0.60 per 1M). Netlify bills compute at 10 credits per GB-hour. Heavy server rendering can move either bill a lot; check your usage page before trusting any estimate, including ours.
What happens when you hit the limit
- Netlify Free has a hard 300-credit limit. Netlify's docs say that once credits are used up, all your projects are paused and visitors see a "Site not available" page. Personal and Pro can buy credit packs or turn on auto recharge (off by default).
- Vercel Hobby has usage caps (100 GB transfer, 1M CDN requests) and you cannot buy more usage. Vercel Pro is pay-as-you-go and uncapped, with a default $200 on-demand budget and an optional hard pause at 100%.
Verdict
Small commercial site, one developer, light traffic: Netlify Personal at $9. Growing site with real traffic or a Next.js app: Vercel Pro, because 1 TB of included transfer beats paying per GB, but set the spend limit. If the site is mostly static, Cloudflare Pages serves static assets free with no bandwidth charges and beats both. More options in Vercel alternatives for Next.js, or compare container hosts in Railway vs Render vs Fly.io at 100k visits.
Estimates only. Prices are in USD, exclude taxes, and were checked against the official pages on 2026-10-21. Vercel lists several rates as "starting at", which can vary by region.
Sources
- https://vercel.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-21)
- https://www.netlify.com/pricing/ (checked 2026-10-21)
- https://docs.netlify.com/manage/accounts-and-billing/billing/billing-for-credit-based-plans/how-credits-work/ (checked 2026-10-21)
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