Cost rescue guide

Vercel pricing does not make sense for your small app

Vercel free tier is generous until it is not. Hobby limits, seat pricing, function execution caps, and bandwidth costs add up fast for small apps and AI prototypes.

What is probably broken

You built a small app and Vercel wants $20 per seat per month, or your usage exceeded free tier and now every request costs extra.

What production should look like

The same app running on a $5-10 VPS with predictable cost, no seat limits, and full ownership.

STEP 01

Add up what Vercel actually costs

Do not just look at the plan price. Add every bill that stacks with Vercel.

  • Frontend hosting: free to $20 per seat per month.
  • Database: Supabase, Neon, or similar adds another bill.
  • Analytics, storage, logs, and monitoring are separate services.

STEP 02

Compare to a single VPS

One VPS can run your app, database, analytics, and backups on one bill.

  • A $5-10 VPS runs multiple small apps.
  • No seat limits. No usage anxiety. No surprise invoices.
  • Database, analytics, and backups live on the same box.

STEP 03

Migrate without downtime

Deploy on the VPS first, test, then switch the domain.

  • Deploy from the same GitHub repo to a temporary VPS URL.
  • Copy all environment variables and test every integration.
  • Point the domain to the VPS and keep Vercel alive for rollback.

Quick check

Is your app production-ready?

If you cannot tick all five, we can fix it. Send us the repo and we handle the rest.

  • ?Custom domain with HTTPS
  • ?Environment variables configured
  • ?Database wired and backed up
  • ?Auto-deploy on push
  • ?Smoke tested and live

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RepoAssistant moves small apps from Vercel to VPS when predictable cost matters more than platform convenience.

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