Render pricing explained: the workspace fee, the compute bill, and the 15-minute spin-down

How Render pricing actually works

Render's pricing page is honest, but it has a structure people read past: you pay for a workspace and for compute, and they are separate bills.

• The workspace plan covers your account — seats, included bandwidth, support level. From $0 to $499/month.

• The compute instance is what your app actually runs on, priced per service by RAM and CPU. From $0 to $450/month, per service.

So the number people quote — “Render is $7” — is the smallest paid compute instance, not a bill. Add the workspace, add a database, add a second service, and you're somewhere else entirely.

And on the free tier there are two clocks running at once. Both matter more than any price on this page.

Render plans in 2026 (official)

Verified August 2026, from the Render pricing page.

Workspace plans

• Hobby — $0/month + compute. 1 seat · 5 GB bandwidth included.

• Pro — $25/month + compute. Unlimited seats · 25 GB bandwidth included.

• Scale — $499/month + compute. Unlimited seats · 1 TB bandwidth included.

• Enterprise — custom.

Bandwidth overage is $0.15/GB on every tier.

Web service compute (per service, per month)

• Free — $0. 512 MB RAM · 0.1 CPU. Spins down when idle (details below).

• Starter — $7. 512 MB RAM · 0.5 CPU.

• Standard — $25. 2 GB RAM · 1 CPU.

• Pro — $85. 4 GB RAM · 2 CPU.

• Pro Plus — $175. 8 GB RAM · 4 CPU.

• Pro Max — $225. 16 GB RAM · 4 CPU.

• Pro Ultra — $450. 32 GB RAM · 8 CPU.

Databases

Postgres spans $0 to $6,200/month depending on tier and size, with Pro instances from $55. Key-Value (Redis-compatible) runs from $0 at 25 MB to $1,100 at 40 GB. Billing is prorated to the second, which genuinely helps when you're resizing.

The two clocks on the free tier

Render's free tier is the reason a lot of people try Render, and the reason a lot of people leave. Two specifics, both verified from Render's own documentation:

Clock one: 15 minutes to sleep

A free web service spins down after 15 minutes without inbound traffic. The next visitor's request wakes it, and that takes about one minute, during which they see a loading page.

A minute is a long time. It's long enough that a recruiter opening your portfolio assumes the link is broken, long enough that a third-party webhook times out and gives up, and long enough that a demo to a client starts with an apology. The service isn't broken — this is the design, and it's why the tier is free.

There's also a shared budget: free services draw on 750 instance hours per calendar month across the workspace. Exhaust it and every free service suspends until the month rolls over.

Clock two: 30 days until the free database expires

This one is less famous and does more damage. Free Render Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation. After expiry you get a 14-day grace period to upgrade — and then the database and its data are permanently deleted.

Read that again if you have a side project on free Postgres. The timer starts when you create the database, not when you stop using it. A project you built in March and haven't opened since is already gone.

What to do about it: if anything on a free Render database matters, either upgrade it or export it now. Both take ten minutes; recovering deleted data takes forever.

Three scenarios with numbers

Scenario 1: testing an idea

You want to see whether the thing works, and nobody else is looking yet.

What you pay: $0 — Hobby workspace, free instance, free Postgres. Perfectly good for a fortnight of tinkering. Just put a reminder in your calendar for day 25, because that database has an expiry date.

Scenario 2: one small app that must stay awake

A live site with a handful of users. Cold starts are unacceptable.

The math. Starter compute at $7 stops the spin-down. The Hobby workspace is $0, so this genuinely is $7 — plus a database if you need one that survives (Postgres from $6). Bandwidth on Hobby is 5 GB, then $0.15/GB.

What you pay: $7–15/month. Competitive, and the reason Render has a good reputation for small projects.

Scenario 3: a team with a real product

A web service, a background worker, Postgres, and more than one person who needs access.

The math. Pro workspace $25 (this is what buys unlimited seats) + Standard compute $25 for the web service + Starter $7 for the worker + Postgres from $55 on Pro tiers. Bandwidth included jumps to 25 GB.

What you pay: $110–150/month for a fairly ordinary production setup. Nothing here is overpriced — it's just that four line items add up to a different number than the one on the homepage.

Which setup you should pick

• Experimenting alone — Hobby workspace, free instance. Set a calendar reminder for the 30-day database expiry.

• One live app, cold starts unacceptable — Starter compute at $7 on the Hobby workspace. The cheapest genuinely always-on setup Render offers.

• More than one person needs access — Pro workspace at $25. You're buying seats, not capacity; compute is still separate.

• Media-heavy site — watch bandwidth. 5 GB on Hobby is not much once you serve images, and overage is $0.15/GB on every tier.

• Several small services — do the addition first. Each service has its own compute line, and three $7 services plus a workspace plus a database is a different conversation than “Render is $7”.

FAQ

Is Render free?

There's a free tier: $0 workspace, $0 compute instance with 512 MB RAM and 0.1 CPU, and free Postgres. The constraints are real — services spin down after 15 minutes idle, free services share 750 instance hours a month across the workspace, and free databases expire 30 days after creation.

How much does Render cost per month?

Workspace: Hobby $0, Pro $25, Scale $499, Enterprise custom. Compute per web service: Free $0, Starter $7, Standard $25, Pro $85, Pro Plus $175, Pro Max $225, Pro Ultra $450. Postgres from $0 to $6,200. Bandwidth overage $0.15/GB on all tiers. Verified August 2026.

Does a Render free web service sleep?

Yes — it spins down after 15 minutes without inbound traffic, and the next request takes about a minute to wake it while the visitor sees a loading page. Moving to the $7 Starter instance removes the spin-down.

Do free Render databases get deleted?

Yes. Free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation, followed by a 14-day grace period to upgrade. After that the database and its data are permanently deleted. Export or upgrade anything you care about well before day 30.

Why is my Render bill more than $7?

Because $7 is one compute instance, not the account. Your bill is the workspace plan plus compute for every service plus any database plus bandwidth overage at $0.15/GB. Three services and a Postgres on a Pro workspace is four separate lines.

Is Render cheaper than Railway or Vercel?

Different shapes. Render prices fixed instances, which is predictable; Railway meters compute per second, which is cheaper when idle and pricier always-on; Vercel charges per seat plus usage, which punishes team size. For a single always-on app Render's $7 Starter is among the cheapest real options. See Render vs Railway for the head-to-head.

What's the cheapest way to keep a Render app always on?

Starter compute at $7/month on the Hobby workspace — that removes the spin-down without a workspace fee. If you need a database that doesn't expire, add the smallest paid Postgres. Alternatively a flat host with no separate workspace fee: livemy.app is $10/month all-in with a custom domain and a database that stays.

Add the lines before you compare the headline

Render is well-built and fairly priced, and its $7 always-on instance is genuinely one of the better deals in hosting. The two things to get straight before you commit: your real bill is the workspace plus compute plus database, not the number on the pricing card — and the free tier is running two clocks, one of which quietly deletes your data on day 44 if you never look at it again.

If you're comparing because Render's free tier let you down rather than because its paid tier is expensive, the honest fix is any plan that doesn't sleep — ours included. See Render alternatives for the full lineup and free hosting that doesn't sleep for the shorter answer.

→ Host your app on livemy.app · Flat $10/month · No workspace fee, no spin-down · Custom domain and SSL included.