Netlify Free Plan Limits: 300 Credits, Pauses and Real Numbers
Sagar Tayde · · 10 min read
Netlify free plan limits changed shape in 2025. There is no longer a separate allowance for bandwidth and build minutes; new accounts get one pool of 300 credits a month, and everything your site does spends from it. This guide is for developers in India deciding whether a portfolio, a client site or a side project can live on that pool. You will learn what each action costs, what 300 credits really buy, what happens at zero, and how the older free plan still on many accounts is different.
Every Netlify figure here comes from Netlify’s own pricing page and documentation, checked on 14 November 2026. Netlify changes plans often, so check your Usage & billing page before you rely on a number.
Netlify free plan limits in one table
| What | Netlify Free (accounts created on or after 4 September 2025) |
|---|---|
| Price | $0, never charged |
| Monthly allowance | 300 credits, hard limit |
| Buying more credits | Not allowed on Free |
| Credits roll over | No, they reset each billing cycle |
| Production deploy | 15 credits each |
| Bandwidth | 20 credits per GB |
| Web requests | 2 credits per 10,000 |
| Functions and other compute | 10 credits per GB-hour |
| Netlify Database compute | 10 credits per compute unit |
| Deploy Previews and branch deploys | 0 credits |
| Failed deploys and rollbacks | 0 credits |
| Form submissions | Free |
| Team seats | 1 owner, no extra seats (free Reviewer roles allowed) |
| Usage emails | Sent as credit use climbs, including at 50%, 75% and 100% |
| At zero credits | Every project on the team pauses until the next cycle |
Build minutes are not counted at all on the credit plans. A production deploy costs a flat 15 credits whether the build takes one minute or ten.
What 300 credits actually buy
The pool is shared, so the honest way to read it is: if you spent all 300 credits on one thing, how much of it would you get?
| Spent only on | You get about |
|---|---|
| Production deploys | 20 deploys a month |
| Bandwidth | 15 GB a month |
| Web requests | 1.5 million requests a month |
| Function compute at the default 1 GB memory | 30 hours of run time a month |
Nobody spends credits on only one thing, so the real numbers are lower on every line.
Deploys are the expensive part for a small site
For a low-traffic site, deploys usually cost more than traffic. Ten pushes to your production branch use 150 credits, which is half the month. If you push small fixes straight to production, you can run out before your visitors do. Pull requests are different: Deploy Previews and branch deploys cost nothing, so review changes on a preview and merge in batches.
Every file is a request
Netlify counts page views, asset requests, API calls and redirects as web requests. A page that loads its HTML, a stylesheet, a few scripts and a dozen images is around 20 requests, not one. That is still cheap (2 credits per 10,000), but a busy page with many small files grows the count faster than page views suggest.
Functions bill by memory and time
Functions, preview servers and the database feature all count as compute. A function runs with 1 GB of memory by default, so one hour of total run time across all calls is one GB-hour, which is 10 credits. Edge functions are counted as web requests instead.
A sample month
Here is a realistic month for a small portfolio or client site:
- Ten production deploys: 150 credits.
- 5 GB of images, scripts and pages sent to visitors: 100 credits.
- That leaves 50 credits, or about 250,000 requests, for everything else.
A site with mostly text and compressed images fits. A site with large photos, a launch-day spike or a habit of deploying every small change does not.
Netlify Database and Netlify Server on the free plan
Netlify now sells two backend products, and both can be used on Free.
Netlify Database
Netlify Database is a managed Postgres database, generally available since 28 April 2026. According to its billing and limits page, the free plan allows:
| Netlify Database on Free | Limit |
|---|---|
| Databases | 3 per account |
| Size | 1 compute unit, sleeps after 5 minutes without use |
| Compute | 48 compute units per database a month |
| Storage | 5 GB per database (storage is not charged for now) |
| Data written | 5 GB per database a month |
| Bandwidth out | 5 GB per database a month |
| Backups | Kept 3 days |
The catch is the cost. Each compute unit costs 10 credits and database bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB, from the same 300-credit pool your site uses. The 48-unit monthly cap is worth 480 credits, more than the whole pool, so on Free you run out of credits before you reach the database’s own cap. A database that wakes often can pause your site.
Netlify Server
Netlify Server runs a long-lived Node.js backend, such as an existing Express, Hono, Fastify or Koa app. It entered Early Access on 10 November 2026. On Free you get one instance, it scales to zero after 5 minutes without requests, and it is free to use during Early Access; Netlify says it will be charged in credits once it is generally available. Full-stack frameworks such as Next.js, Astro and Nuxt do not run on it yet. Because its APIs may change, treat it as something to try, not something to put a client on.
What happens when the credits run out
On the free plan there is no overage bill and no way to buy more. Instead, Netlify pauses every project that belongs to the team, not only the one that used the credits. A paused project stops taking web requests, form submissions and other traffic, and all deploys stop too, including Deploy Previews. Visitors see a Site not available page.
You have two ways back: upgrade to a paid plan, or wait. At the start of the next billing cycle the credits reset and, according to Netlify’s documentation, the projects resume on their own.
When the pause does not lift on its own
Netlify’s community forum has many threads from August and September 2026 where free teams report staying paused after the reset, with 300 of 300 credits showing and the dashboard saying the team has exceeded its limit. Others describe a banner saying the team is “running on operational credits”, with production deploys paused while their live sites keep serving. We did not find official documentation of either state, and the error some posters quote tells them to contact support. If a client’s site depends on the free plan, plan for a few days of downtime, not a few hours.
The older free plan many accounts are still on
Accounts created before 4 September 2025 are on a legacy plan, and Netlify does not move them unless the owner chooses to. The legacy free plan works on separate meters:
| Legacy Free | Limit |
|---|---|
| Bandwidth | 100 GB a month, hard limit |
| Build minutes | 300 a month, hard limit |
| Serverless functions | 125,000 invocations per site a month |
| Edge functions | 1 million invocations a month |
| Form submissions | 100 per site a month |
| Members and concurrent builds | 1 each |
This explains why articles disagree about “100 GB or 15 GB”. Both are right, for different accounts. If your old account fits comfortably in 100 GB, think before switching: Netlify’s billing FAQ says moving to a credit plan is permanent.
Can you use the free plan for client or commercial work?
We found no rule against commercial use on Netlify’s free plan in its pricing page, Terms of Use or Acceptable Use Policy. That is different from Vercel, whose Hobby plan is limited to non-commercial, personal use. Netlify’s Acceptable Use Policy does forbid using the platform for things unrelated to websites, such as general file storage or distribution, and allows suspension for abuse.
The real limit for client work is practical, not legal. The free plan has one seat, so you cannot add a client or a colleague as a member (free Reviewer roles can view and comment). New teams created since 28 July 2026 also start with projects private by default, so a new project stays private until you select Make public. And one busy client site can pause every other project on your team.
What this means if you build from India
Netlify prices are in US dollars, and its billing FAQ lists credit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay as payment methods. It does not mention UPI or Indian tax invoices. That does not matter while you stay on Free, but it matters the day you upgrade: a dollar card charge, a bank’s foreign transaction markup, and no GST invoice your business can claim input credit on. Our post on Netlify pricing in rupees works through the paid plans.
If you are still choosing a free host for a project, our guide to free web app hosting in India compares the options by what they let you run, not only by price.
Where Voroa’s free tier is different
Voroa’s free tier is not bigger on every line, so here is the plain comparison, taken from what the Voroa free tier includes:
| What | Netlify Free | Voroa Free |
|---|---|---|
| How it is measured | One 300-credit pool | Separate limits per resource |
| Bandwidth | Up to about 15 GB, less after deploys | 5 GB a month |
| Deploys | 15 credits each | Not charged one by one; builds count as build minutes |
| Build minutes | Not metered | 500 a month; new builds pause until the 1st when used up |
| Sites and services | No project limit listed | Up to 15 per workspace |
| Custom domains | Included, with HTTPS | 2, with automatic HTTPS |
| Region | Global CDN | Mumbai (IN) |
Two things are similar. Both stop free projects when a monthly limit runs out, and both bring them back at the next cycle without deleting anything. On Voroa, when a Free workspace has sent its 5 GB, its free services stop until 12 midnight IST on the 1st, and the owner gets an email listing what stopped.
The difference is what can take your site down. On Netlify, deploying often eats the same credits your traffic needs. On Voroa, a deploy is not charged on its own: builds count as build minutes. When a Free workspace uses its 500, new builds pause until the 1st, but sites that are already live keep serving. Static sites also do not use Voroa’s 750 free running hours, which are for free web services, workers and databases. When you upgrade, the bill is in rupees, paid by UPI or card, with a GST invoice; see usage and billing on Voroa.
If you need a quick one-off upload rather than a site you keep updating, read our note on Netlify Drop and when to move to Git deploys.
Host a free static site in Mumbai
Connect a GitHub repository, choose the folder to serve, and your site is live with HTTPS on Voroa’s free tier, no card needed. Start with static site hosting on Voroa, or follow the steps to deploy a static site from GitHub.
FAQ
How many sites can I host on the Netlify free plan?
Netlify’s pricing page does not list a project limit for Free. The limit that matters is the 300 credits, which every project on the team shares.
Do Deploy Previews use Netlify credits?
No. Deploy Previews and branch deploys cost 0 credits. Only successful production deploys cost 15 credits. Failed deploys and rollbacks are also free.
Does Netlify delete my site when the free credits run out?
No. The site is paused and shows “Site not available”. It comes back when the credits reset at the next billing cycle, or straight away if you upgrade.
Is my account on the legacy plan or the credit plan?
If you created it before 4 September 2025 and never switched, it is on the legacy plan with 100 GB of bandwidth and 300 build minutes. Your Usage & billing page shows which plan you have.
Can I use a custom domain on Netlify’s free plan?
Yes. Custom domains with SSL are included on Free, according to Netlify’s pricing page. Traffic to the custom domain spends the same credits.