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The cheapest way to host a small business site in 2026: VPS vs Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare and more
We priced ten hosts for three real situations: a brochure site, a small app with Postgres, and a site that went viral. A brochure site costs $0, a small app about $16.75 a month, and a viral month anywhere from $5.20 to $474.25. Every price checked on the vendor's own page on 10 November 2026.
By Dapols ·
The short answer: host a simple business website on a free static host. On Cloudflare Pages or Netlify Free it costs $0 a month. For a small app with a database, start on Railway (about $16.75 a month in our example). A plain server (VPS) from Hetzner or OVHcloud is cheaper in cash, from $4.54 a month, but it needs about 8 hours to set up and 2 hours a month to keep patched and backed up. Move to one only when your hosting bill is regularly above about $50 a month and someone will look after the server.
Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page or documentation on 10 November 2026. Euro prices are converted at the European Central Bank rate of that day (1 EUR = 1.1214 USD). Traffic figures are our stated assumptions, not measurements of a real site. The full comparison, with charts and every source link, is on our lean hosting page.
The three situations we priced
- Brochure site with a contact form: about 5,000 visits a month, 2 GB of outbound data, no database.
- Small SaaS or booking app with Postgres: about 10,000 monthly users, 60 GB of outbound data, 1 million requests that run server code, and a 2 GB database.
- A site that went viral: 2 million visits in one month and 3 TB of outbound data.
What each one costs
| Host | Brochure site | App + Postgres | Viral month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Workers & Pages | $0 | $30.12 (with Supabase Pro) | $5.20 |
| Netlify | $0 | $45 (with Supabase Pro) | $440 |
| Fly.io | $2.23 | $47.30 | $73.40 |
| OVHcloud VPS | $4.54 | $4.54 | $8.50 |
| Railway | $5 | $16.75 | $180 |
| DigitalOcean | $6 | $28.80 | $24 |
| Hetzner Cloud | $6.72 | $8.06 | $10.08 |
| Render | $7 | $35.75 | $474.25 |
| Hostinger VPS | $11.99 | $11.99 | $14.99 |
| Vercel | $20 | $45 (with Supabase Pro) | $323.21 |
Monthly US dollars, excluding tax. The VPS rows do not include your own time.
Brochure site: use a free static host
Cloudflare Pages serves static files free and without a limit, and Netlify's free plan includes 300 credits a month, which a site this size does not use up. A VPS costs $4.54 to $11.99 a month and still needs updates.
Vercel is the odd one out: its free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only, so a business site needs Pro at $20 a month per deploying seat.
Small app with Postgres: start managed
Railway runs the app and its Postgres database for about $16.75 a month, because you pay only for the CPU and memory the services really use. Cloudflare Workers with Supabase Pro comes to $30.12. Vercel or Netlify with Supabase Pro is $45, and Fly.io with its managed Postgres is $47.30.
A VPS is cheaper in cash: $4.54 on OVHcloud or $8.06 on Hetzner, backups included. The catch is that Postgres, security updates and backups become your job.
Viral month: bandwidth decides
When 3 TB leaves your site in a month, the way a host charges for bandwidth matters more than anything else:
- Cloudflare does not charge for egress on Workers Paid, so the month costs $5.20.
- VPS hosts include plenty of traffic: OVHcloud $8.50, Hetzner $10.08 (20 TB included), DigitalOcean $24.
- Hosts that bill per GB jump: Vercel $323.21, Netlify $440 and Render $474.25.
If you are on a host that bills per GB, set a spend alert today.
Hidden costs to check before you sign up
- Egress: Vercel charges from $0.15/GB after 1 TB, Render $0.15/GB after 5 GB on its Hobby workspace, Railway $0.05/GB, and Fly.io $0.02/GB in North America and Europe.
- Seats: Vercel Pro charges per deploying seat, so a second developer doubles the base price.
- Free plans that stop: Netlify Free takes the site offline when its credits run out, Supabase Free pauses after a week without activity, and Render's free Postgres expires after 30 days.
- Promotional prices: Hostinger's headline VPS price needs 24 months paid upfront; KVM 1 renews at $11.99 a month.
When not to run your own server
- Nobody will log in every month to install security updates.
- You handle card or health data and need a provider's compliance paperwork.
- The site must stay up while you are away.
- Your bill is already under $50 a month.
How this fits your Dapols plan
Dapols plans that involve a website or an app now include a short "keep hosting lean" note built from these numbers, so your hosting budget starts on a free tier and grows only when your traffic does. Find your plan or compare all ten hosts.