Abhishek Jaiswal 
Render charges in two layers: a workspace plan that sets your features, bandwidth and build minutes, and a flat monthly price for every instance you run on top of it. Each web service, worker, Postgres database and Key Value store is its own line. The model is predictable, since an instance costs the same whether it is busy or idle. This post goes through both layers, using list prices from Render’s pricing page as of 2026-10-13, and works two real bills.
TL;DR
- Workspace plans are Hobby at $0, Pro at $25 a month, Scale at $499 a month, and Enterprise at custom pricing. Compute bills on top of every plan.
- Paid web services start at $7 a month for 0.5 CPU and 512 MB, then $25 for 1 CPU and 2 GB, and $85 for 2 CPU and 4 GB. A free instance exists with limitations.
- Postgres starts at $6 a month for 256 MB, then $19 for 1 GB and $40 for 2 GB, with storage at $0.30 per GB. Key Value starts at $10 a month for 256 MB.
- Bandwidth past the plan allowance is $0.15 per GB, and extra build minutes are $5 per 1,000.
- A side project with a small Postgres database runs about $14 a month on Render. A two-service team app with a 4 GB database runs about $136 on Pro. Price your own stack on the cloud cost calculator.
What are Render’s workspace plans?
The workspace plan is a fee for the account, separate from what your services cost.
| Plan | Price | Bandwidth included | Build minutes included | Highlights |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $0 + compute | 5 GB a month | 500 a month | Up to 25 services, custom domains, single-service previews |
| Pro | $25 a month + compute | 25 GB a month | 1,000 a month | Unlimited seats and services, full-stack previews, horizontal autoscaling |
| Scale | $499 a month + compute | 1 TB a month | 5,000 per workspace a month | Multiple workspaces, SSO, HIPAA-compliant workspaces |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Uptime SLAs, dedicated support |
Bandwidth past the allowance bills at $0.15 per GB on every plan, and build minutes past the allowance at $5 per 1,000. Persistent disks for services are $0.25 per GB per month.
What do Render instances cost?
Render names instances by their shape. Prices are flat per month, prorated by the second.
| Web service or worker | CPU | Memory | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | shared | 512 MB | $0, limitations apply |
| 0.5c-512mb | 0.5 | 512 MB | $7 |
| 1c-2g | 1 | 2 GB | $25 |
| 2c-4g | 2 | 4 GB | $85 |
| 2c-8g | 2 | 8 GB | $135 |
| 4c-8g | 4 | 8 GB | $175 |
| 4c-16g | 4 | 16 GB | $225 |
| 8c-32g | 8 | 32 GB | $450 |
The free instance is for trying things out. Free web services spin down when they receive no traffic, so the first request after a quiet period waits for a cold start.
How much does Render Postgres cost?
Postgres is priced the same way, by instance shape, with storage on top at $0.30 per GB per month.
| Postgres | CPU | Memory | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | shared | 256 MB | $0, limitations apply |
| 0.1c-256mb | 0.1 | 256 MB | $6 |
| 0.5c-1g | 0.5 | 1 GB | $19 |
| 1c-2g | 1 | 2 GB | $40 |
| 1c-4g | 1 | 4 GB | $55 |
| 2c-4g | 2 | 4 GB | $75 |
| 2c-8g | 2 | 8 GB | $100 |
| 2c-16g | 2 | 16 GB | $160 |
Key Value, Render’s Redis-compatible store, starts at $10 a month for 256 MB, $20 for 1 GB and $60 for 3 GB.
What does a real Render bill look like?
A side project with a small database, on Hobby. One 0.5c-512mb web service, the $6 Postgres instance with 1 GB of data, and 10 GB of egress.
- Web service: $7.00
- Postgres: $6.00 + $0.30 storage
- Bandwidth: 5 GB included, 5 GB at $0.15 = $0.75
- Total: about $14.05 a month
A small team’s app, on Pro. Two 1c-2g services, a 1c-4g Postgres with 20 GB of data, and traffic inside the 25 GB allowance.
- Pro workspace: $25
- Services: 2 x $25 = $50
- Postgres: $55 + $6 storage
- Total: about $136 a month
The predictability cuts both ways. A 1c-2g service costs $25 at 3 percent CPU or 90 percent CPU. Teams with steady, busy services get good value; teams with mostly idle services pay for capacity they do not use.
How does the same stack price on Ownkube?
Ownkube meters app CPU and memory on what each service actually uses, at about $18 per vCPU per month and $4.50 per GiB per month, and runs databases on flat boxes from $4 a month with storage at $0.25 per GB. There is no workspace fee on top of compute: the Personal plan ($5) and the Team plan ($20) load the same amount into a prepaid wallet that pays for usage. Egress is $0.02 per GB in the Germany region and $0.13 per GB in the Mumbai region.
| Stack | Render | Ownkube (Germany region) |
|---|---|---|
| Side project: small app, small Postgres, 1 GB data, 10 GB egress | about $14.05 | about $8.50 |
| Team app: two 1 vCPU / 2 GB services, 4 GB Postgres, 20 GB data | about $136 | about $65 |
For the side project, the Ownkube line is an app holding 0.5 GiB at an average of 0.1 vCPU ($4.05), a DB 0.5 box ($4), 1 GB of storage ($0.25) and 10 GB of egress ($0.20). For the team app, each service averages 0.4 vCPU while holding 2 GiB ($16.20 each), and the database is a DB 4 box (1 vCPU, 4 GiB) at $28 with 20 GB of storage ($5). The Team plan’s $20 monthly load counts toward that usage.
If you prefer Render’s flat model, each Ownkube app can switch to a reserved box at a fixed price instead of the meter. Either way, usage draws a prepaid wallet, and unused credit rolls over and never expires.
Where is Render the right call?
- Steady, busy services. Flat instances are good value when a service uses most of what it reserves.
- Teams that want a Heroku-style dashboard. Render’s previews, blueprints and managed datastores are mature.
- Compliance needs. HIPAA-compliant workspaces and SSO are available on Scale.
Render gets expensive when you run many mostly idle services, each billing a full instance, and when the Pro or Scale workspace fee is large next to your compute.
FAQ
Is Render free?
The Hobby workspace is $0, and Render offers free web service, Postgres and Key Value instances with limitations: free web services spin down when idle, and free databases are not meant for production data. Paid services start at $7 a month.
How much does Render cost per month for a small app?
About $7 for the smallest paid web service, plus $6 or more for a Postgres database. With storage and some bandwidth, a typical side project lands around $14 a month on the Hobby workspace.
What is the difference between Render Hobby and Pro?
Pro costs $25 a month and adds unlimited seats and services, 25 GB of included bandwidth instead of 5 GB, 1,000 build minutes instead of 500, full-stack previews, and horizontal autoscaling. Compute is billed on top of both.
How much is Render bandwidth?
5 GB a month is included on Hobby, 25 GB on Pro and 1 TB on Scale. Past that it is $0.15 per GB.
Where Ownkube fits
If most of your Render services sit idle, metered compute bills the use instead of the reservation, and a database box from $4 a month covers a side project’s Postgres. The bill comes from a prepaid wallet, so it can never run ahead of your balance. For the broader comparison, see Render alternatives in 2026. Deploy my first app.
Abhishek Jaiswal · Founder and Engineer
Abhishek Jaiswal is the founder and engineer behind Ownkube, a cloud for personal software. He builds the platform and writes here about cloud cost, migrations, and running production infrastructure in your own AWS account without a DevOps team.