Render vs Fly.io 2026: Pricing, Free Tier and Cold Starts

Fly.io is cheaper for a backend that idles, and Render is cheaper once you add a managed database. An always-on 1 CPU, 2 GB web service costs $25/mo on Render and $33/mo on Fly.io at its dedicated-CPU size, or $13.39/mo on Fly.io's shared-CPU size. The same service running two hours a day costs about $2.89 on Fly.io and the full instance price on Render, because Render's paid instances never scale to zero. Prices were read on both vendors' pricing pages on 26 October 2026.

The two platforms bill different shapes. Render sells fixed instances at a monthly price plus a workspace plan, with billing prorated to the second only when you turn a service off. Fly.io sells Machines by the second with no platform fee, stops them when traffic stops, and charges a few cents for the stopped disk image. The fair comparison is the same app on each, always on and then idle, which is what the tables below do.

Platform	Best for	Entry paid compute	Catch
Render	A fixed bill for a service that runs all month, with a cheap managed Postgres beside it	$7/mo for 0.5 CPU and 512 MB, on a free Hobby workspace	Paid instances run and bill all month; the Pro workspace adds a flat monthly fee
Fly.io	A backend that is idle most of the day, or one you want in several regions	$2.19/mo for a 256 MB shared Machine, no platform fee	No free tier, and managed Postgres starts far above Render's cheapest database

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 318 hosting and deployment tools as of 26 October 2026, and Render is the most-listed alternative and the most compared tool in that category. The median entry paid plan across the 118 of those tools that publish a flat price is $12/mo, so Render's cheapest paid instance sits below the category median and Fly.io's smallest Machine well below it. The directory records are Render on Toolradar and Fly.io on Toolradar, the ranking is best hosting and deployment platforms, and the counts are on the hosting statistics page.

How each bill is built

Render charges three things: a workspace plan, fixed-price compute per service, and metered extras. The Hobby workspace is $0/mo with up to 25 services, 5 GB of bandwidth and 500 build minutes; Pro adds a flat monthly workspace fee for unlimited seats and services, 25 GB of bandwidth and 1,000 build minutes; Scale is $499/mo for HIPAA, SSO and 1 TB of bandwidth. Web services and workers are priced by size, from 0.5 CPU and 512 MB through the 1 CPU and 2 CPU sizes in the table below, then $135/mo for 2 CPU and 8 GB and up to $1,500/mo for 12 CPU and 96 GB. Compute is prorated to the second, so a service you delete after a day costs a day, but a web service that stays deployed bills its full monthly price whether anyone calls it or not.

Fly.io charges for what runs. A Machine bills by the second while started: $2.19/mo for shared-cpu-1x with 256 MB, $3.69/mo with 512 MB, $13.39/mo for shared-cpu-2x with 2 GB, $33.00/mo for performance-1x with 2 GB, $66.00/mo for performance-2x with 4 GB and $132.01/mo for performance-4x with 8 GB, all for a 30-day month in Fly.io's cheapest US regions. Extra RAM is $6.00 per GB per month. A stopped Machine bills only its root filesystem at $0.15 per GB per month. There is no workspace or seat fee; support plans are optional at $29/mo, $199/mo or from $2,500/mo.

That difference in shape is the whole comparison. Render's bill is a known number you can put in a budget. Fly.io's bill follows runtime, which is a saving when the app sleeps and a wash when it does not.

What an always-on backend costs at three sizes

The table prices one web service that runs all month on each platform, with no database and under the included bandwidth. Render sizes map directly. On Fly.io there are two reasonable matches for each size, the shared-CPU preset at the same RAM and the dedicated performance preset, so both are shown.

Size	Render instance	Fly.io shared CPU	Fly.io performance CPU
0.5 CPU, 512 MB	$7/mo	$3.69/mo (shared-cpu-1x, 512 MB)	No performance preset this small
1 CPU, 2 GB	$25/mo	$13.39/mo (shared-cpu-2x, 2 GB)	$33.00/mo (performance-1x, 2 GB)
2 CPU, 4 GB	$85/mo	Not a listed preset at 4 GB	$66.00/mo (performance-2x, 4 GB)

Fly.io's monthly figures are its own per-hour rates over a 30-day month, as printed on its pricing page. Two readings follow from the table. At the small end Fly.io's shared Machine is about half Render's price for the same RAM. At 2 CPU and 4 GB, Fly.io's dedicated performance Machine is $19/mo cheaper than Render's instance, and Render's Pro workspace fee, if you need its seats or bandwidth, widens that gap to $44/mo (our arithmetic).

Render's answer to that gap is that its instance is a managed service with health checks, zero-downtime deploys, a CDN and horizontal autoscaling on Pro, while a Fly Machine is closer to a VM you shape yourself. Whether that gap is worth paying depends on how much platform you want to run. Our Render review and Fly.io review take that question on its own.

What the same backend costs when it scales to zero

Here Fly.io wins outright, because Render has no scale-to-zero on paid instances. Fly.io's autostop and autostart stop a Machine after the app has been idle for several minutes and start it again when a request arrives. While stopped, you pay $0.15 per GB of root filesystem for the month and nothing for CPU or RAM.

Fly.io's own documentation prices the small case: a shared-cpu-1x Machine with 512 MB running two hours a day costs $0.31 of compute plus $0.14 for a 1 GB image stopped the rest of the time, or $0.45/mo, rising to $1.95 with a 10 GB volume because volumes bill on provisioned size whether the Machine runs or not. Applying the same two-hours-a-day pattern to the other sizes, with the same 1 GB image, is our arithmetic:

Size, 2 hours a day	Fly.io shared CPU	Fly.io performance CPU	Render paid instance
0.5 CPU, 512 MB	$0.45/mo	No preset	$7/mo
1 CPU, 2 GB	$1.26/mo	$2.89/mo	$25/mo
2 CPU, 4 GB	No preset	$5.64/mo	$85/mo

A staging environment, an internal tool used in office hours or a webhook receiver that fires a few times an hour is the shape that pays for Fly.io. Render's only scale-to-zero is the Free instance, which is not for production, so a Render staging server costs the same as the production one.

Render's docs say compute is only billed while a service runs, and you can suspend a service by hand. That is a manual pause, not autoscaling to zero, so the saving depends on someone remembering to click.

Free tiers and trials

Render has a free tier and Fly.io does not, which flips the usual "pay as you go is cheaper" assumption for a hobby project. Render's Free web service gets 512 MB of RAM and 750 Free instance hours per workspace per month, spins down after 15 minutes without inbound traffic, and takes about one minute to spin back up behind a loading page. The free Postgres has 256 MB and 1 GB of storage and expires 30 days after creation, with 14 days to upgrade before Render deletes it. Static sites are free with no spin-down. Render's docs say outright not to use Free instances for production.

Fly.io's docs are equally direct: new organizations have no free tier and no monthly free allowance. New accounts get a trial of up to 2 hours of Machine runtime or 7 days, whichever comes first, with no card required, and then pay as you go. The cheapest way to keep something alive on Fly.io is a 256 MB Machine at $2.19/mo, which is roughly the price of a coffee and still not free.

For a side project with zero budget, Render is the only one of the two that hosts a web service and a database for nothing, with the 30-day database clock as the catch. The wider field of free allowances is in our cloud free tiers compared guide.

Cold starts: how long a sleeping app takes to answer

Render's cold start is only a free-tier problem, and it is a long one. A Free web service that has spun down takes about a minute to answer its next request, with Render showing a loading page in the meantime, which is fine for a demo and not for a link you send to a customer. Paid Render instances never spin down, so they have no cold start at all.

Fly.io's cold start is a configurable trade. The docs put a start from the stopped state at about 2 seconds or more for common apps, and a resume from the suspended state at a few hundred milliseconds. You pick which with auto_stop_machines = "stop" or "suspend", and min_machines_running = 1 keeps one Machine warm in your primary region while extras scale away. That last setting is the middle path most production apps on Fly.io end up on: one Machine always billed, the rest only when traffic needs them.

The honest summary is that Render buys you no cold starts by charging for the instance all month, and Fly.io lets you choose between a two-second wake, a sub-second wake and an always-warm Machine, with the bill following your choice.

What a database and egress add

A managed Postgres database reverses the small-app result. Render's cheapest paid Postgres is $6/mo for 0.1 CPU and 256 MB with 1 GB of storage included and $0.30 per GB beyond that, and $19/mo buys 0.5 CPU and 1 GB. Fly.io Managed Postgres starts at $38/mo for the Basic plan (shared-2x, 1 GB) plus $0.28 per GB of storage used, with Starter at $72/mo. Fly.io's unmanaged Postgres runs on Machines you operate yourself, and its docs list it as unsupported.

Egress runs the other way. Render includes 5 GB on Hobby and 25 GB on Pro, then $0.15 per GB. Fly.io charges $0.02 per GB from North America and Europe, $0.04 from Asia Pacific, Oceania and South America, and $0.12 from Africa and India, with inbound free. Fifty gigabytes a month is $6.75 on Render Hobby, $3.75 on Render Pro and $1.00 on Fly.io from a US region (our arithmetic).

Put the pieces together for an always-on 1 CPU, 2 GB API with a managed database and 50 GB of egress. The web service line is Render's 1 CPU, 2 GB instance and Fly.io's two 2 GB presets, at the always-on prices in the first table:

Line	Render Hobby	Render Pro	Fly.io shared CPU	Fly.io performance CPU
Workspace	$0	$25	$0	$0
Web service	1 CPU, 2 GB instance	1 CPU, 2 GB instance	shared-cpu-2x, 2 GB	performance-1x, 2 GB
Managed Postgres	$19 (0.5 CPU, 1 GB)	$19 (0.5 CPU, 1 GB)	$38 (Basic, 1 GB)	$38 (Basic, 1 GB)
Egress, 50 GB	$6.75	$3.75	$1.00	$1.00
Monthly bill	$50.75	$72.75	$52.39	$72.00

Render Hobby and Fly.io's shared-CPU build land within $2 of each other, and Render Pro and Fly.io's performance build within $1. The database is why: Fly.io's managed Postgres floor cancels most of its compute advantage. If the app can live on the $6 Render database, Render Hobby drops to $37.75 and wins clearly. If the app idles, Fly.io's compute line shrinks toward zero while its database line does not, so the Postgres plan becomes most of a Fly.io bill. The database layer on its own is compared in best Postgres hosting.

Discounts, add-ons and the fees the headline hides

Fly.io sells a 40% discount on compute if you prepay a reservation block for a region and CPU class: $144 a year buys $20/mo of performance usage, and $36 a year buys $5/mo of shared usage, with the credit expiring each month and applying only to CPU and extra RAM. A team that knows it will run one performance-1x Machine all year can prepay two performance blocks, $288 a year, and cover that whole $33/mo line for $24/mo (our arithmetic). Fly.io also charges $2/mo for a dedicated IPv4, the same per-GB monthly rate for volumes as for a stopped image, and $99/mo for its HIPAA package.

Render's extras sit mostly on the workspace plan: persistent disks at $0.25 per GB per month, extra custom domains at $0.25 each beyond the 2 included on Hobby and 15 on Pro, build minutes at $5 per 1,000 beyond the allowance, and HIPAA only on the $499/mo Scale workspace. Render waives the Pro or Scale fee in a month with no services and no activity, and it advertises up to $10K in migration credits for teams moving production infrastructure, which is worth asking about before you move. The full menu on each side is in Render pricing and Fly.io pricing.

Who should pick which

Pick Fly.io when the backend sleeps more than it works, when you want Machines in several regions, or when you are comfortable operating your own database. A performance-2x Machine undercuts Render's 2 CPU, 4 GB instance by more than a fifth while running, and a stopped Machine costs cents. Budget the managed Postgres floor separately, and set min_machines_running to 1 if a two-second wake is too slow for your users.

Pick Render when you want a fixed bill, a managed Postgres from $6/mo, and a platform that handles deploys, health checks and a CDN without configuration. Pay the Pro workspace only when you need unlimited seats, 25 GB of bandwidth, full-stack previews or autoscaling; a solo developer on Hobby pays instance prices alone.

Pick neither for a free production app. Render's Free instance spins down and its free database expires; Fly.io has no free tier at all. Railway is the third name in this decision, and Railway vs Render and Railway vs Fly.io price it against each. For teams leaving Heroku, Heroku alternatives and how to migrate from Heroku cover the move, and best serverless platforms widens the field.

How we priced it

Render's workspace fees, instance prices, Postgres prices, bandwidth allowances, add-on rates and billing FAQ were read on Render's pricing page on 26 October 2026, and the Free instance rules on Render's free instance docs the same day. Fly.io's Machine, storage, egress, Managed Postgres and support prices were read on Fly.io's pricing page and Fly.io's resource pricing docs, and the stopped-Machine example, cold start timings and autostop settings on Fly.io's autostop and autostart docs, all on 26 October 2026.

Fly.io's monthly compute figures are the vendor's own 30-day conversions for its cheapest US regions; Machines in other regions cost more. The two-hours-a-day idle scenario, the 1 GB image size and the 50 GB egress figure are our scenario inputs, and the totals built from them are our multiplication, not invoices either vendor sent us. Toolradar's counts come from its hosting and deployment ranking on 26 October 2026. Louis Corneloup, founder of Toolradar and Dupple, wrote this page. Ranking method is on how we rate, corrections are on the editorial policy, and the author note is on about.

FAQ

Is Fly.io cheaper than Render in 2026?

For compute, yes on Fly.io's shared presets at every size we priced, and on its performance preset at 2 CPU and 4 GB: $3.69 against Render's smallest instance for 512 MB, and $66 against $85 at the larger size. Add a managed Postgres and the bills converge, because Fly.io's cheapest database plan costs more than six times Render's. An app that idles most of the day is far cheaper on Fly.io either way.

Does Fly.io have a free tier?

No. Fly.io's docs say new organizations have no free tier or monthly free allowance. New accounts get a trial of up to 2 hours of Machine runtime or 7 days, whichever ends first, without a credit card, and then pay for what runs. Render is the one with a free web service and a free database.

Why does my Render free app take a minute to load?

Render spins down a Free web service after 15 minutes without inbound traffic and takes about a minute to spin it back up on the next request, showing a loading page meanwhile. Paid Render instances never spin down. On Fly.io a stopped Machine starts in about 2 seconds or more, and a suspended one resumes in a few hundred milliseconds.

How much does a Render Pro workspace cost, and do I need it?

Pro is a flat monthly fee on top of compute, shown in the tables above, and buys unlimited seats and services, 25 GB of included bandwidth, full-stack preview environments, horizontal autoscaling and 14-day log retention. A solo developer with a couple of services usually does not need it; a team with several people deploying usually does. Fly.io has no equivalent fee.

What happens to the bill when a Fly.io Machine is stopped?

CPU and RAM stop billing. You pay $0.15 per GB per month for the Machine's root filesystem and the full provisioned size of any attached volume. Fly.io's own example puts a 512 MB Machine that runs two hours a day at $0.45/mo without a volume and $1.95/mo with a 10 GB volume.

Which is better for a Postgres database?

Render, on price: its cheapest paid database is $6/mo and a 0.5 CPU, 1 GB database costs about three times that, with storage at $0.30 per GB. Fly.io Managed Postgres starts at $38/mo plus $0.28 per GB used, and its unmanaged Postgres is listed as unsupported. Render's free database is a trial, since it expires after 30 days.

Cite this: Devshot, "Render vs Fly.io 2026: Pricing, Free Tier and Cold Starts", November 2026.

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