Next.js Deployment Cost Calculator: Vercel vs Self-Hosted (Real Numbers)

Next.js hosting costs can spiral from $0 to $500+ monthly depending on your platform choice, traffic patterns, and team size. This guide breaks down exactly what you'll pay across different deployment options — with formulas you can apply to your specific situation.

The Hidden Costs of Next.js Deployment

Most cost comparisons only show base pricing. The real bill includes:

• Per-seat licensing (team members with dashboard access)
• Bandwidth/data transfer (especially for image-heavy sites)
• Serverless function invocations (API routes, SSR pages)
• Build minutes (CI/CD pipeline time)
• Add-on services (analytics, monitoring, error tracking)

Let's calculate what you'll actually pay.

Cost Calculator by Platform

Vercel Pricing Breakdown

Base costs:

Overage costs (Pro tier):

• Bandwidth: $40 per 100GB
• Build minutes: $0.01 per minute
• Function invocations: $0.60 per million

Formula:

Monthly Cost = ($20 × team_size) + bandwidth_overage + function_costs

Example: 5-person team, 200GB bandwidth, 500K function invocations

Base: $20 × 5 = $100
Bandwidth: $0 (within 1TB included)
Functions: $0 (within included)
Total: $100/month

Example: 5-person team, 2TB bandwidth, 10M function invocations

Base: $20 × 5 = $100
Bandwidth: $40 × 10 = $400 (1TB overage)
Functions: $0.60 × 9 = $5.40 (9M overage)
Total: ~$505/month

Temps Pricing Breakdown

Temps runs on your infrastructure, so costs are infrastructure-only with no per-seat fees.

Typical infrastructure costs:

Included at no extra cost:

• Unlimited team members
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Analytics dashboard
• Error tracking (Sentry-compatible)
• Session replay
• Uptime monitoring

Formula:

Monthly Cost = infrastructure_cost (fixed)

Example: 5-person team, 200GB bandwidth

Infrastructure: $25 (2 vCPU server)
Team seats: $0
Bandwidth: $0
Analytics: $0
Monitoring: $0
Total: $25/month

Example: 5-person team, 2TB bandwidth

Infrastructure: $40 (4 vCPU server for higher traffic)
Team seats: $0
Bandwidth: $0
Total: $40/month

Railway Pricing Breakdown

Usage-based pricing:

• vCPU: $0.000463/minute (~$20/month for 1 vCPU)
• RAM: $0.000231/GB/minute (~$10/month for 1GB)
• Egress: $0.10/GB after 100GB free

Formula:

Monthly Cost = compute_hours + memory_gb_hours + egress_overage

Example: Standard Next.js app with Postgres

App: 1 vCPU, 2GB RAM = ~$40
Database: 0.5 vCPU, 1GB RAM = ~$15
Egress: $0 (within free tier)
Total: ~$55/month

Self-Hosted Docker + VPS Breakdown

VPS costs (DigitalOcean/Hetzner):

Additional costs:

• SSL: Free (Let's Encrypt)
• Monitoring: Free (self-hosted) or $10-30 (Datadog, etc.)
• CI/CD: Free (GitHub Actions) or $19+ (CircleCI)

Hidden costs:

• DevOps time (significant)
• Incident response
• Security patching

Formula:

Monthly Cost = vps_cost + managed_services + (devops_hours × hourly_rate)

Cloudflare Pages Breakdown

Pricing:

Workers (for SSR):

• Free: 100K requests/day
• Paid: $5/mo for 10M requests

Formula:

Monthly Cost = $0 (most sites) to $25 (high Workers usage)

Side-by-Side Cost Comparison

Scenario 1: Solo Developer, Side Project

Specs: 1 developer, 10K monthly visitors, minimal traffic

Winner: Vercel or Cloudflare Pages (free tier)

Scenario 2: Startup Team, Growing SaaS

Specs: 5 developers, 100K monthly visitors, 500GB bandwidth

Winner: Temps or Docker (if you have DevOps capacity)

Scenario 3: Established Company, High Traffic

Specs: 20 developers, 1M monthly visitors, 2TB bandwidth, need analytics + monitoring

Winner: Temps (7x cheaper than Vercel with equivalent features)

Scenario 4: Enterprise, Mission-Critical

Specs: 50 developers, 10M monthly visitors, compliance requirements

Winner: Temps for cost; Vercel Enterprise for fully managed

The Vercel Tax: What You're Really Paying For

Vercel's premium pricing buys you:

1. Zero DevOps — They handle everything
2. Edge Network — 100+ global edge locations
3. Framework Integration — First-party Next.js support
4. Preview Deployments — Every PR gets a URL
5. Analytics — Built-in performance insights (at extra cost)

Is it worth it? For teams without DevOps resources who value convenience over cost — yes. For everyone else, platforms like Temps deliver 90% of the experience at 20% of the price.

How to Calculate Your True Cost

Step 1: Count Your Team

team_cost = number_of_developers × $20 (Vercel)
team_cost = $0 (Temps, self-hosted)

Step 2: Estimate Bandwidth

Average page weight × monthly pageviews = bandwidth
Example: 2MB × 100,000 visits = 200GB

Step 3: Count Function Invocations

API routes + SSR pages × monthly visitors = invocations
Example: 5 routes × 100,000 visits = 500,000 invocations

Step 4: Add Observability Stack

Temps includes all of this. On Vercel, you pay for each separately.

Step 5: Sum It Up

Vercel: team_cost + bandwidth_overage + function_overage + observability
Temps: infrastructure_cost (observability included)

Real Customer Comparisons

Company A: E-commerce Site

Before (Vercel):

• 8 developers: $160/mo
• 500GB bandwidth overage: $160/mo
• Sentry: $89/mo
• Analytics: $19/mo
• Total: $428/mo

After (Temps):

• 4 vCPU server: $50/mo
• Everything else: included
• Total: $50/mo

Annual savings: $4,536

Company B: SaaS Dashboard

Before (Vercel + tools):

• 3 developers: $60/mo
• Within bandwidth: $0
• LogRocket: $99/mo
• Sentry: $29/mo
• Better Uptime: $20/mo
• Total: $208/mo

After (Temps):

• 2 vCPU server: $25/mo
• Session replay, errors, uptime: included
• Total: $25/mo

Annual savings: $2,196

Decision Matrix

Start Saving Today

Most teams switching from Vercel to Temps save 60-80% on hosting costs while gaining built-in analytics, error tracking, and monitoring.

# Try Temps free
curl -fsSL https://temps.sh/deploy.sh | bash
bunx @temps-sdk/cli deploy

Or calculate your exact savings at temps.sh.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does cheaper mean worse performance?

No. Temps runs your app on dedicated infrastructure instead of shared serverless. Many teams report better performance due to eliminated cold starts.

What if I outgrow my server?

Temps supports horizontal scaling. Add more servers as needed, or upgrade to a larger instance. No code changes required.

Are there any hidden fees with Temps?

No. You pay for infrastructure only. No per-seat fees, no bandwidth charges, no overage costs. Observability features are included.

How do I migrate from Vercel?

Standard Next.js apps work without code changes. Export your environment variables, import to Temps, update DNS. Full migration guide here.

Cost data accurate as of January 2026. Verify current pricing on each platform's website before making decisions.