Vercel pricing vs Doable
Honest, cited comparison. Last reviewed: April 2026. We pull from Vercel's public pricing page; if something's out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
Free tier: Hobby vs Doable Free
Both are "forever free". The difference is what happens when your project finds an audience.
| What | Vercel Hobby | Doable Free |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $0 | $0 |
| Bandwidth included | 100 GB | 50 GB (Cloud) or unlimited (self-host) |
| Overage policy | Pay-per-GB after the cap; bills can spike on viral posts | Hard cap, site serves a 'traffic exceeded' page until you upgrade. Never an unexpected bill. |
| Commercial use | Not allowed on Hobby | Allowed on Free (personal) and all paid plans |
| Team members | 1 | 1 |
| Projects | Unlimited | Unlimited self-hosted; 1 on Cloud Free |
| Build minutes | 6,000 / month | Unlimited self-hosted; 500 / month Cloud |
| Preview deploys without signup | No (account required) | Yes, 8h preview, no account, no card |
| Deploy from AI editor (Claude Code / Cursor) | Browser / CLI only | Native MCP, `/deploy` in the editor |
Paid: Vercel Pro vs Doable Pro
Per-seat vs flat monthly. Metered everything vs hard cap. Separate storage bill vs included addons.
| What | Vercel Pro | Doable Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $20 / user / month | $15 / month flat (Starter) |
| Pricing model | Per-seat + metered usage + overages | Flat monthly. Hard cap. No overages without explicit opt-in. |
| Bandwidth included | 1 TB (then $0.15/GB) | 200 GB on Pro, unlimited self-hosted |
| Function execution | Metered GB-hours. Surprise bills common on viral content | Runs in a container you provision, no per-invocation charge |
| Team members | Counted per seat ($20/ea) | Up to 5 on Pro, unlimited on self-host |
| Build minutes | 24,000 / mo then $40 per extra 100h | Unlimited on self-host, 2000 / mo on Cloud Pro |
| Managed Postgres / Redis / MongoDB | Separate product, separate bill (Vercel Storage) | Included, one toggle in the dashboard |
| Custom domains | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Lock-in | Opinionated about Next.js; framework-specific features | Runs any Docker image; port anywhere in minutes |
The bandwidth overage problem
Vercel bills overage bandwidth at roughly $0.15 per GB on Pro after your 1 TB allowance. A Show HN frontpage that serves 100,000 visitors × an average 3 MB bundle = 300 GB of transfer in a day, $45 on top of your $20/mo. That's best-case: if the post continues circulating, or if your app is media-heavy, the numbers grow fast. There are public stories of solo developers getting four- and five-figure bills from a single viral day.
Doable's approach: your plan price is a hard cap. If your preview / project hits the included bandwidth, we serve a temporary holding page and email you — the cost cannot exceed what you agreed to pay. Upgrade with one click to keep serving. On self-host, this question doesn't exist: you're paying your own server bill, not ours.
Where Vercel still wins
- Edge network: If you're shipping a truly static site served globally with < 50 ms latency everywhere, Vercel's edge CDN is ahead. Most full-stack apps don't benefit (database round-trips dominate latency anyway).
- Next.js feature depth: Vercel ships Next.js features the day they release. Doable runs any Docker image (including Next.js) but we're not going to get ISR revalidation exactly right the hour it ships.
- Enterprise integrations: SOC 2, SAML, audit exports — Vercel is deeper here. Doable has the basics. If you're buying through procurement, Vercel is still the safer choice today.
Common questions we get
I got a $3,000 Vercel bill after a viral tweet. How would Doable have handled that?
Doable's hard cap would have served a 'traffic exceeded' holding page on the overage side of your included bandwidth, with an email to you linking to one-click upgrade. Your bill stays at the plan price until you say otherwise. On self-host, you run on your own VPS, no per-request fees exist in that world at all.
Do you actually count per-seat like Vercel?
No. A Pro account supports up to 5 team members on one flat $39/mo. Self-host has no seat limit.
What's the catch with self-hosting?
You provide a VPS (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, a closet Mac mini, any Docker host). `doable server add` onboards it in two minutes. You get the full platform, deploys, rollbacks, domains, managed addons, on your own infrastructure. The only thing we don't give you is our Cloud uptime SLA.
Is Doable slower than Vercel's edge network?
If you host on Doable Cloud, you're in one region by default, not edge-distributed. For most full-stack apps that talk to a database, single-region is actually faster than edge (fewer round-trips to origin). For truly static assets, add a CDN in front, we're explicit that Doable isn't replacing Cloudflare.
What if I just want the 8-hour preview thing without committing?
That flow is free, no signup. Paste a GitHub URL at /try, get a live `<name>.doable.do` link for 8 hours. If it turns into something, claim it in one click and it becomes a real project on your account. Vercel has nothing equivalent, every deploy requires a signed-in account.
You should pick Vercel if…
Honest guidance, because picking the right tool matters more than winning an argument. Choose Vercel if:
- You need global edge latency for a static or SSR app and don't want to run a separate CDN.
- You're shipping Next.js and want every new feature on day one.
- Your company already has Vercel on contract and procurement friction outweighs the price delta.
For everything else — AI-editor workflow, predictable pricing, self-host optionality, a Postgres you don't have to wire up separately — Doable is built to be the better pick.