Netlify Gives 300 Credits a Month. Here Is What They Buy.
A hosting plan metered in credits rather than gigabytes, where a single production deploy costs fifteen and bandwidth costs twenty per gigabyte.
Netlify's free plan includes 300 usage credits per month, custom domains with SSL, unlimited deploy previews, serverless functions, blob storage, a global CDN and a Netlify Database. It is free forever and does not require a card. A production deploy costs 15 credits, bandwidth costs 20 credits per gigabyte and web requests cost 2 credits per 10,000.1
Netlify is the only host in this category that meters in credits rather than in storage or page counts, which makes its free tier the hardest to reason about and, once understood, one of the most useful.
The plans, measured
| Free | Personal | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 forever | $9/mo | $20/mo |
| Usage credits | 300/mo | 1,000/mo | 3,000/mo and up |
| Custom domain and SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deploy previews | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Concurrent builds | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Functions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Support | Community | Priority email | Priority email |
Prices measured on 22 October 2026. Vendor plan terms, allowances and prices change without notice, so treat every figure on this page as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent fact. Where a number here differs from the vendor's own pricing page, the vendor's page is correct and the figure above is simply older than it.
What 300 credits actually buy
The credit is a common currency across deploys, bandwidth, compute and requests. That makes the arithmetic concrete, and the result is more generous than the number suggests for a low-traffic site and tighter than expected for a busy one.
| Action | Credit cost | What 300 credits covers |
|---|---|---|
| Production deploy | 15 | 20 deploys |
| Bandwidth | 20 per GB | 15GB total |
| Web requests | 2 per 10,000 | 1.5 million requests |
| Compute | 10 per GB-hour | 30 GB-hours |
Those are alternatives, not additions. If you deploy once and serve a small static site, the credits are mostly untouched. If you deploy twenty times in a month and serve 100GB, you are well past the allowance.
The deploy cost is the surprising one
Fifteen credits per production deploy on a 300-credit allowance means twenty deploys a month. For a static site deployed once, that is irrelevant. For an actively developed project pushing to main several times a day, it is a hard ceiling.
The escape hatch is that previews and branch deploys are unlimited and unmetered. Only the deploy that reaches your main domain costs credits, so a team can iterate on branches all month and pay only for what ships.
What free genuinely includes
Custom domains with automatic SSL. That is unusual: several builders in this category reserve the custom domain for a paid plan, and Netlify gives it away. It also means a free Netlify site can look completely professional.
You also get serverless functions, blob storage for files and images, and a Postgres database on a basic tier. That is a full application platform at zero cost, which is why developers use it as infrastructure rather than as a website builder.
When the free plan is enough
A personal site, a documentation site, a portfolio, a small client brochure site with modest traffic. Anything built in a static site generator or a framework and deployed from Git.
It is also enough for side projects with real functionality, since functions and the database are included. The ceiling is usage, not features.
When it stops being enough
When deploys or bandwidth run past the credit allowance. Personal at $9 a month triples it to 1,000 credits and adds priority support, which is the smallest possible step and enough for most small production sites.
The trap is a site that gets one traffic spike. Bandwidth and requests both meter, and a single popular post can consume a month of credits in an afternoon.
How it compares
Against Webflow and Framer, Netlify gives vastly more traffic and a custom domain at no cost, but no visual designer at all. Against WordPress.com, it is the opposite trade: total technical control, no content editor.
Against Carrd, the difference is audience. Carrd is a page for a person; Netlify is infrastructure for a project.
Frequently asked questions
Is Netlify free forever?
Yes, the free plan has no expiry and requires no card.
Can I use a custom domain on Netlify free?
Yes, with automatic SSL included.
What is a Netlify credit?
A unit covering deploys, bandwidth, compute and requests. The free plan includes 300 a month.
Do deploy previews cost credits?
No. Branch deploys and previews are unlimited. Only production deploys cost credits.
What happens when I run out of credits?
Additional usage requires auto recharge to be enabled, which is off by default. Otherwise the project stops serving until the allowance resets.
Pricing, credit costs and limits verified against Netlify's own pricing page on 23 October 2026.
Sources
- Netlify pricing and plans: www.netlify.com/pricing.
All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 22 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.
