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Discussion on: Have you used Netlify for real client projects?

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jgeis13 profile image
Jarick

Hi Alexa,

A year or so later are you still using Netlify's Free tier for client projects? I'm beginning to run into this conundrum myself. I read their reply to your question about the TOS and it's hard to know if that still holds up. Some other threads seem to say for commercial use they want you on the Pro plan.

I've started using NextJS and I love it. But realizing when it comes to hosting a small business website, Netlify and Vercel (especially) have awkward pricing. It's either overly expensive if you want to setup an account for each client, or you have to deal with TOS uncertainty (more explicitly commerce requires paid plan in Vercel) if you keep them on the free tier. Sure I could upgrade my own account to Pro and host multiple websites but I don't always want to maintain the client site. But making a small business pay $20/month for hosting a small site when it could be hosted more "traditionally" for much less feels strange.

Maybe I'm overthinking this whole thing. I love both Netlify and Vercel and their services (and their generous free tiers) and understand they need to make money, but it sure seems like they could have a cheap "lite business" plan or something where only 1 site is allowed with much smaller limits.

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alexabruck profile image
Alexa Steinbrück

Hi Jarick, thanks for sharing your experience! Yes, I am still using Netlify one year later, also for client projects. It feels like we are the only people who view it from a critical angle, so maybe we're overthinking it (like you said) :-D I will add an update to this blog post if I ever run into problems with Netlify free tier.