Let's cut through the marketing fluff and look at the actual numbers. If you're building a React app in 2026, the choice between AWS and Vercel often comes down to one question: how much are you willing to pay for convenience?
Here's the honest breakdown.
The quick verdict
For a typical production React app with moderate traffic (35K visitors/month, 180GB bandwidth):
Platform Monthly Cost
Vercel Pro $20/month
AWS (S3 + CloudFront) $5–8/month
AWS is 60–75% cheaper at this scale.
But that $12–15/month difference comes with tradeoffs. Here's what you're really buying.
Vercel's pricing model: the convenience tax
Vercel's pricing looks simple at first glance:
Hobby: Free (personal/non-commercial only)
Pro: $20/user/month — includes 1TB bandwidth, 10M edge requests, 1M function invocations, 40 CPU hours
Enterprise: Custom (starts around $20–25K/year)
The catch: You get billed for overages once you exceed those limits. And the limits are per-billing-cycle, not cumulative, so they reset monthly.
Resource Included (Pro) Overage rate
Fast Data Transfer 1 TB $0.15/GB
Edge Requests 10M $2 per 1M
Function Invocations 1M $0.40 per 1M
Active CPU Time 40 hours $5/hour
At scale, overages add up fast:
text
100K visitors, 2TB bandwidth, 50M edge requests
Vercel Pro:
- Base: $20
- Bandwidth overage (1TB extra): $150
- Edge requests overage (40M extra): $80
- Total: $250/month
AWS:
- CloudFront (2TB): $170
- S3: $5
- Lambda: $10
- Total: $185/month
You save: $65/month (26%)
AWS pricing: pay for what you use
AWS offers multiple ways to host a React app. The most cost-effective for static React apps?
S3 + CloudFront (recommended for most React apps)
For a static React app (no server-side rendering), this is the sweet spot:
Component Cost
S3 storage $0.023/GB/month
S3 requests ~$0.005 per 10K GET requests
CloudFront (CDN) $0.085–0.12/GB data transfer
Lambda@Edge (optional) Pay per request
Real-world example: A small SaaS app with 35K visitors and 180GB bandwidth:
CloudFront: $3–5
S3: $1–2
Lambda: $0.50
Total: $5–8/month
For a portfolio or low-traffic site, you can stay within AWS Free Tier entirely.
AWS Amplify (the Vercel-like experience)
If you want Git-based deployments and preview URLs without the complexity, AWS Amplify is Vercel's direct competitor:
Free tier: 1,000 build minutes/month, 15GB bandwidth, 30K requests
Beyond free tier: $0.01/build minute, $0.15/GB transfer, $0.023/GB storage
MVP cost (low traffic with Cognito + RDS): ~$16–25/month.
EC2 + CloudFront (for full-stack or SSR)
If you need server-side rendering or custom backend logic:
Component Monthly Cost
t4g.medium EC2 ~$24.53
EBS storage ~$0.80
ALB ~$16.50
CloudFront usage-based
Total base ~$54–63/month
The multi-project math
Here's where AWS really shines. I run 6 production SaaS apps:
Platform Cost
Vercel: 6 apps × $20/month $120/month minimum
AWS: All 6 apps combined ~$20/month total
That's $100+/month savings — $1,200/year. Real money you can spend on marketing, hiring, or your own salary.
Hidden costs and traps
Vercel gotchas
Hobby plan is non-commercial only — if you deploy client work, you're on Pro
AI apps are expensive — streaming responses keep functions running longer (45-second stream = 45x cost of a quick API call)
No gradual upgrade path — the jump from Pro to Enterprise is a cliff (from $20/user to ~$20K/year)
Regional pricing varies — bandwidth costs $0.15–0.35/GB depending on region
AWS gotchas
Complex pricing — you need to understand S3, CloudFront, Lambda, and data transfer costs
Learning curve — configuring IAM roles, CloudFront invalidations, and build pipelines takes time
Surprise bills — set billing alerts from day one (stories of $10K+ surprise AWS bills aren't urban legends)
Which should you choose?
Choose Vercel if:
You're building with Next.js (first-class support, zero config)
You want preview deployments for every PR
You hate infrastructure and want to focus on code
Your traffic is predictable and within Pro plan limits
You're willing to pay $20–150/month for convenience
Choose AWS if:
You have multiple projects (savings compound fast)
You want cost predictability at scale
You already use AWS services (Cognito, RDS, DynamoDB, SES)
You have time to learn the basics of S3 + CloudFront
You're building a SaaS where every dollar of margin matters
Real numbers comparison
Scenario Vercel Pro AWS (S3+CF) Savings
Portfolio (low traffic) $20 ~$0–3 ~$17
Small SaaS (35K visitors, 180GB) $20 ~$5–8 ~$12–15
Growing SaaS (100K visitors, 2TB) ~$250 ~$185 ~$65
6 production apps $120+ ~$20 ~$100+
Bottom line
Vercel is the premium experience — you pay for simplicity, preview deployments, and Next.js optimization. It's worth it if your time is valuable and your traffic is predictable.
AWS is the cost-effective choice — you trade setup complexity for significantly lower costs, especially as you scale or run multiple projects.
For most solo developers and small teams, the answer is: start on Vercel (it's free), and move to AWS when the bill starts to hurt.
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