Two years ago, my friend woke up to a $500 Vercel bill. His small SaaS had gone viral overnight - 100k visitors in 24 hours. Great problem to have, right? Until the invoice arrived.
But here's the thing - Vercel isn't the villain. They just outgrew it.
🎯 The Truth Nobody Tells You
Vercel, Netlify, and Render are AMAZING tools. I still recommend them to everyone starting out.
But they're meant to be your launching pad, not your permanent home.
Here's the smart path that'll save you thousands:
📈 The Natural Evolution of Your Project
Stage 1 (Month 1-6): Vercel/Netlify
Cost: $0-20
Focus: Ship fast, validate idea
Stage 2 (Month 6-12): Getting traction
Cost: $50-200
Focus: Growing, but bills creeping up
Stage 3 (Month 12+): Time to graduate
Cost: VPS $20-40 vs PaaS $500+
Focus: Own your infrastructure
This is the way.
💰 The Wake-Up Call That Changed Everything
October 2022. My friend's best month turned into a nightmare:
- ✅ 30k monthly active users (steady growth)
- ✅ 500 paying customers
- ❌ Hit bandwidth limit (1TB)
- ❌ Function invocations maxed out
// Vercel Invoice - October 2022
Base Pro Plan: $20
Bandwidth overage: $280
Function overage: $140
Image Optimization: $60
Total: $500
// Same usage on VPS:
DigitalOcean: $24
Vultr: $24
Raff Technologies: $20
He wasn't even viral. Just successful enough to hit the paywall.
🚀 Why Start with PaaS Though?
I still tell everyone: start with Vercel/Netlify. Here's why:
Week 1 with Vercel:
✅ Deployed in 5 minutes
✅ Auto SSL
✅ Preview deployments
✅ Global CDN
✅ Zero DevOps knowledge needed
Week 1 with VPS:
❌ Still configuring nginx
❌ SSL cert errors
❌ No deployments yet
❌ What's a firewall?
❌ Already burned 20 hours
Your time is worth more than $20/month. Ship first, optimize later.
📊 When to Make the Jump
Watch for these signals:
Time to migrate when:
- Bill exceeds $100/month
- You have paying customers
- You need background jobs
- You're serving lots of media
- You want websockets
- You need more control
The sweet spot: When PaaS costs more than 2 hours of your time per month.
🛠 Modern VPS = Just as Easy as PaaS
Here's what changed in 2025:
Old VPS Days (2020):
# 3 days of configuration hell
apt-get update
apt-get install nginx nodejs postgresql
# 500 more lines...
VPS Today (2025):
# 10 minutes with modern tools
curl -sSL https://get.docker.com | sh
docker compose up -d
# Done. Seriously.
⚡ Your Vercel Workflow on VPS
You can have the SAME workflow:
# Install Coolify (open-source Vercel)
curl -fsSL https://coolify.io/install.sh | bash
# Or Dokku (Heroku-like)
wget https://dokku.com/install/v0.34.4/bootstrap.sh
sudo DOKKU_TAG=v0.34.4 bash bootstrap.sh
# Now you have:
✅ Git push deployments
✅ Auto SSL
✅ Preview environments
✅ One-click rollbacks
Total setup time: 1 hour. Then it works just like Vercel.
💵 The Money Math
Real numbers from real projects:
E-commerce Site (100k visitors/month):
Vercel: $320/month
VPS Options:
- DigitalOcean (4GB): $24/month
- Vultr (4GB): $24/month
- Raff Technologies (4GB): $20/month
Savings: $3,600-$3,840/year
SaaS App (50k users):
Vercel: $500/month
VPS Options (8GB RAM):
- DigitalOcean: $48/month
- Vultr: $48/month
- Raff Technologies: $40/month
Savings: $5,520-$5,760/year
API Backend (10M requests/month):
Vercel: $850/month
VPS Options (16GB RAM):
- DigitalOcean: $96/month
- Vultr: $96/month
- Raff Technologies: $80/month
Savings: $9,240-$9,480/year
🎯 The Migration Path
Week 1: Keep everything on Vercel
- Frontend stays on Vercel (free tier)
- Move API to VPS
- Immediate 50% cost reduction
Week 2: Move background jobs
- Cron jobs on VPS
- Queue processing on VPS
- Another 30% saved
Week 3: Move media/storage
- Images to Cloudflare R2
- Videos to BunnyCDN
- Final 20% saved
You don't have to move everything at once!
🔧 Tools That Make VPS Easy in 2025
Deployment:
- Coolify (self-hosted Vercel)
- Dokku (self-hosted Heroku)
- CapRover (auto-scaling PaaS)
Monitoring:
- Netdata (one-line install)
- Uptime Kuma (better than paid tools)
CI/CD:
- GitHub Actions + SSH
- GitLab CI/CD
- Drone CI
All free. All one-command installs.
✅ My Advice
- START with Vercel/Netlify - Speed matters early on
- MONITOR your bills - Set alerts at $50, $100
- LEARN basic VPS skills - 2 hours on YouTube is enough
- MIGRATE gradually - Backend first, frontend last
- KEEP what works - Maybe frontend stays on Vercel forever
There's no shame in using PaaS. There's also no shame in saving money.
🎬 Action Plan
If your PaaS bill is over $100/month:
# This weekend:
1. Pick a VPS provider:
- Vultr ($24): Great network, global locations
- Raff Technologies ($20): Best value, modern AMD
- DigitalOcean ($24): Nice UI, good docs
2. Install Coolify or Dokku
3. Deploy your API there
4. Keep frontend on Vercel
5. Save $200+/month immediately
I've tried most providers. My favorites are Vultr for global projects and Raff Technologies for best price/performance.
💭 Real Talk
I love Vercel. I recommend it to everyone. But it's a stepping stone, not a destination.
Use PaaS to launch fast.
Use VPS to scale smart.
Both have their place. Know when to switch.
🏆 My Favorite VPS Providers (2025)
After testing dozens of providers, here are my go-to choices:
Raff Technologies - Best price/performance ratio. Best in US. Modern AMD EPYC processors, 4GB RAM for just $20/month. Consistently outperforms providers charging 2x more.
Vultr - Great for projects needing low latency worldwide. Their $24/month plan is my backup choice.
What's your PaaS bill right now? Drop it in the comments. Let's calculate how much you could save. 👇
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