Why I Built My Entire Business on Vercel (And What I'd Change)

#nextjs #webdev #beginners #vercel

Why I Built My Entire Business on Vercel (And What I'd Change)

A freelance web dev's honest review after 13+ production deployments.

The Setup

I run DreamSiteBuilders.com — a one-person web dev shop building sites for local businesses. Every site ships on Vercel. Not because I evaluated 12 platforms and made a spreadsheet. Because I deployed once, it worked, and I never had a reason to leave.

Thirteen sites later, here's what I actually know.

What Works Unreasonably Well

Deploy speed is the product. My sales pitch to clients is a free demo build. I can go from discovery call to live preview URL in under 4 hours. That's only possible because git push → live site is 45 seconds. No SSH, no Docker, no "it works on my machine." The speed of deploy is the competitive advantage.

Preview deployments close deals. Every PR gets a preview URL. I send clients their site running on a real URL before they've paid a dollar. This converts better than any mockup or Figma link. They can tap through it on their phone. It's real.

Edge functions for the boring stuff. Contact forms, redirect logic, simple API routes — Edge Functions handle the stuff that used to require a whole backend. For SMB sites, this is the entire "server" layer.

v0 for first drafts. I use v0 to generate initial component layouts, then customize heavily. It's not a replacement for building — it's a replacement for staring at a blank file. The output is real Next.js code, not some proprietary format that needs translating.

What I'd Change

Analytics needs work. Vercel Analytics is fine for "is my site fast?" but I still need Google Analytics for anything client-facing. Conversion tracking, goal funnels, audience segments — none of that exists in Vercel's analytics yet.

Build minutes add up. With 13+ sites on a Pro plan, I watch build minutes carefully. ISR and on-demand revalidation help, but I've had months where a client's aggressive preview deployments ate through the budget.

Monorepo support is better but not painless. I tried consolidating client sites into a monorepo for shared components. Turborepo configuration was more overhead than just copying components between repos. For a solo operator, separate repos per client is simpler.

The AI Layer

The biggest shift in the last 6 months isn't Vercel itself — it's the AI tooling around it. My current stack:

v0 for component scaffolding
Claude Code for implementation and debugging
Codex CLI for multi-file refactors
PromptLens (my own tool) for analyzing how I actually use these AI tools

The combination of v0 → Claude Code → git push → live in 60 seconds is absurd. I built a complete site for a body work spa in one afternoon. Not a template — a custom Next.js site with booking integration, service pages, and mobile optimization.

The Honest Take

Vercel wins because it removes decisions. I don't think about hosting, SSL, CI/CD, CDN configuration, or deployment strategy. I think about the client's business and the code. Everything else is handled.

For a solo builder shipping to local businesses, that's the whole game.

Ryan Brubeck builds AI-powered web tools and ships client sites on Vercel. Find him on GitHub and DreamSiteBuilders.com.