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  2. Vercel vs Netlify vs Cloudflare for hosting a small commercial site

Vercel vs Netlify vs Cloudflare for hosting a small commercial site

Vercel's free Hobby plan is for non-commercial use only, so a paid launch on Vercel starts at Pro. Netlify and Cloudflare have free plans, but their terms don't say whether those can be used commercially.

Priced from vendor pages
Prices checked
16 Oct 2026
Exchange rate
1 USD = £0.7489
Sources
11
How we check

The answer

On a paid plan, Cloudflare is cheapest at £3.74 a month plus usage, then Netlify at £6.74 and Vercel at £14.98. Netlify and Cloudflare can start free, but their terms don't say whether the free plans can be used commercially, so check first. For a non-commercial hobby site, all three are free.

What does hosting cost when your site makes money?

Vercel

Hobby (non-commercial) or Pro $20/mo

  • Deploys from GitHub.

Vercel's fair-use rules say: "Hobby teams are restricted to non-commercial personal use only. All commercial usage of the platform requires either a Pro or Enterprise plan." So a business site needs Pro from day one.

Commercial launch, cheapest plan £14.98Next paid step £14.98Pro plan £14.98

Netlify

Free (300 credits), Personal $9 (1,000), Pro $20 (3,000)

  • Static sites and lean launches that want a free start.

Netlify's terms don't say whether the Free plan can be used commercially, so check before a paid launch. Plans are credit-based, so a busy month can push you up a tier.

Commercial launch, cheapest plan Free (terms don't say)Next paid step £6.74Pro plan £14.98

Cloudflare

Free (Pages + Workers) or Workers Paid from $5/mo plus usage

  • Static sites: static requests are free and unlimited, with 500 builds a month and 100,000 Functions requests a day on Free.

Cloudflare's terms don't say whether the Free plan can be used commercially, so check before a paid launch. Workers Paid starts at £3.74 a month, and usage above the included amounts costs extra. VAT treatment isn't stated.

Commercial launch, cheapest plan Free (terms don't say)Next paid step £3.74 + usagePro plan Not priced (not needed for a side project)
Commercial launch, cheapest plan£14.98
Commercial launch, cheapest planFree (terms don't say)
Commercial launch, cheapest planFree (terms don't say)
Next paid step£14.98
Next paid step£6.74
Next paid step£3.74 + usage
Pro plan£14.98
Pro plan£14.98
Pro planNot priced (not needed for a side project)

Monthly cost in pounds, from each vendor's pricing page. Lowest figures compared before usage charges.

How we worked it out

  • Vercel Pro $20 × 0.7489 = £14.98.
  • Netlify Personal $9 × 0.7489 = £6.74; Pro $20 × 0.7489 = £14.98.
  • Cloudflare Workers Paid "Starting at $5/mo": $5 × 0.7489 = £3.74 (3.7445), plus usage: 10M requests a month included, then $0.30 per million; 30M CPU ms included, then $0.02 per million.
  • Cloudflare's Pro and Business plans weren't priced, because a side project doesn't need them, so the Pro plan row shows "Not priced".
  • Free-plan commercial use: Vercel's fair-use rules rule it out on Hobby. Netlify's and Cloudflare's terms don't say either way.

Sources