Is Fly.io worth the price?
Fly.io abandoned fixed plans in favor of pure pay-as-you-go, which is transparent but makes cost prediction harder.
The cheapest useful VM (shared-cpu-1x, 256MB) costs $2.02/month — genuinely cheap for a persistent server with global deployment. But costs compound quickly: persistent storage ($0.15/GB-month), dedicated IPv4 ($2/month), bandwidth ($0.02/GB in NA/EU, up to $0.12/GB in Africa/India), and volume snapshots add layers of billing.
A minimal production app (1 VM + 1GB storage + dedicated IP) costs roughly $7-10/month. The legacy free tier (3 shared VMs, 3GB storage) is discontinued for new signups — only a $5 trial credit remains.
For teams, the $29/month Standard support plan is practically required since free support has no SLA.
Pricing Plans
Free
Free
Hobby
- 3 shared VMs
- 3GB storage
- 160GB bandwidth
Pay as you go
$1.94/month
Per shared VM
- 256MB RAM
- Edge deployment
- Auto-scaling
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Bandwidth is not free and varies wildly by region
$0.02/GB in North America/Europe but $0.12/GB in Africa and India. An app serving 100GB/month to African users costs $12/month in bandwidth alone — 6x the North American rate
Persistent storage (Fly Volumes) at $0.15/GB-month is pricier than cloud block storage (AWS EBS: $0.08/GB). A 50GB database volume costs $7.50/month
Dedicated IPv4 addresses cost $2/month each. Shared IPv4 is free but means your app shares an IP with others — some compliance and email setups require dedicated IPs
Volume snapshots cost $0.08/GB-month after the first 10GB free. A 100GB database with hourly snapshots: ~$7.20/month for snapshot storage
Stopped machines still cost $0.15/GB of rootfs per 30 days. An app with 10 stopped machines (1GB rootfs each) costs $1.50/month even when doing nothing
Fly Kubernetes costs $75/month per cluster on top of all compute and volume charges. This is a significant fixed cost for teams that need K8s compatibility
Support tiers are a hidden operational cost
Standard ($29/month), Premium ($199/month), Enterprise ($2,500/month). Free support offers no guaranteed response time
Cross-region data transfer ($0.006-$0.05/GB depending on regions) adds up for apps that replicate data across regions for latency optimization
SSL certificates for custom domains
single hostname $0.10/month (first 10 free), wildcard $1/month. A multi-tenant SaaS with 50 custom domains: $4/month for certs
Which Plan Do You Need?
Apps that need low-latency global deployment without Kubernetes complexity
Teams running persistent servers (databases, WebSocket apps) at the edge
Side projects and MVPs where the $2/month minimum VM price beats Heroku ($7/month)
Multi-region deployments where Fly Machines auto-scale to zero during off-hours
Our Recommendation
startup
Two VMs with auto-scaling in a primary region costs $15-25/month for most early-stage apps. Use reservations ($36/year) to save 40% on always-on workloads. Budget $20-50/month for a production setup.
enterprise
Fly Kubernetes at $75/month/cluster is expensive for small K8s needs but competitive for teams already using K8s. Enterprise support ($2,500/month minimum) is required for SLA guarantees. Evaluate against AWS Fargate or GCP Cloud Run for large-scale container deployments.
freelancer
A single shared-cpu-1x VM at $2.02/month is the cheapest way to run a persistent server globally. Add a 1GB volume ($0.15/month) for a database. Total: ~$3/month for a full-stack app — unbeatable value.
small Business
Multi-region deployment is Fly.io strongest advantage. Running 3 VMs across US/EU/Asia with volumes costs $50-100/month — significantly cheaper than AWS multi-region. Watch bandwidth costs for non-NA/EU regions.
Team Cost Scenario
Team of 3, 12 months: Small production app: 2 VMs (shared-cpu-2x, 1GB each) + 10GB volume + dedicated IP + 50GB bandwidth/month in NA/EU.
| compute | 2x shared-cpu-2x 1GB at $6.64/month = $159/year |
| storage | 10GB volume at $0.15/GB = $18/year |
| bandwidth | 50GB/month at $0.02/GB = $12/year |
| snapshots | 10GB volume snapshots (under free tier) = $0 |
| dedicated I P | $2/month = $24/year |
| Annual Total | $213 |
Overage & Usage Pricing
compute
Per-second billing: shared-cpu-1x 256MB at $0.0028/hr, performance-1x 2GB at $0.0447/hr
volumes
$0.15/GB-month
cross Region
$0.006-$0.05/GB depending on region pair
ssl Wildcard
$1/month
additional R A M
~$5 per GB per month (varies by region)
bandwidth A P A C
$0.04/GB egress
bandwidth N A E U
$0.02/GB egress
dedicated I Pv4
$2/month per address
static Egress I P
$0.005/hr (~$3.60/month)
bandwidth Africa
$0.12/GB egress
stopped Machines
$0.15/GB rootfs per 30 days
volume Snapshots
$0.08/GB-month (first 10GB free)
ssl Single Hostname
$0.10/month (first 10 free)
Recent Pricing Changes
2025-2026
Fly.io deprecated the Launch and Scale fixed plans in favor of pure pay-as-you-go. Legacy plan customers retain existing free allowances.
Machine Reservations introduced for 40% discount on committed compute. Free trial reduced from a full plan to a $5 one-time credit with 30-day expiry.
How Fly.io Compares to Competitors
Railway (Hobby $5/month with $5 credit, Pro $20/month with $20 credit) offers a simpler developer experience with Git-push deploys and automatic database provisioning. Railway is easier to start with but less flexible for multi-region deployment — Fly.io deploys to 30+ regions natively. For a single-region app, Railway is often cheaper and simpler.
Render (free tier with 750 hours, Professional from $7/service/month) provides a more traditional PaaS experience with managed PostgreSQL, automatic deploys from Git, and predictable per-service pricing. Render is better for teams that want Heroku-like simplicity without the Heroku price tag. Fly.io wins on multi-region edge deployment and fine-grained machine control.
Heroku (Eco $5/month for 1,000 dyno-hours, Basic $7/month, Standard $25/month) is the legacy option. Basic dynos at $7/month are 3.5x the cost of Fly.io shared VMs ($2/month) for comparable specs. Heroku charges separately for add-ons (Postgres $5-2,000/month, Redis $15+/month). For new projects, Fly.io or Railway offer better value than Heroku at every tier.
