Deploy for Free – Render Docs
You can deploy certain Render service types free of charge:
- Web services (web apps in Node.js, Python, Rails, etc.)
- Render Postgres databases
- Render Key Value instances
Free instances have important limitations, described below. Do not use them for production applications. However, they're perfect for testing out a new technology, working on a hobby project, or previewing Render's developer experience.
You can also deploy static sites on Render for free.
Web services and static sites count against your monthly included amounts of outbound bandwidth and pipeline minutes.
Create a Free instance
For a more complete walkthrough, see Your First Render Deploy.
Sign up for Render if you haven't yet.
In the Render Dashboard, click New:
Select Static Site, Web Service, Postgres, or Key Value.
- Other service types don't support Free instances.
During the service creation flow, you choose a compute plan for your service (unless it's a static site). Choose Free:
That's it! When you finish creating and deploying your service, it runs on a Free instance.
See the sections below for details on the limitations of Free instances.
Upgrading to a paid instance
To remove the Free instance limitations described below, you can upgrade your service to any paid compute plan. See Changing a service's compute plan.
Upgrading your workspace plan does not remove limitations on Free instances.
Your workspace's plan only determines which platform-level features are available. You change a service's compute plan independently.
Free web services
Free web services support many (but not all) features available to web services on paid compute plans. Supported features include:
- Custom domains
- Managed TLS certificates
- Service previews
- Log streams
- Rollbacks (only to the two most recent previous deploys)
Most limitations below are specific to web services on the Free compute plan.
Spinning down on idle
Render spins down a Free web service that goes 15 minutes without receiving any inbound traffic. This includes both HTTP requests and WebSocket messages from existing connections.
A Free web service spins back up whenever it next receives an HTTP request or new WebSocket connection. This process takes about one minute. Render displays a loading page to connecting browsers while a service is spinning up.
Whenever a service spins down, any changes to its local filesystem are lost (see Local files lost on redeploy).
Local files lost on redeploy
Like all Render services, Free web services have an ephemeral filesystem. This means that any changes to your web service's filesystem (uploaded images, local SQLite databases, etc.) are lost every time the service redeploys, restarts, or spins down.
For long-term data storage:
- Paid services can preserve local filesystem changes by attaching a persistent disk, but Free web services cannot.
- Paid and Free services can persist relational data in a Render Postgres database.
- Note that Free Render Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation.
Monthly usage limits
Free instance hours
Render grants 750 Free instance hours to each workspace per calendar month:
- A Free web service consumes these hours as long as it's running ( spun-down services don't consume Free instance hours).
- If you consume all of your Free instance hours during a given month, Render suspends all of your Free web services until the start of the next month.
- At the start of each month, your Free instance hours reset to 750 (remaining hours don't roll over).
Bandwidth and build pipeline
Free web services count against your monthly included amounts of outbound bandwidth and build pipeline minutes.
If you consume all of your outbound bandwidth during a given month, Render bills you for a supplementary amount.
- If you haven't added a payment method, Render instead suspends all of your Free services for the remainder of the month.
If you consume all of your build pipeline minutes during a given month, Render bills you for a supplementary amount (unless you've reached your spend limit).
- If you haven't added a payment method or you reach your spend limit, Render instead disables all new builds for your workspace for the remainder of the month.
- In this case, your services remain active using their existing build artifacts.
Tracking usage
View your usage details from the Monthly Included Usage section of your Billing page.
Render notifies you via email when you’re approaching a usage limit, and then again if you exceed that limit.
Service-initiated traffic threshold
Render may suspend a Free web service that initiates an uncommonly high volume of traffic over the public internet.
Examples of service-initiated traffic include:
- Accessing an external database
- Invoking external APIs
- Transferring data to or from external object storage
If your service is suspended this way, you can restore it by moving it to any paid compute plan.
Automatic robots.txt responses
While a Free web service is spun down, incoming requests to the path /robots.txt automatically receive a standard "disallow all" response:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
These requests to do not reach your service or trigger a spin-up.
While a Free web service is active, requests to /robots.txt are routed to it as normal.
Other limitations
Render might restart a Free web service at any time.
Free web services don't support the following features of paid compute plans:
- Scaling beyond a single instance
- Persistent disks
- Edge caching
- Running one-off jobs
- Shell access via SSH or the Render Dashboard
Free web services can't receive private network traffic.
- They can send private network requests to your data stores and paid services in the same region.
Free web services can't listen on reserved ports
18012,18013, or19099.Free web services can't send outbound network traffic on ports
25,465, or587, commonly used for SMTP.
Free Postgres
The limitations below are specific to Render Postgres databases on the Free compute plan. To avoid these limitations, you can upgrade your database to any paid compute plan.
Single-instance limit
Only one Free Render Postgres database can be active for any given workspace.
1 GB limit
Free Render Postgres databases have a fixed storage capacity of 1 GB.
30-day limit
Free Render Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation. An expired Free database is inaccessible unless you upgrade it to a paid compute plan.
After a Free database expires, you have a grace period of 14 days to upgrade it to a paid compute plan. After the grace period, Render deletes the database (along with all of its data).
Render notifies you via email when you’re approaching a Free database expiration, and then again when you're approaching the end of the grace period.
Other limitations
- Render might perform maintenance on a Free Render Postgres database at any time. Your database is temporarily unavailable during maintenance.
- Render might restart a Free Render Postgres database at any time.
- Free Render Postgres databases don't support any form of backups.
- Free Render Postgres databases don't support managed connection pooling.
Free Key Value
The limitations below are specific to Render Key Value instances on the Free compute plan. To avoid these limits, you can upgrade your instance to any paid compute plan.
Single-instance limit
Only one Free Key Value instance can be active for any given workspace.
In-memory only
Unlike paid instances, Free Key Value instances do not continually persist their state to disk. This means that whenever an instance restarts, all of its data is lost.
Other limitations
- Render might perform maintenance on a Free Render Key Value instance at any time. Your instance is temporarily unavailable during maintenance.
- Render might restart a Free Render Key Value instance at any time (thereby deleting its data).
- If you upgrade a Free Render Key Value instance to a paid compute plan, its data is lost during the upgrade process.
Static sites
Static sites are free to deploy on Render. As with web services, they count against your monthly included amounts of outbound bandwidth and pipeline minutes.