Next.js Pricing (2026): Is It Free and What a Site Really Costs
Next.js is free and open source, but hosting, a CMS and the build are not. Real 2026 prices for Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, VPS hosting and development.
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Legacies is an independent digital product brand based in Bucharest, Romania, founded by Horia Stan and Alexandru Tălnaci, that builds websites, landing pages and web apps for businesses worldwide. We build almost everything in Next.js, so this is a question we can answer from the inside.
Next.js itself costs nothing. It is open source under the MIT license, and you can use it for commercial projects without paying anyone. What you do pay for is hosting, any paid services you plug in (a CMS, a database, email) and the people who build and maintain the site.
Quick answer
- The framework: free, MIT license, commercial use allowed. There are no paid tiers of Next.js.
- Hosting: $0 for hobby projects, about $5 to $20 a month for a typical small business site, and more for high-traffic apps with paid usage.
- Building a site: this is the real cost, usually from a few hundred to several thousand euros for a business website, depending on who builds it.
- Watch out for: Vercel's free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only, so a business site needs a paid plan or a different host.
Is Next.js free?
Yes. Next.js is maintained by Vercel, but the code is published on GitHub under the MIT license. MIT is one of the most permissive licenses there is. You can use it, change it and ship it in a paid product. You do not need to credit anyone on your site.
The confusion comes from the fact that Vercel, the company behind Next.js, also sells hosting. When people search for "Next.js pricing", they usually land on Vercel's pricing page. That page prices Vercel's platform, not the framework. You can run Next.js on many other hosts, or on your own server.
This got easier in 2026. With Next.js 16.2 in March, the Adapter API became stable. Vercel's own adapter uses that same public contract. Other platforms such as Netlify and Cloudflare (through OpenNext) build on it too. In practice, that means less lock-in than a few years ago.
Next.js hosting prices compared
Here are the main options for a business site. Prices come from official pricing pages at the time of writing and change often, so check before you commit.
| Host | Entry price | What you get | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel Hobby | $0 | 100 GB fast data transfer, 1M function invocations a month | Personal, non-commercial use only. You cannot buy extra usage |
| Vercel Pro | $20 a month per developer seat | $20 usage credit, 1 TB fast data transfer, viewer seats free | Usage beyond that is pay-as-you-go, from $0.15 per GB of transfer |
| Netlify | $0 Free, $9 Personal, $20 Pro | 300, 1,000 or 3,000 credits a month | Credits cover builds, bandwidth and functions together, so estimate your usage |
| Cloudflare Workers | $0 Free, $5 a month Paid | Free: 100,000 requests a day. Paid: 10M requests a month, no bandwidth charges | Needs the OpenNext adapter. A few Next.js features take more setup |
| VPS (for example Hetzner) | From about EUR 6 a month, excl. VAT | A full server you control, running Node.js or Docker | You handle updates, security, backups and monitoring yourself |
For a typical 5-page business site with a few thousand visitors a month, any of these will hold up. The difference is not speed. It is who handles the operations and how the bill behaves when traffic grows.
We go into the full math, including when self-hosting starts to pay off, in Vercel vs self-hosting Next.js: real costs.
The other running costs
Hosting is only one line. A real Next.js site often connects to other services. Some are free at small scale, and some charge per seat.
| Service | Typical choice | Price at the time of writing |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | .com at any registrar | Around $11 to $25 a year |
| Headless CMS (hosted) | Sanity | Free plan up to 20 seats and 10k documents. Growth is $15 per seat a month |
| Headless CMS (self-hosted) | Payload | The software is MIT licensed and free. You pay for the server and database |
| Database and auth | Supabase or Firebase | Free tiers exist. Paid plans start once you have real users |
| Transactional email | Resend, Postmark, SES | Free or a few dollars a month at small volume |
| Analytics | Vercel Analytics, Plausible, GA4 | GA4 is free. Privacy-first tools charge monthly |
Many business websites do not need a CMS at all. If the content changes a few times a year, it can live in the code, and a developer updates it in minutes. If you publish every week, a CMS is worth paying for. If you are comparing backends for an app, see Supabase vs Firebase.
What it costs to build a Next.js website
This is where the real money goes. Next.js is a developer framework. Unlike Wix or Squarespace, there is no drag-and-drop editor, so someone has to write the code. The price depends on who that is.
| Who builds it | Typical cost for a small business site | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| You, with AI coding tools | Your time, plus tool subscriptions | Realistic if you already code. Risky for production if you do not |
| Freelance developer | Varies widely with location and hourly rate | Check who maintains it after launch |
| Small studio or team | Usually low to mid four figures in euros or dollars | Often a fixed price with design, SEO setup and support included |
| Agency | Often $10,000 and up | More process and more people, at a higher price |
Hourly rates vary a lot by region. We break down current freelancer and agency rates in how much it costs to hire a Next.js developer. For the wider market, including builders and agencies, see how much a business website costs in 2026.
What drives the price of a Next.js build
- Number of templates, not pages. Ten blog posts on the same layout cost far less than ten pages that are each designed differently.
- Content management. Hardcoded content is cheapest. A CMS adds setup time but lets you edit text yourself.
- Integrations. Forms, booking, payments, CRM, newsletters. Each one adds work and a monthly bill.
- Accounts and logic. Logins, dashboards and user data turn a website into a web app, and the price changes category.
- Copy and design. If you bring finished text and a brand, the build is faster. If not, someone has to write and design it.
What we charge
We build business sites and web apps in Next.js with a fixed price agreed before work starts. Prices are in Romanian lei, with approximate euro amounts at the October 2026 exchange rate.
| Service | Price | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | From 1,499 lei (about EUR 285) | 7-10 days |
| Business website, 4-6 pages | From 2,199 lei (about EUR 415) | 14-21 days |
| Web app | From 3,499 lei (about EUR 665), scoped after a short talk | Set in the quote |
| Web optimization for an existing site | From 699 lei (about EUR 130) | 5-7 days |
| Monthly maintenance | 499 lei a month (about EUR 95) or 3,999 lei a year | Recurring, no fixed-term contract |
You get all the access and files when we hand the project over, including the hosting account and domain in your name. If you later want another developer to take over, they can. Details are on our services page.
Why pay for Next.js instead of a website builder?
A fair question. Wix or Squarespace costs a monthly plan fee and no developer. So why would a business pay for a custom Next.js build?
- Speed. A well-built Next.js site sends only the code each page needs. Pages render on the server or ahead of time, and that usually shows up in Core Web Vitals.
- SEO and AI search. You control the HTML, the metadata, the structured data and the URLs. That makes it easier for Google and AI assistants to read and cite your pages. We cover the AI side in how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT.
- No platform rent. Hosting a small Next.js site often costs less per month than a mid-tier builder plan, and nobody can raise your price to keep the site online.
- Room to grow. The same codebase can later get a booking flow, a client area or a full app without a rebuild.
The trade-off is that changes need a developer, unless you add a CMS. If you want to compare the two worlds more directly, read WordPress vs Next.js for a business website.
Hidden costs of running Next.js
The framework is free, but owning a Next.js site is not zero effort. Plan for these.
- Security updatesNext.js and React ship security patches, and some are urgent. Someone needs to apply them and redeploy. We explain why in our post on staying patched on Next.js.
- Major version upgradesNext.js releases a major version roughly once a year. Small sites can wait, but not forever, because older versions eventually stop getting fixes.
- Usage-based billsOn Vercel Pro or Netlify, a viral post or a bot crawling your images can raise the bill. Set spending alerts on day one.
- DependenciesEvery npm package you add is code you have to trust and update. Fewer packages means less risk and less upkeep.
On a typical marketing site, this comes to a few hours a month at most. On a web app with logins and payments, it is an ongoing task that belongs in the budget.
Do it yourself or hire someone
Do it yourself if you already write code, the site is a side project or a personal portfolio, and you are fine reading documentation when something breaks. Use the free tier of Cloudflare or Netlify, or Vercel Hobby if the project is truly non-commercial, and you can run Next.js for almost nothing.
Hand it to someone when the site brings in clients, when you need it live by a date, or when nobody on your team will apply security updates. At that point the cost of a broken form or a slow homepage is higher than the cost of the build.
If you already have a site and are not sure it needs replacing, start with our free website audit. It checks your homepage for speed, mobile, basic SEO and accessibility in a few seconds, with no signup. If you want a quote for a new site, see our services and projects, or email [email protected]. You get a fixed price within 48 hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Next.js free for commercial use?
Yes. Next.js is released under the MIT license, so you can use it in commercial websites and paid products without license fees or attribution on your site. The only thing that may cost money is where you host it. Note that Vercel's free Hobby plan is limited to personal, non-commercial use, so a business site should use Vercel Pro or another host.
How much does it cost to host a Next.js website?
A small business Next.js site usually costs between $0 and $20 a month to host. Cloudflare Workers' paid plan starts at $5 a month, Netlify's paid plans at $9 a month and Vercel Pro at $20 a month per developer seat at the time of writing. A VPS starts from about EUR 6 a month but needs someone to maintain the server. High-traffic apps can cost more because of usage-based billing.
Do I have to use Vercel to host Next.js?
No. Next.js runs on any platform that supports Node.js, including Netlify, Cloudflare through the OpenNext adapter, AWS, Google Cloud and a plain VPS with Docker. Since Next.js 16.2 the Adapter API is stable, and Vercel uses the same public contract as other platforms. Vercel is still the simplest option, because it is made by the same team.
How much does a Next.js website cost to build?
It depends almost entirely on who builds it and how complex the site is. A simple business site built by a small team usually costs in the low to mid four figures in euros or dollars, while agencies often charge $10,000 or more. At Legacies, a 4-6 page business website starts at 2,199 lei, about EUR 415, and a landing page starts at 1,499 lei, about EUR 285, both at a fixed price.
Is Next.js cheaper than WordPress?
The software is free in both cases, so the difference is in hosting, plugins and maintenance. A WordPress site often pays for premium plugins, themes and more frequent security updates, while a Next.js site has fewer moving parts but needs a developer for most content changes unless you add a CMS. Over a few years, a simple Next.js site is often cheaper to run, while WordPress can be cheaper to build if you use a template.
Is Next.js good for SEO?
Yes. Next.js renders pages on the server or at build time, so search engines and AI crawlers receive complete HTML instead of waiting for JavaScript. It also has built-in tools for metadata, sitemaps and image optimization. A framework does not rank a site on its own, though, so content, structure and speed still decide how well a page does in search.