Free Instance Types
With Render’s free instance types you can spin up Web Services, PostgreSQL databases, and Redis instances at no charge. Free instance types are designed to help you to explore new tech, build personal projects, and get a preview of the Render developer experience.
Free instance types have usage and performance limits and are not meant for general production use.
Free Web Services
Web Services on the free instance type are automatically spun down after 15 minutes of inactivity. When a new request for a free service comes in, Render spins it up again so it can process the request.
This will cause a delay in the response of the first request after a period of inactivity while the instance spins up.
The free instance type allows for 750 hours of running time per month across all free Web Services in your account and 100 GB of egress bandwidth for each free service. Additional bandwidth is $30 per 100GB block.
You can track your free usage and bandwidth in your dashboard on the Billing page. We will email you when you’re approaching the free usage limits and also when you exceed them.
When you exceed your free usage limits (i.e., usage hours and/or bandwidth), free services in your account are automatically suspended and can no longer serve traffic until they are upgraded to a paid instance type or when free usage is reset at the end of the calendar month, whichever is sooner.
Free usage is reset on the 1st of every month, and all free services suspended for usage limits are automatically resumed.
View your free instance type usage in the Billing page of the dashboard.
Free PostgreSQL Databases
Render’s free database instance type allows you to run a PostgreSQL database that automatically expires 90 days after creation. Free databases are suspended after 90 days (unless they are upgraded to a paid instance type), and are no longer reachable at this point. You have a grace period of 14 days from suspension to upgrade a free database to a paid instance type. All free databases are deleted (along with their data) after the grace period. We will send you email notifications to alert you of upcoming free database expirations and deletions.
You can continue to create free PostgreSQL databases but only one free database can be active at a time.
Free PostgreSQL databases are not backed up. Upgrade to a paid instance type to have automatic daily backups and manual backups available.
Free Redis Instances
Redis instances on the free instance type are ephemeral and are not backed by a disk. Upon restart, all data will be lost. Upgrade to a paid instance type for larger sizes and persistent data that is maintained across restarts. Upgrading the instance type of a Redis on the free instance type will delete all data.
Only one free Redis instance can be active at a time.
Free Static Sites
Static sites with under 100GB of egress bandwidth per month are free on Render. Additional egress bandwidth is available at $30 per 100GB block. Static sites also come with out-of-the-box support for HTTP/2, automatic TLS certificate issuance and renewal, DDoS protection, Redirects and Rewrites, and custom HTTP headers.
Other Limitations
- Free instance types are not available for Private Services, Background Workers, or Cron Jobs.
- Free PostgreSQL instances can be restarted at any time.
- Free Redis instances can be restarted at any time.
- Free Web Services can be restarted at any time.
- Free Web Services cannot scale beyond a single instance, either manually or through autoscaling.
- Free Web Services are not available on the private network.
- Free Web Services do not support persistent disks.
- Free Web Services do not support web shell access.
- Free Web Services do not support one-off jobs.
- Free Web Services cannot listen on these reserved ports:
80,443,8008,8012,8013,8022,9090,9091,1801219099. - Refer to your account’s billing dashboard to see the number of build minutes used per month. There is a 500 minute limit for free builds for individual developers.
Other standard Render features like custom domains, fully managed TLS certificates, pull request previews, log streams, and rollbacks are fully supported.