Updated September 23, 2026 · 7 min read
Netlify is solid, well-built infrastructure — but its pricing model and workflow still assume a level of technical comfort a lot of designers hosting an AI-built site simply don’t need.
Where Netlify gets complicated
Netlify’s drag-and-drop deploy option is genuinely one of the simpler entry points among developer-focused hosts — that’s real, and worth crediting. Where it gets harder to predict is pricing: since September 2025, Netlify has run on a credit-based system, where one shared monthly allowance (300 credits on the free tier) pays for deploys, bandwidth, and function usage all at once, at different rates for each. A production deploy costs 15 credits; bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB. That’s not an intuitive number to plan around compared to a flat “100GB a month” limit.
Past the free tier, Netlify’s own documentation and independent pricing trackers both note that credit costs and allocations have changed multiple times, which makes budgeting for a growing site harder than it needs to be for someone who just wants to host a client’s finished website.
Cloudflare Pages
Cloudflare Pages solves the unpredictable-bandwidth problem directly — its free tier has no bandwidth cap at all, and commercial use is allowed with no restriction. The tradeoff is the same one that shows up across most developer-first hosts: deploying assumes a Git repository, which is an extra skill to pick up if you’ve never used version control.
Best for: anyone with some technical comfort who wants the most generous free bandwidth on this list.
Vercel
Vercel is worth a mention here too, though it swaps Netlify’s credit confusion for a different tradeoff: predictable per-seat pricing ($20/user/month on Pro), but a free tier that explicitly excludes commercial use. It fits a similar audience to Netlify — frontend developers — more than it fits someone hosting a client’s static site.
Best for: teams already comfortable with Git-based deploys who want simpler, flat pricing than Netlify’s credit system.
A dedicated static host
sofast skips the credit system entirely: a Free plan (one site, 50 MB, sofast subdomain), then fixed monthly prices of $5, $10 or $20 billed annually, and no Git repository required to get started. It has no server-side functions, so it fits a static site, not an app.
Comparison table
| Platform | Pricing model | Free tier commercial use | Deploy method | Bandwidth predictability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netlify | Shared monthly credits | Allowed | Drag-and-drop or Git | Variable (credit-based) |
| Cloudflare Pages | Free tier + Workers usage | Allowed | Git repository | Unlimited (fair use) |
| Vercel | Per seat ($20/user Pro) | Not allowed (Hobby) | Drag-and-drop or Git | Flat 100GB (free tier) |
| sofast | Free plan, then fixed plans from $5/mo (billed annually) | Allowed | Drag-and-drop | Not published |
How to choose
If uncapped bandwidth matters most and you’re comfortable with Git, Cloudflare Pages is the strongest free option. If you want Netlify’s drag-and-drop simplicity without the credit-system math, sofast gives you the same ease of use with fixed monthly prices instead of credits.
Frequently asked questions
Not necessarily more expensive — just harder to predict, since one allowance covers deploys, bandwidth, and function usage at different rates, rather than one clear number like “100GB a month.”
Not strictly — Netlify does offer a drag-and-drop deploy option. Where Git becomes useful is ongoing updates: without it, you’re manually re-uploading your whole site folder every time something changes.
For uncapped free bandwidth, yes. The tradeoff is that Cloudflare Pages’ setup assumes a Git repository from the start, without Netlify’s simpler drag-and-drop alternative.
Netlify moved to credits in September 2025 to price bandwidth, builds, and compute through one unified system rather than separate limits — the tradeoff for that flexibility is a less intuitive number to plan around.
Netlify blocks further usage or prompts an upgrade rather than silently charging you — but on a busy month, a site can burn through the free allowance faster than a flat bandwidth number would suggest.
Some do offer flat, predictable plans instead of usage meters — worth checking specifically for that if unpredictable bills are your main concern moving away from Netlify.
Yes — since your site is static files (assuming it doesn’t rely on Netlify-specific features like Netlify Functions or Forms), you can download or re-export those files and host them anywhere else the same way you originally uploaded them.
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