Nothing here is hidden
Between August and September 2025, Netlify changed how it counts a free tier.
The change was announced. "New credit-based pricing. Current plans stay the same." sits at the top of the pricing page. The credit prices are listed further down the same page. Existing plans were held.
The only thing not written anywhere is how it compares to before.
Before and after
| 2025-08-12 | 2025-09-06 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan name | Free & Starter | Free ($0 forever) |
| How the free tier is stated | 100GB bandwidth / 300 build minutes | 300 credit limit / month |
| Next rung up | Pro $19 /member/mo | Personal $9 /mo (new) |
| Pro | $19 /member/mo | $20 /seat/mo |
The free tier moved from concrete units to a shared currency. A $9 rung was inserted below Pro, and Pro went up by a dollar.
Free itself did not disappear. It is still there, still $0.
Divide by the unit prices
The credit prices are printed on the same page.
| Item | Credits |
|---|---|
| Bandwidth | 10 / GB |
| Production deploy | 15 / deploy |
| Compute | 5 / GB |
| Form submission | 1 / submission |
Spend all 300 credits on bandwidth and you get 30GB.
The old free tier gave 100GB. On the bandwidth axis alone, the ceiling is now about three tenths of what it was.
And deploys now come out of the same wallet. A production deploy costs 15 credits — the equivalent of 1.5GB of bandwidth. Deploy twenty times in a month and that alone exhausts the 300. Previously, deploys and bandwidth were counted separately.
A common currency erases the comparison
Unifying the units has genuine upside for the person paying. Bandwidth left over while builds run out is waste, and a shared pool removes it.
What it costs is the ability to compare across the change.
"100GB and 300 build minutes" and "300 credits" are not the same kind of thing, so they cannot be set side by side. Comparing them means opening the rate table, assuming a usage pattern, and dividing. That single step of friction is enough that almost nobody does it.
Announce the change, publish the rates, hold existing plans. Do all of that, and the reduction still does not reach anyone. It is not a question of intent. Change the unit and the ground you stood on to compare disappears.
What could not be established
The old tier's "300 build minutes" could not be converted into credits. The rate table has no row for build minutes, and whether "Compute, 5 credits/GB" is meant to stand in for it cannot be determined from the pricing page. So the only axis compared here is bandwidth.
For a build-heavy setup, the conclusion could differ.
The change can only be placed between 12 August and 6 September 2025, a window of about 25 days.
When the unit changes, do the division
A change in price is noticeable. A change in unit is not.
Credits, points, units — the names differ and the effect is the same: last year's number can no longer be set beside this year's. To compare, you have to open the rate table and divide it yourself.
In this case the rate table was published. Some changes do not come with one.
Sources
Every figure was read from Netlify's own pricing page as saved by the Internet Archive — plan structure, free-tier wording and credit rates, directly.
- Pricing page, 12 August 2025 (100GB bandwidth / 300 build minutes)
- Pricing page, 6 September 2025 (300 credit limit / month, with rate table)
- Netlify pricing
Only the vendor's own published pricing and plan terms are used. No user reviews or forum posts.