What is free, and what the first paid plan costs
The tools a one-person company tends to need, one row each: what the free plan gives you, and the cheapest paid plan we could read. We read every figure by hand off the maker's own page; each one links to that page and says the day we read it. Prices change after that day, so check the date. Where the maker does not say, we say unknown.
Also as data: stack.json. Each buy link says whether it pays us — how we make money.
Developer
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Workers & Pages | Workers Free: 100,000 requests a day, 10 ms CPU per invocation; static asset requests free and unlimited; Pages: 500 builds a month, 1 at a time source read 25 Sep 2026 | 5 USD Workers Paid · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| DigitalOcean Droplets | No free plan and no fixed trial — new users are often offered promotional credit (the FAQ's example: $5 for 90 days) source read 26 Sep 2026 | 4 USD 512 MiB / 1 vCPU · Usage-based source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at DigitalOcean This link pays us nothing |
| Fly.io Machines | No free plan — a trial of 2 machine-hours or 7 days, whichever comes first; trial Machines stop after 5 minutes source read 25 Sep 2026 | 1.94 USD shared-cpu-1x · 256MB · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Neon | Free, $0: 100 projects, 100 CU-hours a month and 0.5 GB storage per project, up to 2 CU (8 GB RAM), no credit card source read 25 Sep 2026 | $0.106 per CU-hour, $0.35 per GB-month storage, up to 16 CU (64 GB RAM), 100 projects Launch · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Netlify | Free, $0 forever: 300 credits a month as a hard limit that cannot be exceeded or charged, 1 member source read 25 Sep 2026 | 9 USD Personal · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Railway | Free, $0: a 30-day trial with $5 credits, then $1 a month; up to 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB RAM per service, 0.5 GB volume storage, no credit card source read 25 Sep 2026 | 5 USD Hobby · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Render | Hobby workspace $0 with Free instances: web services spin down after 15 idle minutes, 750 free instance hours a month; free Postgres 1 GB, expires after 30 days source read 25 Sep 2026 | 7 USD Web service 0.5 CPU / 512 MB · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Semrush | Free, $0/month: 1 demo project and 10 reports a day across all vital tools, no credit card source read 26 Sep 2026 | 139 USD SEO · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Semrush This link pays us a commission |
| Supabase | Free, $0: 2 active projects, 500 MB database, 50,000 monthly active users, 5 GB egress, 1 GB file storage; paused after 1 week of inactivity source read 25 Sep 2026 | 25 USD Pro · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Vercel | Hobby, $0: 100 GB Fast Data Transfer, 1M function invocations, 4 hours Active CPU and 1M edge requests a month; personal, non-commercial use only source read 25 Sep 2026 | 20 USD Pro · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 |
Hosting
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Web Hosting | No free plan and no trial — a 30-day money-back guarantee source read 26 Sep 2026 | 2.99 USD Premium · 48-month term, shown per month source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Hostinger This link pays us a commission |
| Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting | No free plan — first month free on select plans for new customers, then a 30-day money-back guarantee source read 26 Sep 2026 | 35 USD Single 35k · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Kinsta This link pays us nothing |
Domains
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Namecheap .com | No free plan — a .com is a paid yearly registration source read 25 Sep 2026 | 11.28 USD .com, first year · Per year source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Porkbun .com | No free plan — a .com is a paid yearly registration source read 25 Sep 2026 | 11.08 USD .com, first year · Per year source read 25 Sep 2026 |
Email sending
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Postmark | Free Developer plan: 100 emails a month, never expires, no overages source read 25 Sep 2026 | 15 USD Basic · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Resend | Free, $0: 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day, 3 domains source read 25 Sep 2026 | 20 USD Pro · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 |
Payments
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lemon Squeezy | No monthly fee for ecommerce — 5% + 50¢ per transaction; email marketing free up to 500 subscribers source read 25 Sep 2026 | 5% + 50¢ per transaction; payments, sales tax compliance and fraud protection; the page adds that some payments may be subject to additional fees, and a 2026 banner announces Lemon Squeezy + Stripe Managed Payments Ecommerce · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Paddle | No monthly fee — 5% + 50¢ per Checkout transaction source read 25 Sep 2026 | 5% + 50¢ per Checkout transaction; global payments and billing, cross-border sales tax compliance, protection against fraud and chargebacks; no migration or monthly fees Pay-as-you-go · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Stripe | No monthly fee — pay per transaction: 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card transaction source read 25 Sep 2026 | 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction for domestic cards; cards and wallets; +0.5% for manually entered cards, +1.5% for international cards, +1% if currency conversion is required Standard · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 |
Analytics
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plausible | No free plan — 30-day free trial, no credit card required source read 25 Sep 2026 | 9 USD Starter · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| PostHog | Free every month: 1M analytics events, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests, 100K exceptions, 1,500 survey responses; 1 project, 1-year retention source read 25 Sep 2026 | First 1M analytics events a month free, then $0.00005 per event up to 2M (less per event at higher volume); 6 projects Pay-as-you-go · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Umami | Hobby, $0/month: up to 100K events a month, 1 website, 6-month data retention, community support source read 25 Sep 2026 | 20 USD Pro · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 |
AI APIs
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude API | No free plan — new users receive a small amount of free credits to test the API (amount not stated) source read 25 Sep 2026 | $1 / MTok base input, $0.10 / MTok cache hits, $5 / MTok output; the cheapest current Claude model on the page Claude Haiku 4.5 · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| OpenAI API | Unknown The pricing page states no free token allowance. The rate-limits guide lists a "Free" usage tier (usage limit $100 / month) but does not say usage in it is unbilled. | Standard processing, short context: $0.10 per 1M input tokens, $0.01 cached input, $0.50 per 1M output tokens; Batch halves it. Cheapest of the GPT-6 generation; the older gpt-5-nano lists $0.05 / $0.40 gpt-6-luna · Usage-based source read 25 Sep 2026 |
AI
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Browse AI | Free: 50 credits a month (1 credit = 10 rows), 2 websites, 3 users, unlimited robots source read 26 Sep 2026 | 48 USD Personal · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Browse AI This link pays us nothing |
| Descript | Free, $0: 60 media minutes a month, 100 AI credits (one-time), 720p export source read 26 Sep 2026 | 24 USD Hobbyist · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Descript This link pays us a commission |
| ElevenLabs | Free, $0/month: 10,000 credits a month (about 10 minutes of text to speech) and 3 Studio projects; no commercial licence, which starts on Starter source read 26 Sep 2026 | 6 USD Starter · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at ElevenLabs This link pays us nothing |
Design
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Figma | Starter, free: unlimited drafts, UI kits and templates, 150 AI credits a day up to 500 a month source read 25 Sep 2026 | 16 USD Professional · Annual, shown per month source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| Framer | Free, $0: free Framer domain (no custom domain), 1 GB bandwidth, 10 CMS collections, 1,000 pages, 500 AI credits to try; meant for non-commercial use source read 25 Sep 2026 | 10 USD Basic · Annual, shown per month source read 25 Sep 2026 |
Business
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetResponse | Free forever: up to 500 contacts, 2,500 newsletters a month, 1 landing page and a GetResponse badge on every message; premium features for the first 14 days only source read 26 Sep 2026 | 19 USD Starter · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at GetResponse This link pays us a commission |
| Shopify | No free store plan — a 3-day free trial, then $1/month for 3 months. The separate $0/month Agentic plan sells only in AI channels through Shopify's Catalog and charges per sale, card rates from 2.9% + 30¢ source read 26 Sep 2026 | 39 USD Basic · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 |
Productivity
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notion | Free, $0: unlimited pages and blocks for one person (limited for 2+ members), 5 MB file uploads, 7-day page history, a trial of Notion AI source read 25 Sep 2026 | 12 USD Plus · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 | |
| SaneBox | No free plan — a free trial only; the pricing page's own data says 7 days in one place and 14 in another source read 26 Sep 2026 | 9.49 USD Snack · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at SaneBox This link pays us a commission |
| Tally | Free: unlimited forms and submissions within fair use, payments, signatures, file uploads up to 10 MB each, Tally branding source read 25 Sep 2026 | 29 USD Pro · Monthly source read 25 Sep 2026 |
Security
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Password | No free plan — a 14-day free trial source read 26 Sep 2026 | 4.99 USD Individual · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at 1Password This link pays us a commission |
| Proton | Proton Free: 1 GB storage, 1 user, 1 encrypted email address source read 26 Sep 2026 | 4.99 USD Mail Plus · Monthly source read 11 Sep 2026 | Buy at Proton This link pays us a commission |
| Surfshark | No free plan — a free trial limited to 3 devices, and a 30-day money-back guarantee source read 26 Sep 2026 | 16.45 USD Starter · Monthly source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Surfshark This link pays us nothing |
Travel
| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airalo eSIM | No free plan — prepaid, one-time data packages source read 26 Sep 2026 | 4 USD United States 1 GB / 3 days · One-time source read 26 Sep 2026 | Buy at Airalo This link pays us a commission |