# Vercel

> Cloud platform for deploying static sites and web apps with Git integration, preview deployments and serverless functions.

- Category: [Static & frontend hosting](https://freetier.tech/c/static-hosting.md)
- Free tier: Always free. Hobby plan with 100 GB Fast Data Transfer and 1M CDN requests per month, for personal non-commercial use only.
- Non-commercial only
- No card required
- Pricing: https://vercel.com/pricing
- Last verified: 2026-10-28

## Free tier limits

- 100 GB Fast Data Transfer per month
- 10 GB Fast Origin Transfer per month
- 1,000,000 CDN requests per month
- 1,000,000 function invocations per month
- 4 CPU-hours Active CPU and 360 GB-hours provisioned memory per month
- 5,000 image transformations per month
- 100 deployments per day
- 200 projects
- 1 concurrent build, 45 minutes max per build
- 100 MB max source upload per CLI deployment

## Gotchas

- Hobby is restricted to non-commercial personal use; Vercel counts ads, taking payments, affiliate-focused sites and being paid to build or host the site as commercial.
- Going over a Hobby limit pauses that usage, generally until 30 days have passed; Hobby can't buy extra usage.
- Hobby projects can't connect to Git repositories owned by a Git organization.
- CLI deployments are limited to 100 MB of source files on Hobby and 15,000 source files.
- Use plain `vercel login` (OAuth device flow); the email and `--github`/`--gitlab`/`--bitbucket` login variants were retired on 2026-02-26.

## Setup

### What the human does

1. Sign up at https://vercel.com/signup and use the free Hobby plan.
2. Approve the device login in the browser when the agent runs `vercel login`, or create an access token.

### How the agent gets access

#### CLI login

- Install: `npm i -g vercel`
- Run: `vercel login`
- Notes: OAuth device flow; the human approves in any browser.

#### API key

- Install: `npm i -g vercel`
- Get it at: https://vercel.com/account/settings/tokens
- Env var: `VERCEL_TOKEN`
- Notes: The CLI reads VERCEL_TOKEN (or `--token`); set VERCEL_ORG_ID and VERCEL_PROJECT_ID to skip `vercel link` in CI.

### Verify

```sh
vercel whoami
```

### Optional: start without an account

Creates a temporary resource before the human has an account, for trying things out. The steps above are the normal path.

- Run: `vercel deploy --temporary`
- Expires: Set by Vercel and printed by the CLI; the launch announcement said one hour.
- To keep it: Open the claim URL the CLI prints, then run `vercel login` to keep deploying.
- Notes: Only works with no stored Vercel credentials, and not in CI or in a directory already linked to a Vercel project. Anyone with the claim link can take the project.

## Docs

- Quickstart: https://vercel.com/docs/getting-started-with-vercel
- llms.txt: https://vercel.com/llms.txt

## Sources

- https://vercel.com/pricing
- https://vercel.com/docs/plans/hobby
- https://vercel.com/docs/plans
- https://vercel.com/docs/limits
- https://vercel.com/docs/limits/fair-use-guidelines
- https://vercel.com/docs/plans/pro-plan/trials
- https://vercel.com/legal/terms
- https://vercel.com/docs/accounts
- https://vercel.com/signup
- https://vercel.com/docs/cli
- https://vercel.com/docs/cli/global-options
- https://vercel.com/docs/cli/login
- https://vercel.com/docs/cli/whoami
- https://vercel.com/changelog/new-vercel-cli-login-flow
- https://vercel.com/changelog/deploy-without-an-account-using-vercel-cli
- https://vercel.com/llms.txt
- https://vercel.com/docs/deployments/deploy-without-logging-in

JSON: https://freetier.tech/api/v1/services/vercel.json