"Cheap" has a lot of asterisks
Every budget host advertises a small number. The real bill shows up in egress fees, per-database add-ons, build minutes, seat pricing, and the surprise of an idle app billing 24/7. This post is about *total cost to actually run a small app with a database*, not the headline price.
I'll be specific about where money leaks and which model fits which developer.
The hidden cost checklist
- Bandwidth/egress. The classic trap. Big clouds charge per GB out; some hosts include a generous allotment.
- Database add-on. A "$5 app" is $20 once you add a managed Postgres. Bundled DBs change the math.
- Build minutes. CI builds on every push can blow a quota.
- Idle billing. Does an app you're not using cost money? Scale-to-zero vs. always-on is a big lever for hobby projects.
- Seats. Per-user pricing punishes small teams.
- Backups & SSL. Free on some, extra on others.
The models
Bare VPS (Hetzner, OVH, etc.)
The true budget king. A few euros a month gets real CPU/RAM with generous bandwidth. You pay in time: provisioning, TLS, deploys, backups, and DB administration are all yours. Best price-per-resource by far if your time is cheap or you're learning.
Hyperscaler free tiers (AWS/GCP/Azure)
Generous on paper, complex in practice, and famous for surprise egress and idle-resource bills. Great for learning the big clouds; risky for a "set it and forget it" hobby app unless you watch billing closely.
Developer PaaS
Flat, predictable plans that bundle build, deploy, TLS, domains, and often a database. You pay more per unit of raw compute than a VPS but less in operational time. The budget question is whether the free/cheap tier includes a database and reasonable bandwidth.
PandaStack
PandaStack's free tier is built to actually run something: 5 web services + 5 static sites, 1 managed database, 100 GB bandwidth/month, 300 build minutes, automatic SSL, edge functions, and scale-to-zero so idle apps cost effectively nothing. Paid plans are flat and predictable: Pro $15/mo, Premium $25/mo. The honest limits: free DBs are dev/hobby-sized, and free apps cold-start on preemptible nodes.
Comparison
| Model | Headline cost | DB included | Bandwidth | Idle cost | Hidden-cost risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bare VPS | Very low | No (DIY) | Generous | Fixed monthly | Your time |
| Hyperscaler free tier | $0 (then ramps) | Extra | Metered egress | Often billed | High (egress/idle) |
| Developer PaaS | Low-flat | Sometimes | Varies | Varies | Low-medium |
| PandaStack | $0 free / $15 Pro | Yes (1 on free) | 100GB free / 500GB Pro | Scale-to-zero (free) | Low |
Worked example: a small full-stack app
A hobby app = one web service + one Postgres + a static frontend + a custom domain. Compare the realistic monthly cost:
- VPS: ~€5/mo for the box, plus your time for Postgres install, certbot, deploy scripts, and backups. Cheapest in euros, not in hours.
- Hyperscaler: small instance + managed DB + egress; easily $30–60/mo once the free credits lapse, and you're managing IAM and networking.
- Bundled PaaS free tier: $0 if it includes a database and SSL — which is exactly the niche PandaStack's free tier targets (1 DB, 100GB bandwidth, SSL, scale-to-zero).
The lesson: for a *small* app, the bundled free tier often wins outright because the database and bandwidth are the costs that actually bite.
How to not get surprised
Before you commit, ask the platform:
1. What's the egress price per GB beyond the included amount?
2. Does an idle app cost money? (scale-to-zero vs always-on)
3. Is a managed database included or a paid add-on?
4. How many build minutes are included; what happens past the cap?
5. Is pricing per-seat?
6. Are backups and SSL included?If you can't get a clear answer to all six, assume the worst on each.
When budget hosting is the wrong call
Budget tiers (especially scale-to-zero on preemptible nodes) are wrong for: latency-sensitive production APIs, always-connected real-time apps, and anything with strict uptime SLAs. There, pay for a warm, dedicated instance. "Budget" is a hobby/early-stage strategy, not a production-at-scale one.
My recommendation
If your time is free and you want maximum resources per dollar, a Hetzner VPS is unbeatable — accept the ops work. If you want a small app *running* with a database, SSL, and no idle bill, a bundled free tier wins, and PandaStack's free tier is purpose-built for exactly that. Watch egress and idle billing above everything else; they're where budget hosting quietly stops being budget.
References
- Hetzner Cloud pricing: https://www.hetzner.com/cloud
- AWS data transfer pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/
- Cloudflare's egress-fee analysis: https://blog.cloudflare.com/aws-egregious-egress/
- Google Cloud free tier: https://cloud.google.com/free
- The cost of cloud egress (overview): https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cloud/what-are-data-egress-fees/
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Want a small app running with a database, SSL, and no idle bill? PandaStack's free tier includes containers, a managed database, and 100GB bandwidth. Start at https://dashboard.pandastack.io