Railway pricing, price hikes and cheaper alternatives
Railway (railway.com) is a hosting platform. Subscription that counts toward usage, then per-second metering. Free plan: 30-day trial, then $1/mo credit.
What Railway costs
- Entry plan: $5/mo
- Small app: $12/mo
Plan compared: Hobby: $5 incl. $5 usage. Cheapest paid plan per month (per seat where plans are seat-based).
Railway price hikes
- Railway ended its free plan · Aug 1, 2023
The free Starter plan became a one-time trial, a $5 Hobby plan arrived, and network egress started being billed.
Cheaper alternatives to Railway
At the entry plan, Railway costs $5/mo. 1 hosting platform costs less:
- Fly.io: $2.19/mo (Smallest Machine, 256 MB)
Railway alternatives: 8 hosting platforms compared, at every size.
Every change we logged
- Aug 30, 2025 · Repriced: A free plan returned after the trial, with $1 of credit a month.
- Jun 2025 · Price cut: Egress halved and Pro seat fees dropped after the move to Railway Metal.
- Aug 1, 2023 · Free tier cut: The free Starter plan became a one-time trial, a $5 Hobby plan arrived, and network egress started being billed.
Sources
Pricing page: railway.com/pricing. Prices last checked Oct 16, 2026. Small app = 0.5 GB RAM ($5) + ~0.1 vCPU ($2) + 100 GB egress ($5) = $12, billed as $5 Hobby + $7 usage. At 1 GB RAM it's about $17.