The official medium-SaaS example is about $53.90 in usage; add the $20 Growth fee and subtract its $5 usage credit.
- Free option
- New Starter subscriptions get their first month free; after that, Starter costs $5/month and includes $5 in monthly usage credit.
- Why it fits
- Laravel teams that want the framework, database, queues, scheduler, cache, and deploy workflow managed as one platform.
- How deploys work
- Connect a Git repository or run cloud ship; Laravel Cloud builds the supported runtime and deploys every push with zero downtime.
- The tradeoff
- The excellent Laravel experience comes from an opinionated runtime, so arbitrary containers and server-level access are out.
Option 2 App platform
Railway
≈$20/mo Pro
$20 minimum with higher resource limits and unlimited team seats.
- Free option
- Free: $1 of monthly usage credits, capped at 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB per service, one replica, and 3-day log history.
- Why it fits
- Full-stack apps and APIs where you want the app and its database running in minutes.
- How deploys work
- Connect a repo or image; Railway detects the build, deploys it, and adds databases with one click.
- The tradeoff
- Pure usage billing means the bill moves with your traffic — predictable only while the app is small.
Horizontal scaling; database and extra transfer on top.
- Free option
- Free tier: 3 apps with static sites, 1 GiB of outbound transfer each per month. Extra static-site apps cost $3/month.
- Why it fits
- Apps that want git-push deploys inside a provider they can grow with.
- How deploys work
- Connect the Git repo or a container image; App Platform builds, deploys, and scales it.
- The tradeoff
- Weaker compute per dollar than a Droplet — the convenience premium is real.
