Is Koyeb or Render cheaper in 2026?

It depends on volume — Koyeb wins 2 of the 3 modelled workloads and Render wins 1. The scenario table above shows where the crossover falls.

What is the difference in egress cost between Koyeb and Render?

Koyeb charges $0.030 per GB against Render's $0.150, roughly 5× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.

Which has the better free tier, Koyeb or Render?

Both publish one. Koyeb: One free instance with limited resources. Render: Free static sites and 750 instance hours per month.

What do these estimates not include?

Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.

Koyeb vs Render

Neither wins outright: Koyeb is cheaper for 2 of 3 workloads and Render for the rest.

List prices checked May 2026

Rate cards side by side

Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.

Billing axis	Koyeb	Render	Difference
Entry plan	$6.40/mo	$7.00/mo	1.1× Koyeb
Data transfer out	$0.030/GB	$0.150/GB	5× Koyeb
Free tier	Yes	Yes	—

Source: Koyeb pricing (May 2026) · Render pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.

Monthly cost for three real workloads

The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.

Workload	Koyeb	Render	Cheaper
Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process.	$9.40	$7.00	Rendersaves $2.40/mo (26%)
Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers.	$36	$142	Koyebsaves $106/mo (74%)
Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought.	$306	$1,492	Koyebsaves $1,186/mo (79%)

Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.

What each one is for

Koyeb

by Koyeb

Deploys containers globally with scale-to-zero and per-second billing, aimed at teams that want edge distribution without managing a Kubernetes cluster.

Free tier: One free instance with limited resources

Render

by Render

Predictable per-instance pricing with managed Postgres and cron jobs included in the platform, positioned as the modern replacement for Heroku.

Free tier: Free static sites and 750 instance hours per month

Common questions

Is Koyeb or Render cheaper in 2026?: It depends on volume — Koyeb wins 2 of the 3 modelled workloads and Render wins 1. The scenario table above shows where the crossover falls.
What is the difference in egress cost between Koyeb and Render?: Koyeb charges $0.030 per GB against Render's $0.150, roughly 5× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
Which has the better free tier, Koyeb or Render?: Both publish one. Koyeb: One free instance with limited resources. Render: Free static sites and 750 instance hours per month.
What do these estimates not include?: Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.