# Ditch Vercel: $1,800/mo to $5 VPS (Exit Paths)

> Teams leaving Vercel at $1,800/mo: the Lambda $67 path, the $5 VPS path, and the Coolify middle. Real numbers, honest tradeoffs.

Source: https://boringpush.com/blog/ditch-vercel-5-dollar-vps

## Best DX in the business, pricing that punishes growth

[We left Vercel at $1,800/mo](https://www.reddit.com/r/vercel/comments/1sxczcl/we_left_vercel_at_1800month_heres_what_we): best DX in the business, bill threatening the path to profitability. The [bill-shock math](https://www.edge-cases.com/nextjs/vercel-billing-demystified) shows how $20 becomes $247 — edge requests, function duration, ISR reads/writes, and bandwidth compounding per-resource. A [2026 bill study](https://www.budgetforge.dev/tools/vercel-pricing-2026) models it cleanly: solo dev ~$20, five-person startup ~$200, heavy traffic ~$700+. And it's not only Vercel: Netlify's credit model lands a 5TB spike around [$720 in bandwidth alone](https://eden-cms-v2.onbex.co/blog/2026/07/31/vercel-bandwidth-bill-shock). Usage pricing is the water; every serverless host swims in it.

## Three exit paths, honestly priced

| Path | Real cost | Migration effort | You keep | You own |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lambda via OpenNext/SST | ~$67/mo (free tier covers 1M reqs) | Weekend; same Next.js code | Autoscaling, pay-per-use | Build config, cold starts remain |
| Coolify on VPS | ~$25–40/mo | Afternoon; git-push deploys return | Heroku-like UI, one dashboard | One VPS + updates |
| Bare $5 VPS (Hetzner DO) | ~$5/mo flat | Weekend; most control | $0 meters, full machine | OS, firewall, backups (scripted) |

The Lambda path suits teams that like serverless economics but not Vercel's seat+usage stack — [the $1,800 exit](https://www.reddit.com/r/vercel/comments/1sxczcl/we_left_vercel_at_1800month_heres_what_we) kept Vercel live 48 hours as rollback and reported zero customer issues. Coolify suits teams that want Heroku simplicity without Heroku prices: connect repo, get HTTPS, done — at 5–10x less.

The bare VPS suits founders who'd rather own the machine: boring, flat, and — with the right repo — one command to deploy.

That last path is the BoringPush shape: `git push production main` from anywhere, PM2 zero-downtime reloads, Tailscale mesh with port 22 closed, SQLite at 0.1ms beside the app, nightly snapshots on cron. Same Next.js stack, no per-request meter anywhere in it.

Ship from anywhere on hardware you control and traffic spikes become good news again.

## Migrate without the horror story

1. **Shadow first.** New target serves staging while Vercel serves prod. Compare bills AND p99 latency for a week — the [exit thread's](https://www.reddit.com/r/vercel/comments/1sxczcl/we_left_vercel_at_1800month_heres_what_we) 48-hour overlap is the minimum; a week is calmer.
2. **Move statics early.** Images and static assets to Cloudflare/R2 first — biggest bandwidth win, zero app risk, works regardless of final target.
3. **DNS last, rollback ready.** Flip with TTL pre-lowered, old deployment warm beside the new one. If anything smells, flip back in minutes — migrations fail when rollback needs heroics.
4. **Delete the old project week two.** Zombie Preview deployments and lingering integrations bill quietly. The exit isn't done until Vercel shows $0.

## FAQ

### Will I regret leaving Vercel's DX?

For two weeks, mildly: preview URLs per PR and instant rollbacks are genuinely great. Then muscle memory moves to `git push production main` + preview on staging, and the regret line inverts with the first flat bill.

### What about cold starts on Lambda?

Remain — Lambda is still serverless. The $67 exit accepted them; provisioned concurrency exists if p99 matters.

Only the bare VPS eliminates them (persistent PM2 process).

### Coolify vs bare VPS — decide for me?

Want a dashboard and one-click apps: Coolify. Want minimum cost and maximum control (and scripts that do it all): bare VPS.

Same hardware underneath.

### How long does the migration really take?

Weekend for standard Next.js apps, per the exit threads. The long tail is DNS propagation caution and deleting old resources — schedule a second weekend for paranoia, use an hour of it.

### Does BoringPush work on all three paths?

Yes — same code on Vercel, Lambda/OpenNext, Coolify, or bare VPS. One setting picks the database per target. The repo doesn't care where it runs; your bill does.