Pricing
Start free. Pay for what you ship.
Hobby is genuinely useful — a small app, an auto-wired Postgres, no card. Real custom domains and always-on apps start at $10. Bigger workloads scale up; everything stays on one invoice.
Plan tiers
Pick the shape that matches what you're shipping.
Hobby
Trying Cantila and side projects.
$0/ mo
- 1 small app on a *.cantila.app subdomain
- Sleeps when idle
- Auto-wired Postgres, ready in the env
- Community support
Starter
Most pickedIndie hackers shipping a real product.
~$10/ mo
- A few always-on apps
- 1 custom domain included
- 1 managed database
- Email + SMS quotas, metered overage
- Build minutes + 50 GB transfer
Pro
Serious solo builders and small teams.
~$35/ mo
- More apps and more resources per app
- Auto-scaling and preview environments
- Multiple databases, branching, point-in-time restore
- Priority support
Agency
Agencies and resellers.
~$99+/ mo
- White-label sub-accounts
- Team seats and role-based access
- Wholesale add-on pricing
- Per-account branding and billing rollup
Dedicated
Workloads needing isolation or an SLA.
Custom
- Dedicated VPS nodes
- SSO and audit log export
- Uptime SLA
- Hands-on support
Prices in USD. Tier numbers are illustrative against measured infra cost (plan §8.2); the exact figure on your invoice is whatever Stripe says it is.
Domains
Cheapest in market on every TLD that matters.
The Cantila Domains catalog is priced near wholesale because the domain is the hook for the bundled services. WHOIS privacy and auto-renew are included free.
| TLD | Cantila / yr | Typical retail | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| .xyz | $1.99 | $9–12 | Cheapest in catalog |
| .site | $2.99 | $25 | |
| .online | $2.99 | $30 | |
| .tech | $5.99 | $40 | |
| .com | $8.99 | $12–20 | Below every major retail registrar |
| .org | $8.99 | $12–15 | |
| .me | $9.99 | $20 | |
| .net | $9.99 | $15 | |
| .dev | $10.99 | $15 | |
| .app | $11.99 | $18 | |
| .build | $11.99 | $30 | |
| .store | $14.99 | $50 | |
| .shop | $18.99 | $35 | |
| .co | $19.99 | $30 | |
| .io | $29.99 | $40–50 | |
| .ai | $49.99 | $80–100 |
Metered overage
Above the plan allowance, you pay the meter.
Spend caps and budget alerts on by default. You set the ceiling; Cantila never quietly pushes past it.
| Meter | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CPU-vCore-hour | $0.012 | Above plan allowance |
| RAM GB-hour | $0.006 | Always-on apps |
| Bandwidth (GB) | $0.04 | Egress only — ingress is free |
| Object storage (GB-mo) | $0.018 | S3-compatible, optional CDN |
| Postgres / Mongo (GB-mo) | $0.18 | Managed, daily backups |
| Email (per 1k) | $0.30 | Outbound, Phase 2 |
| SMS (per message) | $0.0075 | US local — varies by destination, Phase 3 |
Questions
Things worth answering up front.
Is the free Hobby plan actually free?
Yes. One small app on a *.cantila.app subdomain, sleeps when idle, comes with an auto-wired Postgres ready in the env. No card required — you only enter billing when you want a custom domain, always-on, or a paid add-on.
Why is your domain pricing so much lower than retail?
Domains are top-of-funnel — the registrar is where new customers meet Cantila. We resell at near-wholesale on the catalog above (the same play Cloudflare Registrar uses) and earn margin on the hosting, email, SMS and database that get bundled with each domain. WHOIS privacy is free and auto-renew is on by default.
What counts as metered overage?
Everything in the table above. Each plan ships an allowance; once the allowance is used we meter the excess in 1-second / 1-byte units. Spend caps and budget alerts are on by default — you set the ceiling, we never silently push past it.
What happens to my apps if a payment fails?
Stripe drives dunning. Your account moves active → past_due → suspended → canceled with email at each step. Suspension stops new deploys and sleeps your always-on apps; everything restores the moment you fix the card.
When are Cantila Mail and SMS priced as 'live'?
Mail's sending and receiving infrastructure ships in Phase 2; SMS in Phase 3. Until each lands, the meter for that line item runs through Cantila's stub adapter and is not charged. The plan's $/k email and $/SMS take effect the week the live carrier path goes live.
Can I bring my own VPS?
Yes — Pro and above. Cantila installs a small agent on your node, brings it into the fleet, and runs your projects on it. Useful when you need a specific region, a specific provider, or higher per-app density without paying for our compute.
Ready to ship?
Hobby is free. Everything else metered fairly. No annual lock-in.