Vercel will bill Data Cache reads and writes as it moves to Runtime Cache

Vercel said on October 30, 2026, that Data Cache is leaving beta and merging into Runtime Cache. Once a team migrates, Data Cache reads and writes that were never billed are charged at Runtime Cache rates: from $0.40 per million read units and $4.00 per million write units, depending on region. Teams created on or after October 30 already use Runtime Cache. Existing Hobby teams move on November 29.

Data Cache is the store behind Next.js fetch caching and unstable_cache. Vercel says both switch over on every Next.js version with no code changes.

What it costs

Vercel’s docs measure both reads and writes in 8 KB units and price them by the region your functions run in.

Runtime Cache	Hobby included	On-demand rate (range across regions)
Reads, per 1M units	1M a month	$0.40 - $0.64
Writes, per 1M units	200K a month	$4.00 - $6.40

On Hobby, the allowance is shared across all projects on the team. Vercel does not charge Hobby teams for going over; it pauses Runtime Cache for the rest of the period instead. On Pro, usage first draws from the $20 monthly infrastructure credit, then bills at the regional rate. Enterprise pricing goes through the account team.

In exchange, Vercel says Pro projects get their own cache per project and environment, with 8x the space of the old team-wide Data Cache pool. Enterprise projects get 10x their previous storage.

Who it affects

Any team on Vercel that caches data with Next.js fetch or unstable_cache. The timing depends on plan:

• Hobby: migrated on November 29, 2026.
• Pro: Vercel will notify each team of its migration date and when billing starts. The changelog gives no date.
• Enterprise: the account team will be in touch.

Hobby and Pro teams can opt in early from their team’s CDN settings, but billing starts as soon as they do.

What to do

Check your project’s Data Cache usage in Vercel’s Observability tab before you migrate. Writes cost ten times as much as reads, so a cache that rewrites often costs most. Vercel points to an optimization guide and an “Optimize with Vercel Agent” option in the Runtime Cache dashboard. You can also turn off fetch and unstable_cache caching in CDN settings, which sends more traffic to your data sources but doesn’t stop the migration.

For other app hosts and how their usage billing compares, see our VPS and app hosting comparison.