Does Heroku have a free tier?

No — Heroku has no free tier.

Heroku

Widely credited with popularizing "git push to deploy". As of 2026 it is in a sustaining-engineering mode with no new features, pushing many teams to evaluate alternatives.

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Heroku is a managed platform-as-a-service, owned by Salesforce, that runs applications inside container instances called dynos on a fully managed runtime. Developers deploy by pushing to Git or through GitHub integration; Heroku detects the language, builds the app with a buildpack, and handles provisioning, routing, and scaling. It supports Ruby, Python, Node.js, PHP, Go, Java, Scala, Clojure, and .NET, and pairs the runtime with managed data services and a large add-ons marketplace.

Key features

Git-push and GitHub-based deploys with automatic buildpack detection
Dyno container model with horizontal and vertical scaling
Managed data services: Heroku Postgres and Heroku Key-Value Store (Redis)
Add-ons marketplace and open-source buildpack ecosystem for extensions
Heroku Flow CI/CD: pipelines, review apps, and Heroku CI
Multi-language support across Ruby, Python, Node.js, Java, Go, PHP, Scala, Clojure, and .NET

Specs

Category	Managed PaaS
Pricing model	tiered
Free tier	No
Managed database	Yes
Regions	2
Self-hostable	No
Docker-native	Yes
Git deploy	Yes
Open source	No

Last reviewed 2026-07-16 — see our methodology. Specs, pricing and free tiers change often, so confirm current details on the provider before deciding.

Pros & cons

Our editorial assessment — not vendor-stated facts.

Pros

Low operational overhead: deploy with a single git push, no servers to manage
Mature, well-documented workflow with pipelines, review apps, and one-click add-ons
Broad first-class language support through buildpacks
Integrated managed Postgres and key-value store reduce the need to wire up external services
Backed by Salesforce, with a large ecosystem and deep community knowledge base

Cons

No free tier since November 2022; the cheapest Eco dynos also sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity
Costs scale up quickly at higher tiers compared to raw IaaS or cheaper PaaS alternatives
Common Runtime region availability is limited (primarily US and Europe); broader regions require Private Spaces
In February 2026 Salesforce moved Heroku to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability and maintenance rather than new features, and stopped offering Enterprise contracts to new customers, signaling slower innovation (existing credit-card pricing and billing are unaffected)

Pricing

Subscription and usage-based per-dyno pricing with no free tier (free plans were removed in late 2022). Entry-level Eco dynos draw from a shared monthly pool of compute hours and sleep when idle; Basic dynos stay always-on; Standard and Performance tiers target production workloads. Managed data services and third-party add-ons are billed separately.

Who should use Heroku?

Best for individual developers and small-to-mid-size teams who want to ship web apps and APIs fast without managing infrastructure, and for teams already in the Salesforce ecosystem. Less suited to cost-sensitive projects at scale, workloads needing broad regional coverage, or teams that want a platform under active feature development.

Frequently asked questions

Does Heroku have a free tier?: No — Heroku has no free tier.
How much does Heroku cost?: Subscription and usage-based per-dyno pricing with no free tier (free plans were removed in late 2022). Entry-level Eco dynos draw from a shared monthly pool of compute hours and sleep when idle; Basic dynos stay always-on; Standard and Performance tiers target production workloads. Managed data services and third-party add-ons are billed separately.
Who should use Heroku?: Best for individual developers and small-to-mid-size teams who want to ship web apps and APIs fast without managing infrastructure, and for teams already in the Salesforce ecosystem. Less suited to cost-sensitive projects at scale, workloads needing broad regional coverage, or teams that want a platform under active feature development.