# Railway review (2026): is it worth $5 a month? > App and database hosting billed by the second for usage Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Railway deploys apps, databases and sandboxes from templates or a Git repo and bills for the CPU, memory, storage and egress they use, metered by the second. Plans set a minimum monthly spend that counts as usage credit: $5 on Hobby and $20 on Pro. - **Category:** Web Hosting - **Made by:** Railway Corp. - **Website:** https://railway.com - **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android - **Who should skip it:** Tight if you stay on Free: 1 project, 3 services, 0.5 GB RAM. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Railway is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $5 minimum usage per month (Hobby). - **Pricing model:** Free trial - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** 30-day trial with a one-time $5 credit, no card required. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 per month, after the trial | After a 30-day trial with $5 in credits, $1 per month. Up to 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB RAM per service, 0.5 GB volume. | | Hobby | $5 minimum usage per month, includes $5 of usage | Includes $5 of monthly usage credit, up to 48 vCPU and 48 GB RAM per service, a single developer workspace and 7-day logs. | | Pro | $20 minimum usage per month, includes $20 of usage | Includes $20 of monthly usage credit, unlimited workspace seats, up to 1,000 vCPU per service and a 99.99% availability target. | | Enterprise | Custom | Single sign-on, role-based access control, HIPAA BAAs, dedicated VMs, bring-your-own-cloud and a 99.999% availability target. | Read from https://railway.com/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Railway before buying. ## Key features - **Usage-based billing:** Memory costs $0.00000386 per GB-second and CPU $0.00000772 per vCPU-second, so an idle service costs little. - **Templates:** The templates page offers ready-made setups for apps and databases that deploy to a project in a few steps. - **Volumes and object storage:** Persistent volumes are billed per GB-second and object storage is $0.015 per GB-month with free egress. - **Sandboxes and VMs:** Isolated Linux VMs for agents, builds and untrusted code, billed for CPU used and memory held, at about $50 per vCPU-month. - **Replicas and regions:** Services can run up to 5 replicas on Hobby and 42 on Pro, across concurrent global regions. - **Mobile app:** The site lists a Railway app for iOS and Android. ## Good for - Side projects and prototypes that run only part of the time - Teams that want unlimited seats on a $20 minimum plan - Apps that need a database and a service deployed together ## Worth knowing - Egress is $0.05 per GB, and usage above the included credit is charged on top of the minimum. - After the trial, the Free plan allows 1 project, 3 services and 0.5 GB of RAM per service. - Hobby is a single developer workspace with community support; support and a 99.99% target begin on Pro. - SSO, role-based access control and HIPAA BAAs are Enterprise only. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.6 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Railway bills apps and databases by the second for what they use, from a $5 minimum on Hobby. The free plan is $1 a month after a 30-day trial, and Hobby is one developer workspace with community support. - **Value for money: B.** Hobby is $5 minimum usage a month, inside the cheaper quarter ($5.28), but usage above the credit is on top and egress is $0.05 per GB. Pro is $20. - **Free plan and trial: C.** A 30-day trial with $5 and no card, then a Free plan at $1 a month, limited to 1 project, 3 services and 0.5 GB RAM a service. - **Features: B.** Usage billing, templates, volumes, object storage, replicas and regions, and sandboxes. The listing names no core gap. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You set up projects, services and databases. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iOS and Android, but no desktop app and no integrations listed. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Railway's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among web hosts - Railway's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 51 of the 54 other web hosts we grade, and level with 1. - It stands best on features (B, above 29 of 54) and worst on ease of use (C, above 9). - Its paid plans start at $5 a month, against a middle price of $9 for the category: 19 of the 52 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/web-hosting ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Railway you would be making an AI agent, with the models and the safeguards behind it. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.6 is higher than 51 of the 54 other web hosts we grade. It costs $60 a year. - You could not: An AI agent, with the models and the safeguards behind it. - You could not: Databases with views, filters and links between them. - You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page. - You could not: An API that other software can build on. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. **Tags:** Databases, Public API, AI agents ## Alternatives - [Render](https://toolgpa.com/tools/render): Cloud hosting for web services, databases and workers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/railway-vs-render) - [Fly.io](https://toolgpa.com/tools/fly-io): Virtual machines and databases in 18 regions, billed per second. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/fly-io-vs-railway) - [Vercel](https://toolgpa.com/tools/vercel): Git-based hosting for front-end and full-stack web apps. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/railway-vs-vercel) - [Koyeb](https://toolgpa.com/tools/koyeb): Serverless platform for apps, APIs and GPU workloads. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/koyeb-vs-railway) - [DigitalOcean](https://toolgpa.com/tools/digitalocean): Cloud servers, app hosting and managed databases for developers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-railway) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://railway.com/pricing - https://railway.com Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/railway Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).