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Here's an analysis of how these rumored changes will affect apps of various sizes. http://www.octolabs.com/blogs/octoblog/2015/03/31/analysis-of-the-rumored-he

Here's an analysis of how these rumored changes will affect apps of various sizes. http://www.octolabs.com/blogs/octoblog/2015/03/31/analysis-of-the-rumored-heroku-pricing-changes/ http://www.octolabs.com/blogs/octoblog/2015/03/31/analysis-o... tl;dr : Current paying customers will see a discount of up to 30%. Current freeloaders will have to pay $84/year for functionality equivalent to what they get now. Anyone who is technical enough to use Heroku effectively can charge AT LEAST $84/hour for their time, meaning that they'd need to move to a new solution in less than an hour to save money. All the hand wringing is very silly.

smackfu 12y ago
The beauty of using your own time is that no money has to change hands, no matter how valuable it is.
- jagthedrummer 12y ago
  Sure, no money has to change hands, BUT if you decided to take the hours that you would spend moving projects away from Heroku, and instead do something productive that creates value for a client you could be spending the same amount of effort, and be making more money than you'll save by switching.
geoffharcourt 12y ago
That's an excellent point. The $84/year tier also allows users to keep an app always on without needing a second dyno, which used to be the requirement to prevent apps from sleeping.
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  I used to just ping my sites on the free to tier to keep them alive using uptime robot. I wonder if that was against the TOS?
  - pvh 12y ago
    Yep.
  - kentt 12y ago
    The big change is that you can't do that on the free tier. The free tier has a maximum of 12 hours uptime per day.
  - hanley 12y ago
    I have a handful of little apps that I do that with. Too bad that won't work anymore, they aren't worth $84/yr each to me to have them running 24/7.
metasean 12y ago
I have multiple smallish projects that don't need to be up 24/7, but that may evolve into something more. I'm not going to pay $84/year per project to keep them on Heroku. So, I'll end up moving them, and as they evolve, they'll evolve on the other platform.
- jagthedrummer 12y ago
  I'd be interested to hear what you move to, what the set up looks like there, and what you pay for it.
- imdsm 12y ago
  Exactly. We're not going to pay for something that might never take off, but we if they do, it'd be nice to be able to keep them where they are. Isn't this how Heroku got to where it is? Seems everyone grows so big that they turn their backs on where they came from. They're no longer Heroku from the block.
hopeless 12y ago
Thanks for writing this analysis. I think the pricing changes are long overdue and great news for developers. I hope Heroku gets to focus more on the people who understand how many hours/year it takes to run a server safely and securely. At the same time, the free tier still exists and 12hrs/day is plenty for code schools and various tinkering.
practicalpants 12y ago
> Anyone who is technical enough to use Heroku effectively can charge AT LEAST $84/hour for their time This is very off base in my experience. I know countless beginner devs who swear by Heroku, because it's designed to be that simple. You're not a 'freeloader' if you have lots of apps on the free tier but production grade ones where you pay premium. You're a paying customer in that case, and that's probably a common pattern with these 'freeloaders' - lots of free apps, but key paying ones. All in all, I'm not going to pay $84/year for each of my 12-14 personal apps that have light traffic (couple hits per hour maybe). I'm going to pick a new platform and make it part of my workflow, and for the sake of simplicity, I will be moving all of my apps to it, paid ones included.
- jagthedrummer 12y ago
  I'd be interested to hear what you move to, what the set up looks like there, and what you pay for it.
- tedmiston 12y ago
  I feel like most of us are in this situation, maybe not with 12-14 personal apps, but at least a couple.

smackfu 12y ago

The beauty of using your own time is that no money has to change hands, no matter how valuable it is.

jagthedrummer 12y ago
Sure, no money has to change hands, BUT if you decided to take the hours that you would spend moving projects away from Heroku, and instead do something productive that creates value for a client you could be spending the same amount of effort, and be making more money than you'll save by switching.

geoffharcourt 12y ago

That's an excellent point. The $84/year tier also allows users to keep an app always on without needing a second dyno, which used to be the requirement to prevent apps from sleeping.

ryanSrich 12y ago
I used to just ping my sites on the free to tier to keep them alive using uptime robot. I wonder if that was against the TOS?
- pvh 12y ago
  Yep.
- kentt 12y ago
  The big change is that you can't do that on the free tier. The free tier has a maximum of 12 hours uptime per day.
- hanley 12y ago
  I have a handful of little apps that I do that with. Too bad that won't work anymore, they aren't worth $84/yr each to me to have them running 24/7.

metasean 12y ago

I have multiple smallish projects that don't need to be up 24/7, but that may evolve into something more. I'm not going to pay $84/year per project to keep them on Heroku. So, I'll end up moving them, and as they evolve, they'll evolve on the other platform.

jagthedrummer 12y ago
I'd be interested to hear what you move to, what the set up looks like there, and what you pay for it.
imdsm 12y ago
Exactly. We're not going to pay for something that might never take off, but we if they do, it'd be nice to be able to keep them where they are. Isn't this how Heroku got to where it is? Seems everyone grows so big that they turn their backs on where they came from. They're no longer Heroku from the block.

hopeless 12y ago

Thanks for writing this analysis. I think the pricing changes are long overdue and great news for developers. I hope Heroku gets to focus more on the people who understand how many hours/year it takes to run a server safely and securely. At the same time, the free tier still exists and 12hrs/day is plenty for code schools and various tinkering.

practicalpants 12y ago

> Anyone who is technical enough to use Heroku effectively can charge AT LEAST $84/hour for their time This is very off base in my experience. I know countless beginner devs who swear by Heroku, because it's designed to be that simple. You're not a 'freeloader' if you have lots of apps on the free tier but production grade ones where you pay premium. You're a paying customer in that case, and that's probably a common pattern with these 'freeloaders' - lots of free apps, but key paying ones. All in all, I'm not going to pay $84/year for each of my 12-14 personal apps that have light traffic (couple hits per hour maybe). I'm going to pick a new platform and make it part of my workflow, and for the sake of simplicity, I will be moving all of my apps to it, paid ones included.

jagthedrummer 12y ago
I'd be interested to hear what you move to, what the set up looks like there, and what you pay for it.
tedmiston 12y ago
I feel like most of us are in this situation, maybe not with 12-14 personal apps, but at least a couple.