Having a site up for only a few days that requires payment

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I may be deploying a WordPress site up onto Render only for a few days in the coming weeks just so testers (and potentially my client that I’m building the site for) can view my site, test it out and generally see how it works. Once I get some testers and feedback on it, I will be taking the site down. I only intend to have it up for a few days.

Anyway, while I was looking to see how to deploy a WordPress site on Render, I came across this document that helpfully explains step-by-step how to deploy a WordPress site on Render, which is fantastic: Deploy WordPress | Render Docs

Anyway, when I clicked on the “Deploy to Render” button on that page, I was greeted with a “Payment Information Required” popup. So it seems that I can’t host a WordPress site on Render for free. I will need to pay to have it deployed. I wasn’t aware that hosting a WordPress site on Render would cost money. Then again, I’ve only hosted 2 sites on Render as of right now, both Node.js applications, and I was able to deploy them for free. But it seems that a WordPress site is not the same.

Like I said, this site will only be up on Render for a few days–just long enough for testers to test it out (and potentially my client to view it so they can see the site I’m building for them). Although I was hoping I could host a WordPress site on Render for free, I’m honestly okay with paying. However, I do have a couple of concerns.

  1. How much will it cost me to host this WordPress site on Render? It didn’t say in the “Payment Information Required” window. Then again, I didn’t completely fill it out, only because I’m not hosting the site on Render just yet.
  2. What will happen when I take the site down? I know Render has various instance types that cost various amounts per month. Will I get charged every single month after I push the site on Render, even after I take the site down? Or will I only be charged for one month, since this site will only be up on Render for only a few days? I don’t want to continuously be charged when the site that costed money to host on Render isn’t up anymore. Will I have to do something on my end after I take down the site to ensure I’m not paying more than one monthly charge?

If anyone could answer these 2 questions for me, I would be very grateful. I just want to ensure I’m not paying more than I need to to have a WordPress site up on Render just long enough for some people to test it out before I take it down, make the appropriate changes based on their feedback and give the finished site to my client.

Thank you,
-Simeon

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Hi Simeon,

The WordPress deploy requires paid instance types because of its use of WordPress and MySQL via Render Disks. To answer your questions:

  1. The details of our WordPress deploy can be found in the public repository’s render.yaml blueprint file: https://github.com/render-examples/wordpress/blob/master/render.yaml.
  2. A Docker web service with a disk ($0.25/GB/month) on the Standard instance type ($25/month) for the WordPress site.
  3. A Docker private service with a disk (another $0.25/GB/month) on the Standard instance type (another $25/month) for the MySQL database.
  4. Although the Standard instance type is recommended by Render for good WordPress/MySQL performance, your use case might be okay with the Starter ($7/month) instance type on one or both of the services. In any case, you could test it out on Starter and then bump it up to Standard if the performance doesn’t meet your needs.
  5. The key thing to note is that our service instance types are billed only by their actual usage, to the minute. This means that if you only kept the service running for 3 days, you would only be charged for those 3 days (+ the disk cost) and not the full monthly amount. The billed amount will be charged to your card at the end of the month. Once the services are suspended or deleted, you will not be charged beyond the month the service ran.

I recommend reading the FAQ at the bottom of the pricing page to learn more about how our billing works: https://render.com/pricing#faq.

Hope that helps!

Regards,
Mike

Render Support Engineer, MT (UTC-6)

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