Business Corporate — small scale stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Domain and DNS
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: $0 – 1 domain, unlimited DNS, unlimited queries / Free Tier same / Namecheap BasicDNS $0 with domain (~$10-15/yr domain) / PremiumDNS $4.88/mo ($58/yr) 20 domains / Pro $20/mo – 20 domains, advanced rules, 100% uptime / Business $200/mo – 50 domains, SLA / Enterprise $5k+/mo custom / Route53 $0.50/domain/mo + $0.40/M queries ($0.75/M geo) + domain $12/yr
SSL/TLS
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsLet's Encrypt Free: $0 – 90-day certs, 100 certs/domain/week, unlimited renewals / Let's Encrypt via Vercel $0 auto / Cloudflare Universal $0 included, Pro SSL included $20/mo plan / ZeroSSL Free 3×90-day certs / DigiCert Standard OV $218/yr ($18/mo), $0 reissues / OV $218/yr, EV $348/yr, Enterprise EV $500+/yr + Private CA ACM $400/mo per CA
Web Hosting / Backend Hosting
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Hobby $0 – 100GB bandwidth, 6000 execution hrs, 100 deploys/day / Netlify Free 100GB bw, 300 build mins / Render Free 750 hrs, 512MB RAM / Pro $20/seat/mo + $40/100GB overage, $0.18/GB-hr compute / Render Standard $7/mo 512MB, $25/mo 2GB Standard Plus / AWS Amplify $0.15/build-min + $0.023/GB stored $0.15/GB served / ECS Fargate $0.04048/vCPU/hr + $0.004445/GB/hr ~$28/mo for 0.25vCPU/0.5GB / EKS Multi-Region $73/cluster/mo + $0.10/hr per node ~$220/mo 3 nodes + Vercel Enterprise $1500+/mo
Cloud Platform
The underlying cloud account (AWS, GCP, Azure, or an all-in-one like Vercel+Supabase) that everything else is built on. Choose early — it is hard to change later.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel+Supabase Free combo: $0 – Vercel 100GB bw, Supabase 500MB DB 50k MAU / Netlify+Supabase Free same 100GB / Fly.io Free 3 shared-cpu VMs 3GB persistent volume / Pro: Vercel Pro $20/seat/mo + Supabase Pro $25/mo 8GB DB 100k MAU $0.125/GB over / DigitalOcean App Platform $5/mo 1 container 512MB / AWS Amplify Free 1000 build mins, 5GB storage / Lightsail $5/mo 1GB RAM, $15/mo managed DB / AWS Organization + Control Tower free, Business Support $100/mo min + usage
Database (lightweight for leads)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free: 500MB DB, 50k MAU, 1GB file storage, 2GB egress / Neon Free 0.5GB storage, 10 branches, 100 hrs compute / Supabase Pro $25/mo – 8GB DB, 100k MAU, $0.125/GB overage, $0.00325/hr compute extra / Neon Launch $19/mo 10GB storage / Pro $100/mo PITR / DO Managed Postgres $15/mo 1GB RAM 10GB disk / RDS db.t3.micro $0.017/hr ~$12.5/mo + storage $0.115/GB-mo $0.095/GB backup / Aurora PostgreSQL Multi-AZ $0.29/hr ~$212/mo + storage $0.10/GB-mo + IO $0.20/M / Aurora Serverless v2 $0.12/AU-hr ~$43/mo min 0.5 AU / Global Database Multi-Region primary $0.20/AU + secondary $0.12/AU + replication $0.20/GB
File and Object Storage / Image and Media Storage
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free 1GB storage 2GB egress / Cloudinary Free 25 credits (~25GB storage+25GB bw) 25k transformations / Backblaze B2 $0.006/GB-mo storage $0.01/GB egress (free 10GB/day) / AWS S3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo + $0.09/GB egress $0.0004/1k PUT $0.00001/1k GET / R2 Free 10GB storage free egress $0.015/GB after (>10GB) + $4.50/M Class A $0.36/M Class B / S3 Standard-IA $0.0125/GB-mo + $0.01/GB retrieval / Multi-Region Access Points + CRR: $0.023/GB + replication $0.02/1k + cross-region $0.02/GB + R2 Enterprise custom ~$15k/yr
Authentication and Identity (basic admin)
How users sign up, log in, and are authorized. Getting roles and access control right early prevents painful rewrites.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Auth Free: included with Supabase Free, 50k MAU unlimited / Clerk Free 10k MAU, 5k MFA, 1k M2M / Pro $25/mo + $0.02/MAU over 10k, $25/mo extra for SAML/OIDC / Auth0 Free 7.5k internal MAU, 25k external MAU, $0.07/MAU over / Developer $35/mo 1k MAU / Professional $800/mo 1k enterprise conn / Okta Workforce Starter $2/user/mo, Enterprise custom
Transactional Email API / Contact Form Delivery
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsResend Free: 100/day 3k/mo, 1 domain, 1 API key / Free Tier same / SendGrid Free 100/day forever / Mailgun Free 100/day first month / Essentials $19.95/mo 50k emails, $0.0004/email over ($0.40/1k) / Resend Pro $20/mo 50k emails $0.80/1k over / Scale $500/mo 1M emails / SES $0.10/1k emails + $0.12/GB attachments, free 3k/mo if EC2 / Postmark Free 100/mo, $15/mo 10k, $1.80/1k over / Enterprise $500+/mo custom volume
CRM Integration API (basic lead capture)
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsHubSpot Free: 1k contacts unlimited users API 100/10s / Free API same / Airtable Free 1000 records/base 5 users 100 API calls/s / Starter $20/mo/seat 1k contacts $0.01/contact over / Marketing Starter $20/mo 1k contacts / Pro $500/mo 2k contacts $0.02/contact over / Professional $800/mo Marketing 2k contacts / Airtable Pro $20/seat/mo 50k records 100k automation / Enterprise $45/seat/mo 500k records / Salesforce Essentials $25/user/mo
Source-code Repository
Where your source code lives and is collaborated on. Non-negotiable for any team or serious project.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free: unlimited public/private repos, 2000 Actions mins/mo, 500MB packages, 1k API req/hr / GitLab Free 5GB storage 400 CI mins/mo / Team $4/user/mo 3000 Actions mins 2GB packages SAML / Enterprise Cloud $21/user/mo 50k mins + audit log Advanced Security $49/user/mo / GitLab Premium $29/user/mo 10k mins / Ultimate $99/user/mo / Enterprise Server $custom self-hosted $10k/yr
CI/CD and Deployment Automation
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free 2000 mins Linux 500MB storage / Team 3000 mins 2GB / Enterprise 50k mins $0.008/min over Linux, $0.016 Mac, storage $0.25/GB over / Vercel Auto-Deploy included $0 Hobby 100GB bw, Pro $20/seat/mo unlimited / Netlify Auto 300 build mins free $19/seat/mo 25k mins $7/500 mins over / Render Free auto-deploy included / CircleCI Free 6k credits/week (1000 build mins), Performance $15/mo 30k credits $15/25k credits over / Harness Free 1k builds, Enterprise $50/dev/mo
Database Backups
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free daily backups 7-day retention 1 restore free / Manual pg_dump $0 + S3 $0.023/GB-mo / Neon PITR Free none, Launch PITR 7 days $19/mo, Scale PITR 30 days $69/mo / Pro Daily + PITR 7 days included $25/mo base, 30 days add-on $100/mo / RDS Automated 7 days free included up to 100% DB size, 35 days max, snapshot $0.095/GB-mo / Cross-bucket S3 replication $0.02/GB + storage / AWS Backup Vault Lock $0.05/GB-mo warm $0.01/GB-mo cold + $0.10/10k recovery points / 90-day retention Vault Lock Enterprise
CDN and Edge Delivery
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: unlimited bandwidth, 3 page rules, no SLA / Pro $20/mo 20 rules WAF 100GB R2 / Business $200/mo 100% uptime SLA 50 custom WAF rules / Enterprise $5k+/mo custom / BunnyCDN $1/mo min $0.01/GB NA/EU volume $0.005/GB $0.03/GB Asia $0.06 SA / CloudFront Free 1TB first year then $0.085/GB first 10TB $0.02/10k requests / Fastly Basic $50/mo min $0.12/GB NA $0.19 Asia + $0.0075/10k req / Akamai Enterprise $3.5k+/mo + Fastly Enterprise $500+/mo
Image Optimization Service
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Image Opt Hobby 1000 source images/mo free $9/1k over / Pro 5000 included $9/1k overage / Cloudflare Images Free none – pay-as-you-go $5/mo 100k stored $1/100k delivered / Pro plan includes 100k images / Cloudinary Free 25 credits (~25k transformations 25GB bw) / Plus $99/mo 100 credits ~100k trans $0.40/1k over / Advanced $249/mo 225 credits / Enterprise $624+/mo / Imgix Starter $75/mo 100k origin images $3/1k over / Bunny Optimizer $9.50/mo 50k images $1.20/10k over / Akamai Image Manager Enterprise $0.60/1k transformations
Secrets Management / Environment Management (basic)
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Env Vars Free unlimited included / Doppler Free 5 users 100 secrets 3 projects / Team $10/user/mo 500 secrets unlimited projects $5/project extra / Infisical Free 5 users unlimited secrets / Pro $12/user/mo RBAC / Vault Cloud $0.03/hr ~$22/mo + $1/10k reads / AWS Secrets Manager $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls
Staging Environment / Preview Deploys
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Preview Hobby 100 deploys/day free included / Pro Previews unlimited $20/seat/mo / Netlify Deploy Previews Free 100GB bw shared / Render Preview $19/mo team + $0.10/hr per service preview / Vercel Pro Previews + AWS Staging Env: Vercel Pro $20/seat/mo + AWS dev env $50/mo t3.medium + RDS db.t3.micro $12/mo / Enterprise: Vercel Enterprise $1500+/mo unlimited approval gates + AWS Multi-Account staging $200/mo + Ephemeral Envs via Env0 $0.10/hr
Monitoring / Error Tracking / Log Management
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Developer Free 5k errors, 10k transactions/mo / Free 5k errors included / Team $26/mo 50k errors $0.0006/error over, 100k transactions $0.00018/txn over / Business $85/mo 100k errors 500k txns / Datadog Pro $31/host/mo APM $0.10/1k spans / Logtail Free 1GB/mo / Better Stack Free 10 monitors 3k logs 1GB, Uptime $24/mo 50 monitors 1-min interval, Logs $24/mo 30GB
Newsletter / Email Marketing API
Sending transactional email (receipts, resets, alerts) and sometimes marketing mail. Deliverability matters more than features here.Pricing & free-tier limitsMailchimp Free 500 contacts 1000 emails/mo 1 audience / Free 500 contacts same / Brevo Free 300 emails/day unlimited contacts / Essentials $13/mo 500 contacts 5k emails $0.75/100 contacts over / Standard $20/mo 500 contacts 6k emails advanced automations / Pro $20/mo Brevo 20k emails $0.0007/email over / Customer.io Free 200 profiles 1k emails, Starter $100/mo 5k profiles 10k emails $0.02/profile over / Braze Enterprise $400/mo 10k MAU
Maps API (Google Maps Platform)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsGoogle Maps Free $200 credit/mo ~28k Dynamic Maps loads / Mapbox Free 50k map loads 50k MAU tiles / Leaflet+OSM Free $0 self-hosted / Pay-as-you-go: Google Dynamic Maps $7/1k loads after $200 credit, Places $32/1k, Routes $5/1k, Directions $5/1k / Mapbox Pro $5/1k map loads over 50k, $0.25/1k tiles / Pro $99/mo bundle 100k loads / Enterprise Google $10k/yr min + Mapbox Enterprise $5k/yr + HERE $449/mo 15k txn / OSM VPS $5-10/mo
How this small scale business corporate checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale business corporate build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.