# What Railway costs

> Crewtavo is free for any size of business. You pay Railway for hosting, usually its $5-a-month Hobby plan after a free 30-day trial.

Crewtavo itself is free, whatever the size of your business. What you pay for is the hosting, and you pay Railway directly. For most businesses that's Railway's Hobby plan, $5 a month. To see how that compares with apps priced by the seat, see [Compare Crewtavo](https://crewtavo.com/compare/).

## What you pay, and when

| When | What it costs |
| --- | --- |
| First 30 days | Free, on Railway's trial: 30 days or $5 of usage, whichever comes first |
| After that | Railway's Hobby plan: $5 a month, including $5 of usage |

:::caution[Before the trial ends]
Add a card in Railway and choose the Hobby plan. Otherwise Railway stops your Crewtavo when the free credit runs out, and deletes trial data 30 days after that. Crewtavo reminds you 7, 3 and 1 days before. See [Crewtavo stopped after the Railway trial](https://crewtavo.com/docs/troubleshooting/trial-ended/).
:::

## See it in Crewtavo

**Settings → Hosting** shows what Railway charges for your Crewtavo, straight from Railway. Owners and admins see it.

- **So far and the forecast.** Usage so far this month, what a day costs lately, and a forecast for the month at that rate, on one bar with what your plan includes. On Hobby or Pro it says what Railway's bill comes to.
- **The trial.** On Railway's trial, about how many days and how much of the $5 credit are left, counted from when your Crewtavo was set up.
- **What it's used for.** What each part of Crewtavo has used so far: the database, photos and files, the app, sign-in and the data API. A files bucket isn't in Railway's usage figures, so Crewtavo adds it to the month at Railway's price for what it holds now.
- **The last 7 days.** Memory and processor use, with Railway's prices for each.
- **Storage.** How full the database and file storage volumes are, and what a files bucket holds and costs a month. **Storage limit and who's using it** opens **Settings → Storage**. See [Manage storage space](https://crewtavo.com/docs/hosting/storage/).
- **Files storage.** Whether photos and files are on the storage volume or in a Railway bucket, with **Move files to a bucket** to move them to a bucket, which costs a tenth as much. See [Move files to a bucket](https://crewtavo.com/docs/hosting/storage/#move-files-to-a-bucket).
- **Plan.** Your plan, with buttons that open Railway's pages to choose a plan, add a card or credit, and set a usage limit. Railway takes payments itself, so those happen on Railway.

Crewtavo works out the cost from Railway's usage at Railway's prices, so these are close estimates, and Railway's bill is the final word. Crewtavo only sees your Crewtavo project, not your Railway billing, so if your Railway account runs other projects too, their usage isn't included.

### Warnings before Crewtavo stops

Twice a day Crewtavo checks your Railway account and tells the owner and admins, by the bell, email and a push to their phone, when:

- the trial ends in about 7, 3 or 1 days, or its credit is nearly used up
- the month's usage is on track to go over what your plan includes
- the database or file storage is over 85% full
- Railway stopped accepting Crewtavo's sign-in

Every few hours, Crewtavo also tells them when the company's files reach 80% and then 95% of the storage limit (see [Manage storage space](https://crewtavo.com/docs/hosting/storage/#warnings-before-its-full)).

Each warning comes once. To change how they reach you, go to **Settings → Profile → Notifications** and find **Railway**. Railway emails you itself about a card it couldn't charge and about your usage limit.

### Connecting Railway

Crewtavo reads all this through its connection to Railway, which the owner makes right after setting up the business. **Log in with Railway** opens Railway's screen; choose **Authorize**. To give Crewtavo only your Crewtavo project rather than all of them, choose **Change**, then **Selected projects**, first. Crewtavo never sees your card or billing. A project token pasted under **Can't log in with Railway?** does the same, except that Railway doesn't let a project token make or read a files bucket: moving files to a bucket, or installing Drive, stops with **Railway said: Bad Access**, and needs **Log in with Railway** instead. If Railway won't take the sign-in, see [Railway didn't accept the sign-in](https://crewtavo.com/docs/troubleshooting/railway-sign-in/).

## How much a Crewtavo uses

Measured on a new Crewtavo with nothing happening, its five services use about 0.36 GB of memory between them, roughly $3.60 a month at Railway's rate of $10 per GB a month. That fits inside the $5 the Hobby plan includes.

| Service | Memory |
| --- | --- |
| db (the database) | 136 MB |
| storage (photos and documents) | 124 MB |
| crewtavo (the app) | 47 MB |
| rest (the data API) | 37 MB |
| auth (sign-in) | 12 MB |

Use grows with data and traffic, so a busy business may use more than $5. Railway bills anything over the included usage. Check [Railway's pricing](https://railway.com/pricing) for current rates, and **Settings → Hosting** to see yours.

Photos and files cost $0.15 per GB a month on the storage volume, or $0.015 in a Railway bucket, plus $0.05 per GB for files sent into a bucket. See [What a bucket costs](https://crewtavo.com/docs/hosting/storage/#what-a-bucket-costs).

## When Railway's Pro plan is worth it

The Hobby plan runs Crewtavo fine. Railway's Pro plan adds two things Crewtavo can use:

- **Backups** of the database and the file storage volume. Railway doesn't back up buckets on any plan. See [Back up and export your data](https://crewtavo.com/docs/hosting/backups/).
- **Sending email from your own mailbox.** Trial and Hobby block it, so connect a free Resend account under **Settings → Email** instead. See [Send email from Crewtavo](https://crewtavo.com/docs/connections/email/).

Source: https://crewtavo.com/docs/hosting/railway-costs/ (last updated 2026-11-02)