Free Tier with Build Caching vs. $19 Plan: Which Keeps Costs Low for a Low‑Traffic Site?

Goal

Determine how to keep monthly Netlify costs at zero or under $19 for a static site that receives < 1 k pageviews per month.

Constraints & Uncertainty

• The free tier includes 100 GB/month bandwidth, 300 build minutes, and 125 k function invocations.
• Paid plans add 1 000 build minutes and 1 TB bandwidth but introduce per‑invocation fees for Functions and Edge Functions beyond the free quota.
• The netlify-plugin-cache can reduce build minutes by caching dependencies, but its effectiveness varies by build tool and project size.
• Exceeding any free quota triggers charges that can quickly erode savings, especially with sporadic traffic spikes.

Specific Questions

1. Does enabling netlify-plugin-cache consistently reduce build minutes enough to keep a low‑traffic site within the 300‑minute free tier limit across typical CI/CD cycles?
2. If the site occasionally spikes above the free function invocation quota, is it more cost‑effective to stay on the free tier with caching or to upgrade to the $19 plan to avoid per‑thousand‑invocation charges?
3. How do bandwidth and function invocation costs compare between remaining on the free tier with caching versus the $19 plan when the site receives 500–1 000 pageviews per month?