Which dyno size minimizes cost while maintaining acceptable response latency for low-traffic Heroku apps?

Low-traffic Heroku applications consume dyno hours even during periods of nominal inactivity, affecting monthly budgets. A precise goal is to evaluate whether the combination of automatic dyno sleeping after thirty minutes of inactivity and the selection of a minimal dyno size sufficiently reduces costs while preserving adequate request latency for sporadic workloads.

Heroku's documented sleeping behavior pauses dyno billing during quiescent intervals, yet wake-up latency and the influence of custom process types on sleep retention introduce operational uncertainty. The retirement of the free tier in November 2022 means all low-traffic workloads rely on paid dyno tiers, and add-on recurring fees can accumulate unnoticed, potentially outweighing dyno cost savings.

Which balance of dyno size and sleep configuration minimizes total cost of ownership? What idle duration reliably triggers sleep across Standard-16M and Performance-M tiers? Does adding background workers compromise the cost efficiency of sleeping dynos?