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Vercel has tightened retention rules for its free Hobby plan, according to a September 19, 2026 report from The New Stack. Teams exceeding the included 10GB of Deployment Storage will now have older deployments deleted immediately unless those deployments qualify for an exception. Previously, eligible deployments could remain available for up to 30 days before deletion.
Fewer Deployments Protected
The revised exceptions also reduce the deployment history preserved for every Hobby project, including projects below the storage limit. Vercel now retains the three most recent production deployments and the three most recent deployments of any type, regardless of age. The previous Hobby policy protected the 10 most recent production deployments.
Preview Coverage Narrows
Hobby users have also lost the count-based exception for preview deployments. The latest preview deployment associated with an active Git branch remains protected across all plans, as do current production and aliased deployments. However, the protection covering the last 20 non-production deployments in a Ready state now applies only to Pro and Enterprise teams.
Deletion Can Be Reversed
Immediate deletion does not mean an eligible build is permanently erased at once. Successfully built deployments enter a 30-day recovery period and can be restored through the Recently Deleted area under a project's security settings. Hobby teams can also reduce deployment output to remain below the 10GB allowance.
Moving to Pro provides broader retention exceptions. Storage beyond that plan's included allowance is billed at $0.10 per GB-month, according to the report.
Vercel Cites Deployment Growth
Jas Garcha, Vercel's head of pricing, told The New Stack that the company is handling more than 10 million deployments per day, over six times the volume recorded a year earlier. Vercel says stricter retention is intended to reclaim capacity used by dormant deployments and sustain Hobby as a permanent free plan. Garcha expects most Hobby users to be unaffected because active and recent deployments retain protection.
Source: “Dormant deployments were quietly consuming storage”: Why Vercel tightened its free-tier rules
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