AWS Lambda vs Heroku: Pricing Comparison 2026
Side-by-side pricing comparison of AWS Lambda and Heroku. See all plans, features, and costs at a glance.
Bottom line: AWS Lambda starts at $2.1e-9/mo, making it $5/mo cheaper than Heroku ($5/mo). Neither offers a free plan.
Last updated: June 15, 2026
AWS Lambda vs Heroku: Quick Pricing Facts
| Feature | AWS Lambda | Heroku |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $2.1e-9/mo | $5/mo |
| Number of Plans | 50 | 4 |
| Free Tier | No | No |
| Pricing Model | usage-based | usage-based |
| Annual Discount | N/A | N/A |
AWS Lambda is the more affordable option, starting at $2.1e-9/mo compared to Heroku's $5/mo. Both are Hosting & Infra tools with 54 combined pricing plans and 14 features compared.
Review the detailed tier-by-tier comparison above to see exactly which features are included at each price point and find the best fit for your Hosting & Infra needs.
| Pricing Plans | AWS Lambda Try free | Heroku Try free |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | x86 Price Custom pricing | |
| Tier 2 | First 6 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | |
| Tier 3 | Next 9 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | |
| Tier 4 | Over 15 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | |
| Tier 5 | Arm Price Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 6 | First 7.5 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 7 | Next 11.25 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 8 | Over 18.75 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 9 | 128 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 10 | 512 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 11 | 1024 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 12 | 1536 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 13 | 2048 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 14 | 3072 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 15 | 4096 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 16 | 5120 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 17 | 6144 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 18 | 7168 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 19 | 8192 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 20 | 9216 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 21 | 10240 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 22 | Durable Operations Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 23 | Operations such as Steps, Waits, and Callbacks $8/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 24 | Storage Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 25 | Data Written $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 26 | Data Retained $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 27 | Total compute (seconds) $1000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 28 | Total compute (GB-s) $32000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 29 | Billable compute $32000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 30 | Compute cost $31600000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 31 | Total requests Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 32 | Billable requests $2000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 33 | Request cost $1/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 34 | Operations $1/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 35 | Operations cost $4/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 36 | Data written cost $104/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 37 | Storage (running incl. 7 day wait) $104/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 38 | Storage (retained 14 days) $104/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 39 | Data Retained cost $24/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 40 | Total charges $421/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 41 | Tenant isolated enviroments (x86) $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 42 | Tenant isolated enviroments (ARM) $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 43 | Ephemeral Storage $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 44 | Cache $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 45 | Restore $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 46 | Processed Bytes $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 47 | SQS $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 48 | MSK or Self-Managed Kafka $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 49 | Requests Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 50 | Duration $0/monthCheapest | - |
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Which Should You Choose?
Choose AWS Lambda if:
- •You need event-driven serverless compute that scales to zero with no idle server costs
- •Lambda's pay-per-execution model is cost-efficient for intermittent workloads
- •AWS service integrations - S3 events, SQS triggers, API Gateway - are required
Choose Heroku if:
- •You want simple web application deployment without server management
- •Heroku dynos start at $5-7/month for persistent web processes with simple git deployment
- •Your app needs to run continuously and you want zero infrastructure management
Lambda and Heroku serve different compute models. Lambda is event-driven serverless for intermittent functions. Heroku is PaaS for persistent web applications and APIs. A web app receiving continuous traffic is a poor fit for Lambda's cold-start model and better suited to Heroku (or similar PaaS). Event-driven background jobs and webhooks are better fits for Lambda. Many applications use both.
Frequently Asked Questions: AWS Lambda vs Heroku
Which is cheaper, AWS Lambda or Heroku?
How many pricing plans does AWS Lambda have vs Heroku?
What is the most popular Heroku plan?
Does AWS Lambda or Heroku offer custom enterprise pricing?
How do AWS Lambda and Heroku compare for Hosting & Infra?
Sources
- AWS Lambda Official Pricing- Vendor pricing page
- Heroku Official Pricing- Vendor pricing page
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