We're making Strapi Cloud better, and that means being honest about what hasn't been working.
When we launched the Free plan last year, the intention was simple: lower the barrier to entry and let anyone try Strapi Cloud without any upfront commitment. No credit card, no time limit. Just deploy and build.
It was a bet. And it didn't pay off the way we hoped.
What we learned
Over time, the data told a clear story. The vast majority of free projects were created and never meaningfully used. Many never had content added or a single API request made. At the same time, hosting tens of thousands of projects, most of which inactive, has a real infrastructure cost. Cost that wasn't going toward making the product better for the people actually using it for critical use cases.
But there's another problem that's harder to measure, and arguably more important: the experience the Free plan wasn't delivering a fair representation of Strapi Cloud.
Because of the infrastructure constraints required to run a free tier at scale, free projects ran on sleeping containers. That means the first thing many users experienced when opening their project was the wake up: a slow and unresponsive interface. This was a cost trade-off we had to make, and we realized that it was actively giving people the wrong impression of what the product can do.
What's changing
As of July 1st, the Free plan is no longer be available. If you currently have a free project, you will have until September 1, 2026 to either upgrade to a paid plan or delete your project. We'll send reminders as that date approaches.
For teams ready to move to a paid plan, our Starter plan starts at $29/month (billed annually), with Pro and Business options for projects that need more.
Where we're focusing next
Removing the Free plan is a deliberate choice to focus our efforts where they can create the most value, in order to serve Strapi Cloud customers.
The resources freed up from running inactive infrastructure go directly back into the product. We've already shipped meaningful improvements this year, including better logs and a series of reliability improvements to the core platform, with an Observability dashboard on the way. These were built for teams depending on Strapi Cloud in production, and that's the direction we're doubling down on.
Beyond Cloud, we're investing heavily in Strapi itself. A more powerful CMS - better performance, advanced AI capabilities (skills, MCP, CLI, SDK, and improvement of the existing Strapi AI features), and deeper enterprise capabilities - is the foundation Cloud is built on. This is where a significant part of our energy is going in the coming months, and we think it's the right call for the long term.
What this means for you
If you're on a paid plan, nothing changes.
If you're on the Free plan, here's what you need to know:
- July 1st, 2026: Free plan removed from new signups
- September 1, 2026: All existing free projects will be deleted
- Between now and then: upgrade to keep your project running, or export your data and delete your project
Thank you for being part of Strapi. We know changes like this aren't easy, and we don't take them lightly. We're committed to building something worth paying for.
