Simplifying runtime caching on Vercel
By Steven Van ·
Pro projects get 8x the cache storage and Enterprise 10x, but reads and writes that were unbilled under Data Cache will now be charged.
Data Cache is leaving beta and merging into Vercel's Runtime Cache, which Vercel announced as one data caching product across frameworks and APIs. Next.js fetch caching and unstable_cache switch over on every version without code changes.
Storage and pricing
On Pro, each project and environment gets its own Runtime Cache storage allocation, with 8x the space of Data Cache's previous team-wide pool. Enterprise projects get 10x their previous Data Cache storage.
Once a team migrates, Data Cache reads and writes that were previously unbilled are charged at Runtime Cache pricing. Rates start at $0.40 per million read units and $4.00 per million write units, and vary by region. Hobby teams get 1 million read units and 200,000 write units free each month across all projects. On Pro, usage draws from the $20 monthly infrastructure credit, and anything beyond it is billed at regional rates. Enterprise customers should contact their account team for pricing.
Migration timing
- Teams created on or after October 30, 2026 use Runtime Cache by default.
- Hobby: existing teams are migrated on November 29, 2026.
- Pro: Vercel will notify teams of their migration date and when billing changes take effect.
- Enterprise: account teams will contact customers with migration details.
Existing Hobby and Pro teams can opt in early from the team's CDN settings, starting October 30. Runtime Cache pricing applies as soon as a team opts in. Fetch and unstable_cache caching can also be disabled in CDN settings. That sends more requests to the data sources but does not stop the migration.
Before migrating
Vercel suggests reviewing a project's Data Cache usage in Observability first. To cut unnecessary reads and writes, there is an optimization guide, and its agent prompt can be copied into a coding agent. The Runtime Cache dashboard also has an Optimize with Vercel Agent option.
Background
Data Cache launched as the data caching service for the Next.js App Router. Unlike CDN caching, which stores complete HTTP responses, it stores the data an application uses to build those responses. Runtime Cache was introduced last year with a direct API, getCache from @vercel/functions, so it can be used without Next.js. Vercel says it has also improved read performance during traffic bursts, raised storage budgets and made cache usage easier to investigate.
