Vercel is retiring Data Cache and moving it into Runtime Cache. If your Next.js app uses fetch caching or unstable_cache, your code keeps working without changes. Your bill is what changes.
Data Cache stores data your app has already fetched, such as a product catalog, so the next request can reuse it instead of fetching again. Vercel says Next.js fetch caching and unstable_cache will switch over on every Next.js version.
Billing starts after your team migrates
Until now, Data Cache reads and writes were not charged. Once your team migrates, they are billed at Runtime Cache rates, which start at $0.40 per million read units and $4.00 per million write units and vary by region.
- Hobby: 1 million read units and 200,000 write units are free each month across all projects. Vercel will migrate Hobby teams on November 29, 2026.
- Pro: Usage draws from your monthly $20 infrastructure credit, and anything beyond it is billed at regional rates. Vercel will notify you of your migration date and when billing changes take effect.
- Enterprise: Your account team will contact you with migration details and pricing.
Teams created on or after October 30, 2026 use Runtime Cache by default.
Storage allowances grow
On Pro, each project and environment gets its own storage allocation, with 8 times the space of Data Cache’s previous team-wide pool. Enterprise projects get 10 times their previous Data Cache storage.
What to do before your date
Open your project’s Data Cache usage in Observability, Vercel’s usage and monitoring view, to see how many reads and writes you generate. If the numbers are high, Vercel links an optimization guide for cutting unnecessary reads and writes. It also offers a prompt you can paste into your coding agent, and an “Optimize with Vercel Agent” option in the Runtime Cache dashboard.
If you are on Hobby and stay inside the free allowance, nothing needs to change. On Pro, check whether the new charges fit inside your $20 credit before your migration date arrives.
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