← Glossary
Build Minutes
Total minutes per month a host will run your build pipeline before throttling. The most common free-tier ceiling.
Build minutes count actual CPU time consumed by your build, summed across all branches and deployments in a billing month. A typical Next.js app with image optimization takes 2-6 minutes per build. Multiply by your deploys-per-month and you get monthly usage.
The number that matters varies wildly: Vercel Hobby gives 6,000 minutes per month, Netlify Starter gives 300, Cloudflare Pages counts builds (not minutes) and gives 500. AWS Amplify gives 1,000. Render gives 500. The headline bandwidth numbers look similar across hosts; build minute caps are where the real divergence is.
When you hit the cap, deploys queue or fail. There is no auto-billing on Hobby tiers , overage means your next push does nothing until next month. Plan accordingly: monitor usage, disable preview deploys for branches you don't read, and move build-heavy repos to a deploy-locally workflow if needed.