How do I upgrade from Heroku's free tier and begin using paid resources?

Issue

You'd like to begin using paid resources but are unsure how to upgrade to them.

Resolution

In order to begin using paid resources with Heroku, you must verify your account with a valid payment method.

Heroku started converting free resources belonging to Enterprise Teams will be automatically converted to paid ones on November 28, 2022. See this Knowledge Base article for more info.

Using the Upgrade Page

For personal accounts, the fastest way to view and upgrade your free resources is via the upgrade page at https://dashboard.heroku.com/upgrade. Teams can go the upgrade page at at https://dashboard.heroku.com/teams/{team-name}/upgrade.

All free resources used by your apps are listed on this page under the Resources to Upgrade tab. You can also review your paid resources from this page.

upgrade page

Upgrade Your Dynos

The new Eco dynos plan is the lowest-cost option for dynos. All eco dynos share the same pool of 1000 dyno hours a month. You only need to subscribe once to convert your existing free dynos on all apps to eco. Eco dynos are only available to personal accounts.

Subscribe to the Eco dynos plan by clicking on the Subscribe to Eco button on the upgrade page. Follow the prompts to complete and confirm your subscription.

If you don't want to subscribe to Eco, you can individually upgrade the dynos for each app instead. Basic dynos cost a maximum of $7/month (prorated to the second), or you can choose from our other plans.

In addition, you must also reconfigure any existing Scheduler jobs that use free dynos to use another dyno type. Subscribing to Eco automatically converts your existing Scheduler jobs to use Eco.

Upgrade Your Databases

The upgrade page makes it easy to upgrade your databases by listing all free databases being used by your apps. By default, the database plan picker for each database on this page is set to the Mini plan.

Click the Upgrade button beside each database and follow the prompts. If you want to upgrade to other plans, you can choose a different one in the dropdown picker.

database upgrade rows

Upgrading Without the Upgrade Page

Upgrade Your Dynos

You can subscribe to the Eco dynos plan by going to your Billing page in the Heroku Dashboard.

Subscribe to Eco

To use other dyno types, see Setting Dyno Types. You can also refer to the Dynos Overview article to help understand and choose between different dyno types. In addition, you must also reconfigure any existing Scheduler jobs that use free dynos to use another dyno type.

If you accidentally select the wrong dyno, you can always downgrade immediately. All billing on Heroku is prorated to the second. As an example, a $25/month Standard-1X dyno is approximately $0.035/hour. For more details, see our Usage & Billing documentation.

In addition, you must also reconfigure any existing Scheduler jobs that use free dynos to use another dyno type. Subscribing to Eco automatically converts your existing Scheduler jobs to use Eco.

Upgrade Your Databases

You can upgrade your Heroku Postgres or Heroku Data for Redis plans by running the heroku addons:upgrade command.

For more details, see Changing the Plan or Infrastructure of a Heroku Postgres Database and Upgrading a Heroku Data for Redis Plan.

If you accidentally select the wrong plan, you can always downgrade immediately. All billing on Heroku is prorated to the second. As an example, a $5/month Mini Postgres database is approximately $0.007/hour. For more details, see our Usage & Billing documentation.

For info on add-ons and managing them in general, see Add-Ons Overview and Managing Add-ons

Heroku Pricing

You can experiment with the pricing of your selections by using our interactive pricing page to help predict costs.

The pricing page allows you to view different options available for the amount and type of dynos, databases, other add-ons, and support levels available with Heroku. As you select options on the pricing page, you can see the top-right area update with the pricing estimate based on your selections. Note that it always shows the maximum monthly price, but all costs are actually prorated to the second based on your usage. For more details, see our Usage & Billing documentation.

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