dropto.run vs Netlify
Netlify prices a deploy and a gigabyte in credits. Here neither is counted.
Publishing has a price there
Their plans are denominated in credits: a production deploy is 15, a gigabyte served is 20, and the free plan is capped at 300.
A static folder pays for a platform
Functions, split testing and the build pipeline are most of what the price buys. A folder that is already built uses none of it.
They drop folders too
Netlify Drop publishes without an account, same as here, and since July 2026 it can even run the build. This page does not claim otherwise.
When Netlify is the better choice
- ·Your site needs to run code. Functions, redirects with logic, split testing, edge middleware. None of that exists here, on purpose. Two jobs a function is often written for are covered without running your code: forms are collected, and a site can call your own API with its key kept off the page.
- ·You want a preview for every pull request. Deploy previews tied to the repository are theirs and are good, and nothing here replaces them.
- ·You want the build to run on the host. Push the project rather than the output, and let them build it. This service deliberately does not run builds.
- ·One vendor for a lot of moving parts. DNS, identity, functions, analytics and hosting in one account is worth real money to a team that would otherwise glue four services together.
Line by line
Their figures were read from their own pages on 15 September 2026. Ours are the ceilings the server enforces, which is why the rows that would be numbers here point at the plans instead of repeating them.
| dropto.run | Netlify | |
|---|---|---|
| Folder or zip to a live link | Yes | Yes, via Netlify Drop |
| Account needed to publish | No | No — held behind a temporary password until claimed |
| Build runs before the site is live | No build at all | Yes, optional |
| Functions and edge logic | None | Yes |
| Form submissions | On the paid plans, with no build step | Yes |
| Deploys counted against you | No | 15 credits a production deploy, about $0.10 |
| Bandwidth counted against you | No | 20 credits a GB, about $0.13 |
| Requests counted against you | Not for your pages; calls to your own API through /api/* have a monthly allowance | 2 credits per 10,000, about $0.013 |
| Putting an earlier version back | One click, live in under a minute | One click, from that deploy's page |
| A folder of Markdown served with a sidebar | Yes — no build, no theme | Through a static-site generator you run |
| Cheapest paid plan | Read from the plans table | $9 a month |
| Reviewers comment on the page itself | On plans with comments: pinned on the live site, reviewers sign in to Drop2Run | On Deploy Previews (Netlify Drawer); reviewers log in to Netlify |
| Publishing from a script or an agent | CLI, API token, MCP server | CLI, API, Git integration |
Which rows are here is our choice, which is what every comparison page does. What is in them is not: each figure above came from their pricing and credit rates, Netlify Drop without an account and the Netlify Drawer for reviewing previews. If one is out of date, tell us and it is corrected with the date on it.
Nothing counts your readers.
Files are served from the edge out of storage where egress costs nothing, so there is no traffic figure for your pages to pass on — and no plan here on which one appears. What is bounded is publishing, and the calls a site sends on to your own API, and those figures are read from the same table the server enforces. Every number below comes from the API at page load, not from this page. All of them, side by side →
What Netlify counts
- ✕Production deploys — 15 credits each
- ✕Bandwidth — 20 credits a GB
- ✕Web requests — 2 credits per 10,000
- ✕Compute — 10 credits a GB-hour
Read 15 September 2026.
What is counted here
- ✓New or changed files, against a monthly and a daily budget. Unchanged files are reused rather than uploaded again, so publishing the same site twice costs almost nothing.
- ✓Storage, counting each file once however many versions hold it. Republishing the same files adds nothing.
- ✓Calls a site sends to your own API, against a monthly allowance. Only where a site routes
/api/*to an API of yours; a page that does not never has one counted. - ✕Never visits, bandwidth, page requests or build minutes. There is no build, and traffic to your pages is neither billed nor throttled.
2,000 files a publish, free
With an account and no card. A folder of documents meets the file count long before it meets the bytes.
50 MB a publish, free
The size of one upload. What the account holds in total, across sites and versions, is a separate ceiling.
No limit on sites, free
Each on its own subdomain. What bounds an account is its storage, not how many sites it splits that into.
$5 / month with your own domain
Starter is the cheapest tier here that carries a custom domain and its certificate. On Netlify: free, within 300 credits a month, on Free.
No traffic tier, at any price
There is no plan above this one that lifts a bandwidth cap, because there is no bandwidth cap to lift.
What you are paying for when the folder is already built
There is no build step, no function runtime and no request pricing, so what is metered is the publishing itself — files uploaded in a month, with unchanged files reused rather than re-sent — and, for a site that calls your own API through /api/*, a monthly allowance of those calls.
That makes the bill flat and dull. It also makes it small, which is the honest reason to read this page: a built folder does not need most of what a platform sells.
Netlify's credit model prices the things a platform actually spends money on, and if you use those things it is a fair way to be charged — a heavy build and a busy function are what cost them.
For a folder of static files it is a bill that moves for reasons you did not choose: a page that gets popular, a deploy script that runs on every commit. Neither changes what is being hosted.
Looking for a Netlify alternative
Almost everybody typing that has a bill or a credit balance in front of them. The thing worth knowing before you compare feature lists: what is counted here is publishing — new or changed files in a month, with unchanged files reused — and, if a site calls your own API through /api/*, those calls. No credit is spent by a deploy, a gigabyte served, a request for a page or a minute of build, because there is no build. The price is the price at any traffic.
That is only an improvement if the parts you are paying for are parts you do not use. If your site needs a function, a redirect rule engine, an A/B split or a preview per pull request, moving it here means losing those and nothing here replaces them. Forms are one exception, on the paid plans, and calling your own API with its key kept off the page is the other — the code behind that API still runs wherever you run it. Everything else on that list is a reason to stay.
Moving over
Whatever you publish there is already a folder, and a folder is what this takes.
- 1
Keep building exactly as you do
Run the build wherever it runs now — your machine, their pipeline, a CI job. This is about where the output lands.
- 2
Publish the output folder
Drop it here, or add the CLI to the step that runs after your build. No configuration file to write.
- 3
Move the domain when you are ready
Point the DNS record here and the certificate is issued for you. The netlify.app address keeps working until you delete the site there.
Questions
Netlify Drop is free and needs no account. What is different here?
Not the first drop — that part really is the same. What differs is what happens after: nothing here counts deploys, bandwidth or requests for your pages, and a folder of Markdown or PDFs is served through a reader rather than needing a generator first.
Do I lose deploy previews?
The ones tied to pull requests, yes — there is no repository integration here. Every version still kept does get its own preview address, which covers checking a version before promoting it, but not review on a branch.
Can I still use forms and functions?
Forms, yes, on the paid plans: add data-drop2run to a form and it is collected — no build step, no endpoint to sign up for, and submissions read in your dashboard. Calling an API of your own, yes too, on the plans that include it: name its address and key in the dashboard, point an /api/* line of _redirects at it, and each call goes out with the key attached, so the key never reaches the page. Functions, no, and that one is a deliberate absence rather than a roadmap: the form endpoint hands submissions to a queue and the proxy only forwards a call, so nothing runs your code on the path that serves your files. Sites that need to run code are better off staying where they are, or keeping that code behind an API of their own.
Is traffic really not counted?
Yes, for your files. They are served from the edge out of storage where egress costs nothing, so there is no bandwidth line to pass on. Publishing is what is bounded, and the figures for that come from the plans table. The one exception is calls a site sends to your own API through /api/*, which have a monthly allowance, in the same table.
Try it with the folder you already have.
No account and no card to publish. Sign in and the site stops expiring.
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