Vercel adds fixed 2 vCPU Basic build machines for Pro and Enterprise projects

What changed

Vercel has introduced Basic build machines for Pro and Enterprise customers, giving teams a smaller, fixed-size option for build workloads that do not need elastic compute. According to the Vercel blog, the new machines come with 2 vCPUs and 8 GB of memory, and the company positions them as a more cost-efficient choice for smaller applications or agents that build with fewer resources.

The change is opt-in. New Pro and Enterprise projects continue to default to Elastic build machines, which Vercel says scale automatically and remain its recommendation for most use cases. Teams that want the smaller machines have to switch a project over explicitly.

Pricing

Vercel charges $0.0035 per vCPU per minute for Basic build machines. On a two-core machine, the company says that works out to $0.007 per build minute. Because billing is tied to the number of vCPUs consumed, a fixed 2 vCPU machine keeps the per-minute cost low for builds that do not need to scale up — precisely the kind of workload Elastic machines are designed to handle by growing on demand.

How to switch

Vercel lists three ways to move a project onto Basic machines: through team settings, through project settings, or via the Vercel CLI at version 59.6.0 or later using the command vc project update --build-machine basic.

Because Elastic remains the default for newly created projects, no existing pipeline changes unless someone opts in. Teams evaluating the switch can read Vercel's build machines documentation or pricing page for the full details, which the changelog points to.

Hobby accounts keep the same hardware

Nothing changes functionally for Hobby users. According to the Vercel blog, Hobby accounts continue to build on the same 2 vCPU machines they already used; those machines are simply being renamed Basic build machines so the terminology lines up across plans.

Why it matters

Build compute is a real line item for teams that ship frequently, and an automatically scaling machine can be far more capacity than a small site, a preview deployment, or a lightweight job actually needs. A fixed 2 vCPU / 8 GB machine with a predictable $0.007-per-minute rate gives Pro and Enterprise teams a way to trim that spend without reworking their build pipeline — the change is a per-project configuration flag rather than a migration.

The agent angle is worth noting. Vercel explicitly names agents as a target for the smaller machines, a signal that AI-driven coding workflows, which can trigger many small autonomous builds, are starting to shape how build infrastructure is sized and priced.

At the same time, the conservative default suggests how Vercel views the trade-off: Elastic machines remain the recommendation for most workloads, and Basic is a cost tool for the long tail of builds that never needed to scale in the first place.