The pitch: how to sell Fly.io

How to open, what to ask, and what each person in the room cares about. Every product claim here links to Fly.io’s docs, pricing page, support page or blog, checked 2026-11-04. Competitor numbers live on the objections page, each with its own vendor source. Where the sources disagree or stop short, the line says [verify].

This page is drawn from https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/, https://fly.io/docs/reference/architecture/, https://fly.io/docs/launch/autostop-autostart/, https://fly.io/docs/postgres/, https://fly.io/docs/sprites/, https://fly.io/support, https://sprites.dev/ and https://fly.io/blog/kurt-scott-money-sprites/ (all checked 2026-11-04).

The one-liner

Fly.io turns your Docker image into a hardware-isolated VM and runs it close to your users, billed by the second with no platform fee. For agents, it also sells Sprites: persistent Linux computers that cost nothing while idle.

• Fly.io builds your app as a Docker image, then unpacks it into a lightweight VM and does not run Docker containers (https://fly.io/docs/blueprints/working-with-docker/).
• Machines run in Firecracker microVMs, which are hardware-virtualized and isolated from other customers (https://fly.io/docs/reference/architecture/).
• Fly.io bills for the resources you use, with no monthly platform fee, and Machines are billed by the second while running (https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/).
• Sprites are persistent, hardware-isolated Linux VMs for AI agents, dev environments and untrusted code, billed by the second and free when idle (https://fly.io/docs/sprites/).

The 30-second version

Say: “You have an app in a Dockerfile, or a framework Fly knows how to containerize. fly launch writes the config and fly deploy ships it. For a web app with no volume you typically get two Machines on first deploy (one if it mounts a volume; https://fly.io/docs/apps/app-availability/), autostop and autostart so idle apps cost almost nothing, and a global Anycast network in front. The smallest always-on Machine is $2.19 for 30 days, and there is no platform fee. If you are building agents, Sprites give each one its own Linux computer with a durable disk.”

Backing for each claim:

• fly launch and fly deploy create two identical Machines for processes with HTTP or TCP services, with autostop and autostart on (https://fly.io/docs/blueprints/resilient-apps-multiple-machines/).
• Scale to zero settings are what fly launch writes by default (https://fly.io/docs/launch/autostop-autostart/).
• Each app gets a shared IPv4 address and Anycast IPv6 addresses for global load balancing at no charge (https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/).
• The smallest always-on app costs $2.19 per 30 days, a shared-cpu-1x Machine with 256MB in iad or ewr (https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/).
• Sprites have a 100GB durable root filesystem, root access, and create in a second or two (https://fly.io/blog/design-and-implementation/).

The two-minute version

1. It is a VM, not a function. Your image becomes the root filesystem of a VM with its own kernel, so apps from different customers do not share one (https://fly.io/docs/about/healthcare/). Fly.io makes a best-effort attempt to dedicate CPU cores to one microVM at a time (https://fly.io/docs/reference/architecture/).
2. Fast start, cheap idle. A suspended Machine resumes in a few hundred milliseconds, versus about 2+ seconds for a typical cold start (https://fly.io/docs/reference/suspend-resume/). Stopped Machines bill only for rootfs, $0.15/GB per month (https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/).
3. Close to users. The regions reference lists 17 regions, from ams to yyz (https://fly.io/docs/reference/regions/). Fly Proxy does geographically aware load balancing (https://fly.io/docs/reference/load-balancing/).
4. Private by default when you want it. Flycast routes private app traffic through Fly Proxy, so private apps can still autostart and autostop (https://fly.io/docs/networking/flycast/).
5. Postgres is a real product now. Managed Postgres includes high availability with automatic failover, backups, connection pooling, and pgvector and PostGIS, from $38/month on the Basic plan (https://fly.io/docs/postgres/).
6. It is agent-friendly. fly mcp server adds a flyctl MCP server to Claude, Cursor, Zed and others (https://fly.io/docs/model-context-protocol/flyctl-server/). Sprites add checkpoints, a per-Sprite HTTPS URL and Connectors that call GitHub or any HTTP API without the Sprite holding the token (https://fly.io/docs/sprites/concepts/connectors/, https://fly.io/sprites/).

Discovery questions

Ask these before you pitch.

Value by person in the room

• Solo developer. Say: “Deploy from a git checkout, pay cents for a hobby app, and it scales to zero.” A Discord bot or worker on the smallest Machine is $2.21 a month including 1GB of egress, per the pricing page’s worked example (https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/). There is no free tier, only a $1 trial credit that lasts 7 days (https://fly.io/docs/about/free-trial/).
• Startup CTO. Say: “One platform for app, database and workers, and Machines have no plan tiers to outgrow.” The Heroku migration guide says Fly.io has “no fixed plan tiers to choose from” for compute (https://fly.io/docs/getting-started/migrate-from-heroku/). A small web app with Managed Postgres costs about $43.67 a month in the pricing example (https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/).
• Platform team. Say: “Machines are an API you can script, with 6PN private networking and Flycast.” Use the Machines API for orchestration, since Fly Launch itself is built on it (https://fly.io/docs/machines/overview/). Org tokens limit access to the minimum (https://fly.io/docs/apps/going-to-production/).
• AI or agent builder. Say: “Give each agent a computer, not a sandbox.” Sprites come with 8 vCPUs, 100GB of storage and memory the platform manages (https://fly.io/docs/sprites/concepts/lifecycle/). The Sprites page lists CPU at $0.0385/CPU-hour and RAM at $0.021875/GB-hour (https://sprites.dev/).
• Enterprise buyer. Say: “SOC2 Type 2, a BAA, SSO and a 99.9% uptime SLA on Enterprise support.” Fly.io is SOC2 Type 2 audited and signs BAAs (https://fly.io/docs/about/healthcare/). Enterprise support starts at $2,500 a month with a 4-hour 24x7 first response and a 99.9% uptime SLA (https://fly.io/support).

Stories and frames that land

• Robots are the customers. Fly.io’s April 2025 post is titled “Our Best Customers Are Now Robots”, and it argues that the users driving the most growth on the platform are not people (https://fly.io/blog/fuckin-robots/), which is why Sprites exist.
• Computers for agents. Fly.io states that “Computers for Agents are, going forward, the focus of our company” (https://fly.io/blog/kurt-scott-money-sprites/).
• Warm pools for per-user machines. Keep pre-provisioned apps, volumes and booted Machines, then claim one on signup (https://fly.io/docs/blueprints/warm-pool-user-machines/).
• Who else uses it. The support page shows Supabase, Tailscale, Tigris, Upstash, Turso and Mailgun among its logos (https://fly.io/support).
• Migrating. Fly.io claims “Most apps can be migrated in under 30 minutes” from Heroku (https://fly.io/docs/getting-started/migrate-from-heroku/).

Land-and-expand moves

When not to push

Be straight about fit. A Machine runs on one host and does not restart on another if that host fails (https://fly.io/docs/blueprints/resilient-apps-multiple-machines/). Managed Postgres is limited to a subset of regions and cannot do in-place major version upgrades (https://fly.io/docs/postgres/, https://fly.io/docs/reference/regions/). There is no free tier and no billing alerts (https://fly.io/docs/about/cost-management/). Sprites trial credit is inconsistent between sources: the docs say $1 for 7 days and the Sprites site says $30 [verify] (https://fly.io/docs/about/free-trial/, https://sprites.dev/). See the objections page for each answer.