How to Run Cron Jobs in a Vercel Serverless Environment (Without Paying Extra)

Running scheduled tasks in a serverless environment like Vercel might seem challenging, especially since Vercel doesn’t have built-in cron job support. But with a clever combination of Vercel’s edge functions, GitHub Actions, or external schedulers like Upstash or cron-job.org, you can run cron jobs completely for free and reliably. Why Use Cron Jobs on Vercel? Perform background maintenance (e.g. data cleanup, backups) Trigger API calls or workflows at fixed intervals Run periodic scripts in a cost-effective and scalable way Method 1: Using GitHub Actions (Free and Serverless) This method uses GitHub Actions to ping a deployed Vercel edge function or API route on a schedule. Step 1: Create Your Vercel API Route // /api/scheduled-task.js export default async function handler(req, res) { // Your scheduled logic here console.log("Scheduled task triggered"); res.status(200).json({ message: "Task complete" }); } Step 2: Add GitHub Action to Trigger the API # .github/workflows/cron.yml name: Trigger Vercel Cron on: schedule: - cron: '*/30 * * * *' # every 30 minutes jobs: ping-vercel: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Curl scheduled endpoint run: curl https://your-vercel-app.vercel.app/api/scheduled-task Method 2: Using Upstash Scheduler (Also Free) Upstash provides a free cron-based HTTP scheduler. It's simple and works great with serverless endpoints. Create an account at Upstash Scheduler Set up a cron rule pointing to your Vercel API route That’s it — no infra required! Pros and Cons ✅ Pros Entirely free setup with Vercel + GitHub or Upstash No infrastructure or servers needed Scales perfectly with Vercel's edge/runtime ⚠️ Cons GitHub Actions have cold starts; not precise for real-time events External schedulers mean slight external dependencies

// /api/scheduled-task.js
export default async function handler(req, res) {
  // Your scheduled logic here
  console.log("Scheduled task triggered");
  res.status(200).json({ message: "Task complete" });
}

# .github/workflows/cron.yml
name: Trigger Vercel Cron
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '*/30 * * * *' # every 30 minutes
jobs:
  ping-vercel:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Curl scheduled endpoint
        run: curl https://your-vercel-app.vercel.app/api/scheduled-task