# Workflow: choosing the Neon-Vercel integration

## Goal
One decision, no rework: the integration that matches your billing and account reality.

## Steps
1. New to Neon and want one Vercel bill: Vercel-Managed Integration (Neon provisions through Vercel).
2. Already have a Neon account, or prefer Neon billing: Neon-Managed Integration.
3. Custom setup, existing infrastructure, or you just want connection strings: manual connection, paste the pooled string into Vercel env vars yourself.
4. After connecting, verify which string Vercel got: pooled (`-pooler`) for the app. Keep the direct string out of Vercel entirely.
5. Confirm the region pairing: Vercel functions and the Neon project in the same region keeps latency down.

## Ordering constraints
- Decide billing before creating anything; moving between managed options later is the painful path.

## Traps
- The integration sets env vars for you; verify their names match what your code reads (`DATABASE_URL` vs the integration's default).
- Preview deployments inherit the env vars: decide whether previews should share the production database or get per-PR branches (see the PR preview workflow).

## Verify
Deploys connect, previews behave as decided, and the bill goes to the right place.