The latest articles on Forem by Bartosz Kwiatkowski (@xheler). https://forem.com/xheler https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F1031111%2Fb7c8cbf1-2453-40f3-a4c4-a2dd89dad620.jpeg https://forem.com/xheler en Bartosz Kwiatkowski Wed, 21 Jan 2026 23:41:14 +0000 https://forem.com/xheler/how-i-cut-my-startup-hosting-cost-by-94-from-31-17month-2n2g https://forem.com/xheler/how-i-cut-my-startup-hosting-cost-by-94-from-31-17month-2n2g <p>Most startups overspend on infrastructure long before they have meaningful traction.<br><br> I made the same mistake—until I redesigned my hosting stack from the ground up.</p> <h2> The Problem: Hidden Costs Add Up Fast </h2> <p>A typical early-stage setup (Vercel Pro + common SaaS tooling) looks convenient, but the costs stack quickly:</p> <ul> <li>Per-developer pricing ($20/month per seat)</li> <li>Paid analytics and monitoring</li> <li>Bandwidth and serverless overages</li> <li>Multiple third-party services glued together</li> </ul> <p><strong>Result:</strong> ~$31/month, even with very low traffic.</p> <p>Full documentation and ready repository <a href="https://saasplosion.me/" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://saasplosion.me/</a></p> <h2> The Solution: A Lean, Usage-Based Stack </h2> <h3> 1. Move from Vercel to AWS Amplify Gen 2 </h3> <p>AWS Amplify Gen 2 eliminates per-seat pricing and charges purely based on usage.</p> <p>It includes:</p> <ul> <li>CDN (CloudFront)</li> <li>Serverless functions (Lambda)</li> <li>Static hosting (S3)</li> <li>Domain and routing (Route 53)</li> </ul> <p>You pay only for what you actually consume.</p> <h3> 2. Replace Paid Analytics with Umami (Free Tier) </h3> <p>Instead of paying $10+ per month for analytics:</p> <ul> <li>I switched to Umami Cloud (free tier)</li> <li>Still get page views and performance insights</li> <li>No vendor lock-in, no event-based billing surprises</li> </ul> <h3> 3. Use DynamoDB On-Demand Instead of Fixed Database Plans </h3> <p>Managed database plans often charge a flat monthly fee regardless of usage.</p> <p>With DynamoDB on-demand:</p> <ul> <li>No base cost</li> <li>~$0.15 per million operations</li> <li>Scales automatically with real traffic</li> </ul> <p>For early-stage products, this is dramatically cheaper.</p> <h3> 4. Start with a Prebuilt AWS-Powered SaaS Template </h3> <p>Instead of building everything from scratch, I used a production-ready SaaS template that includes:</p> <ul> <li>Authentication (AWS Cognito)</li> <li>Payments (Stripe)</li> <li>Deployment (Amplify Gen 2)</li> <li>Analytics setup</li> </ul> <p>This reduced time-to-launch from <strong>weeks to one day</strong> and eliminated unnecessary engineering cost.</p> <h2> The Results </h2> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Frrq7fi0qopr75pyf1yo1.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Frrq7fi0qopr75pyf1yo1.png" alt=" " width="800" height="386"></a></p> <p>With <strong>AWS Activate credits ($1,000)</strong>, hosting costs can be effectively zero for up to two years.</p> <p>The full setup how i made it with the whole documentation and other featueres is describe on <a href="https://saasplosion.me/" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://saasplosion.me/</a></p> webdev ai startup tutorial