Run Cost Benchmarks
Real infrastructure costs from real teams. Filter by scale (< 1k MAU, 1k-10k, 10k-50k, 50k+ MAU), sort by cost efficiency, and see exactly what stacks other companies run. Every entry includes the full tool stack, monthly cost, cost per user, and team notes about their experience.
132
Entries
$343
Avg $/mo
$Infinity
Avg $/user
Scale
Sort by
Filter by tool
AstroCloudflare PagesR2
50,000 MAU2M pageviews req/moSolo founderStatic blog
$5/mo
$0.000/user
"Pages free tier covers it; R2 $5 for 250GB images. Total infra cost = lunch"
PGliteHonoCloudflare Workers
15,000 MAU3M req/moSolo founderDeveloper Tool
$5/mo
$0.000/user
"PGlite runs Postgres in-browser — zero DB hosting cost. Hono on Workers $5/mo. Entire stack under $5 at 15k MAU"
Cloudflare WorkersD1R2Better Auth
35,000 MAU5M req/moSolo founderEdge-first SaaS
$12/mo
$0.000/user
"Workers Paid $5 + R2 ~$5 + D1 free tier; Better Auth OSS BYO DB"
HetznerPostgresPlausible self-host
80,000 MAU20M pageviews req/mo2 devsPrivacy-first analytics SaaS
$28/mo
$0.000/user
"2x CAX31 ARM + ClickHouse for events; ~70% margin reselling Plausible-style"
Cloudflare WorkersD1R2Durable Objects
100,000 MAU15M req/mo2 devsMulti-region API
$45/mo
$0.000/user
"Workers Paid $5 + D1 $15 + R2 $10 + Durable Objects $15. True global edge — no region selection needed. 50ms p99 worldwide"
HetznerCoolifyPostgreSQLGrafanaLokiPrometheus
100,000 MAU15M req/mo3 devsSelf-hosted SaaS at scale
$55/mo
$0.001/user
"3x Hetzner CX41 (€45) + Coolify free + full monitoring stack self-hosted. At 100k MAU, managed services would cost $800+. 15x savings"
HetznerDocker ComposeTraefikPostgreSQLValkeyMinIO
80,000 MAU12M req/mo2 devsFile sharing platform
$48/mo
$0.001/user
"2x Hetzner CPX41 (€30) + 1TB volume (€44). Docker Compose + Traefik. MinIO for S3-compatible storage. Full self-managed, 10x cheaper than AWS"
CoolifyHetznerPostgreSQLCaddyPlausible
50,000 MAU6M req/mo2 devsSelf-hosted SaaS
$32/mo
$0.001/user
"Coolify on 2x Hetzner CX32 (€16 total). Full infra control. vs Vercel+Neon (~$89) or Railway (~$60) for same scale — 60-70% savings"
Cloudflare WorkersD1KVQueues
45,000 MAU8M req/mo2 devsEdge-first API
$30/mo
$0.001/user
"Workers Paid $5 + D1 $5 for 10B reads + KV $5 + Queues $10. Beats Lambda@Edge 10x on cost at this scale"
KamalHetznerPostgreSQLValkeyCaddy
60,000 MAU8M req/mo2 devsRails SaaS
$42/mo
$0.001/user
"Kamal 2 deploy to 3x Hetzner CX32 (€24). Valkey (Redis fork) for cache. Rails 8 Solid Queue for jobs. Zero vendor lock-in"
Cloudflare WorkersD1R2Durable ObjectsBetter Auth
50,000 MAU10M req/moSolo founderGlobal edge SaaS
$35/mo
$0.001/user
"Full Cloudflare stack. D1 for DB, DO for websocket state, R2 for files. Sub-20ms global p95. $35/mo at 50k users is insane"
Cloudflare WorkersD1Better AuthR2
25,000 MAU4M req/moSolo founderDev tools
$18/mo
$0.001/user
"Full edge stack, Workers Paid + R2 only. D1 free tier still covers it"
BunHonoTursoHetzner VPS
15,000 MAU2M req/moSolo founderAPI SaaS
$12/mo
$0.001/user
"Bun runtime on Hetzner CX22. Hono routing + Turso embedded replicas. Bun 2x faster than Node for HTTP throughput"
Cloudflare WorkersD1LuciaResend
30,000 MAU3M req/moSolo founderSaaS
$25/mo
$0.001/user
"Cloudflare Workers $5/mo covers everything including D1"
PocketBaseHetznerCaddyPlausible
12,000 MAU1.5M req/moSolo founderCommunity platform
$10/mo
$0.001/user
"PocketBase single binary on Hetzner CX22 (€4) + Plausible self-host on same box. Auth + DB + realtime + file storage in one binary"
KamalHetznerPostgreSQLRedisCaddy
40,000 MAU5M req/mo2 devsRuby on Rails SaaS
$35/mo
$0.001/user
"Kamal deploy to 2x Hetzner CX32 (€16 total). Zero-downtime deploys. Rails 8 + Solid Queue replaces Sidekiq+Redis managed"
Hetzner VPSPostgreSQLAuthentikPostfixPrometheus
40,000 MAU5M req/mo3 devsOpen source SaaS
$38/mo
$0.001/user
"Full self-hosted stack on 2x CX31. Authentik SSO open source. Prometheus + Grafana free"
Docker ComposeHetznerTraefikPostgreSQLMinIO
25,000 MAU3M req/moSolo founderFile sharing SaaS
$28/mo
$0.001/user
"Single Hetzner CPX31 (€14) + 500GB volume (€14). Docker Compose + Traefik for routing. MinIO replaces S3. All self-managed"
Supabase Edge FunctionsSupabase DBSupabase Auth
20,000 MAU2.5M req/moSolo founderFull-stack SaaS
$25/mo
$0.001/user
"All-in-one Supabase Pro $25. Edge Functions for compute, Postgres for data, built-in auth. Incredible value"
Hetzner VPSPostgreSQLCaddyGrafanaLoki
50,000 MAU5M req/mo2 devsMedia
$65/mo
$0.001/user
"Self-hosted on 2x CAX21 ARM servers. Beats any cloud at this scale"
TursoDrizzle ORMHonoFly.io
30,000 MAU4M req/mo2 devsRead-heavy SaaS
$39/mo
$0.001/user
"Turso Scaler $29 (500 DBs, 24GB) + Fly.io $10. Embedded replicas = sub-1ms reads. PlanetScale equivalent at 1/5 cost"
Upstash RedisVercelNeon
60,000 MAU10M cached reads req/mo2 devsCache-heavy SaaS
$85/mo
$0.001/user
"Upstash Pro $50 for Redis caching layer. 95% cache hit ratio drops Neon reads to minimum. Best cost-efficient caching"
CoolifyHetznerPostgreSQLBetter AuthResend
15,000 MAU2M req/moSolo founderSaaS
$22/mo
$0.001/user
"Coolify on Hetzner CX22 (€7) + Resend $10 + Better Auth OSS. Full stack for price of two coffees. Beats Vercel+Supabase+Clerk by 5x"
Drizzle ORMNeonHono
50,000 MAU6M queries req/mo3 devsAPI backend
$75/mo
$0.002/user
"Drizzle zero-overhead SQL. 3x faster than Prisma on complex joins. Neon Scale + Hono on Cloudflare Workers"
NATSPostgres on HetznerCaddy
15,000 MAU10M events req/mo3 devsEvent sourcing
$24/mo
$0.002/user
"NATS JetStream as event log + Postgres projections; 2x CX32, beats Kafka cloud 20x"
Deno DeployTursoBetter AuthResend
30,000 MAU4M req/moSolo founderSaaS
$49/mo
$0.002/user
"Deno Deploy Pro $20 + Turso Scaler $29. Embedded SQLite replicas at edge. Better Auth free. Bun-alternative edge stack"
Cloudflare WorkersR2WorkOSResend
18,000 MAU2M req/moSolo founderB2B SaaS
$30/mo
$0.002/user
"Edge cold start ~3ms, R2 zero egress, WorkOS AuthKit free under 1M MAU"
Fly.ioSupabaseCloudflare CDNSentry
200,000 MAU30M req/mo5 devsGlobal SaaS
$380/mo
$0.002/user
"Fly.io 5-region HA ($180) + Supabase Pro $25 + CF Pro $25 + read replicas $150. Sub-100ms p95 globally. DB is the bottleneck"
Deno DeployDeno KVFreshResend
10,000 MAU1.2M req/moSolo founderSaaS
$20/mo
$0.002/user
"Deno Deploy Pro $20/mo covers compute + KV storage. Fresh SSR at the edge, no build step"
ExpoSupabaseRevenueCatOneSignalSentry
1,000,000 MAU80M req/mo6 devsMobile App Backend
$2200/mo
$0.002/user
"RevenueCat $500 for subscription analytics at 1M MAU. OneSignal $240 for push at 2M devices. Supabase Team $599 for Postgres. Sentry $200 Business. Expo EAS $99"
Hetzner VPSPostgreSQLKeycloakPostfix
20,000 MAU2M req/mo2 devsOpen source
$45/mo
$0.002/user
"Self-hosted everything on 2x CX21"
PlanetScalePrismaRailway
30,000 MAU4M req/mo2 devsRead-heavy SaaS
$68/mo
$0.002/user
"PlanetScale Scaler $39 + Railway Pro $20 + Prisma overhead on cold queries. 2x cost of Turso for similar workload"
ElectricSQLSupabaseFly.io
25,000 MAU5M req/mo3 devsLocal-first App
$60/mo
$0.002/user
"ElectricSQL free + Supabase Pro $25 + Fly.io $35. Offline-capable app with Postgres sync. Users never see loading spinners"
Deno DeploySupabaseHono
18,000 MAU2M req/mo2 devsSaaS
$45/mo
$0.003/user
"Deno Deploy $20 + Supabase Pro $25. Hono on Deno Deploy for API, Supabase for DB+auth. Simpler than CF Workers"
PrismaPlanetScaleVercel
50,000 MAU6M queries req/mo3 devsAPI backend
$145/mo
$0.003/user
"Prisma Client bundle size adds cold start overhead. PlanetScale Scaler Pro $99 + Vercel Pro. Great DX but pricier at scale"
NeonDrizzle ORMVercel
30,000 MAU4M req/mo2 devsRead-heavy SaaS
$89/mo
$0.003/user
"Neon Scale $69 + Vercel Pro $20. Full Postgres flexibility but cold start penalty on scale-to-zero compute"
AstroSanityVercelPlausible
14,000 MAU1.4M req/moSolo founderHeadless CMS site
$44/mo
$0.003/user
"Astro static + Sanity free tier + Plausible 100k tier; Vercel Pro for ISR"
Cloudflare WorkersD1StripeResendSentry
12,000 MAU1.5M req/mo2 devsSaaS
$38/mo
$0.003/user
"Cloudflare paid $5 + D1 free + Sentry dev plan free + Resend 50k/mo free. Stripe 2.9% not counted"
VercelNeonBetter AuthPolarAxiom
20,000 MAU2.5M req/moSolo founderDev tools SaaS
$68/mo
$0.003/user
"Better Auth free + Polar 4% (no monthly) + Axiom free + Neon $19 + Vercel $20. Lean indie stack"
Twenty CRMHetznerCoolifyResend
5,000 MAU500k req/mo2 devsAgency
$18/mo
$0.004/user
"Twenty CRM self-hosted on Hetzner CX21 (€7) via Coolify + Resend $10. Full CRM for under $20/mo vs HubSpot $45/seat"
ExpoSupabaseRevenueCatOneSignal
50,000 MAU8M req/mo3 devsMobile fitness app
$180/mo
$0.004/user
"Expo EAS free + Supabase Pro $25 + RevenueCat 1% (~$100 on $10k MTR) + OneSignal $50 for 50k devices. Apple takes 15-30% separately"
Coolify (self-hosted)PostgresBetter AuthPostmark
6,000 MAU600k req/moSolo founderSaaS
$22/mo
$0.004/user
"Coolify on Hetzner CX22, full control. Postmark for transactional only"
Vercel Edge FunctionsUpstash RedisNeon
45,000 MAU8M req/mo2 devsEdge API
$165/mo
$0.004/user
"Vercel Pro $20 + Edge Functions included + Upstash Pro $50 + Neon Scale $69. Mid-cost edge option"
EncoreNeonClerkResend
20,000 MAU3M req/mo2 devsB2B SaaS
$75/mo
$0.004/user
"Encore free cloud hosting + Neon Scale $39 + Clerk Pro $25 + Resend $10. Encore auto-generates infra from code"
CerebrasHonoCloudflare WorkersUpstash
30,000 MAU4M req/mo2 devsAI chatbot
$120/mo
$0.004/user
"Cerebras inference ~$80/mo (2000+ tok/s = instant responses) + Workers $5 + Upstash Redis $35 for session cache. 10x faster than GPT-4o at half the cost"
CoolifyHetznerPlausiblePostmark
9,000 MAU900k req/moSolo founderSelf-hosted dev shop
$38/mo
$0.004/user
"Coolify on CX22 + Postmark 10k tier ($15) + Plausible self-host on same box"
Cloudflare PagesHyperdriveNeonWorkOSCloudflare R2
22,000 MAU3M req/mo3 devsB2B SaaS
$95/mo
$0.004/user
"Hyperdrive in front of Neon = sub-10ms p50 from EU edge to US-east DB"
Cloudflare PagesTursoLuciaMailgun
8,000 MAU800k req/moSolo founderContent
$35/mo
$0.004/user
"Edge-first stack, ridiculously cheap"
ConvexStack AuthVercel
10,000 MAU1.5M req/moSolo founderRealtime App
$45/mo
$0.004/user
"Convex Pro $25 + Vercel Pro $20 + Stack Auth free. Convex handles DB + realtime + scheduling — replaces 3 services"
AstroCloudflare PagesSanityPlausible
5,000 MAU500k req/moFreelancerClient websites (agency)
$24/mo
$0.005/user
"5 client sites on CF Pages (free) + Sanity Team $15 + Plausible $9. Scale to 20 sites for same cost. Best agency margin stack"
AstroSupabaseResendPlausible
6,000 MAU400k req/moSolo founderJob board MVP
$29/mo
$0.005/user
"Astro on Vercel free + Supabase Pro $25 + Plausible $9 hobby tier"
ShopifyVercelKlaviyoGorgiasNeon
500,000 MAU40M req/mo8 devsE-commerce
$2800/mo
$0.006/user
"Shopify Plus $2000/mo dominates. Klaviyo email/SMS $400/mo at 500k contacts. Gorgias support $360/mo. Neon for custom data layer. Worth it at $3M+ GMV/mo"
VercelNeonBetter AuthPolarPostHog
10,000 MAU1M req/moSolo founderIndie SaaS
$58/mo
$0.006/user
"Vercel Pro $20 + Neon Launch $19 + Better Auth free + Polar 4% (no monthly) + PostHog free. Best budget SaaS stack 2026"
SupabaseExpoRevenueCatSentry
25,000 MAU4M req/mo2 devsMobile subscription app
$145/mo
$0.006/user
"Supabase Pro $25 + RevenueCat 1% (~$80 on $8k MTR) + Sentry $26 + Expo EAS free. Apple/Google take 15-30% on top"
Lambda@EdgeDynamoDBCloudFrontCognito
45,000 MAU8M req/mo3 devsEdge API
$280/mo
$0.006/user
"Lambda@Edge at CloudFront PoPs + DynamoDB global tables. Powerful but 9x more expensive than CF Workers for same traffic"
DynamoDBLambdaElastiCache Redis
60,000 MAU10M cached reads req/mo4 devsCache-heavy SaaS
$380/mo
$0.006/user
"ElastiCache Redis $180/mo (r6g.large) + DynamoDB on-demand + Lambda. Enterprise-grade but 4.5x more expensive than Upstash"
VercelSupabaseStripeLoopsPostHogBetterStack
30,000 MAU3M req/mo4 devsB2C SaaS
$195/mo
$0.006/user
"PostHog Scale $130 + Vercel Pro $20 + Supabase Pro $25 + Loops $30 + BetterStack free. Monitoring costs > infra at this scale"
AstroCloudflare PagesTursoClerkStripe
8,000 MAU1M req/moSolo founderCourse platform
$54/mo
$0.007/user
"Astro SSR on CF Pages (free) + Turso Scaler $29 + Clerk Pro $25 + Stripe 2.9%. Edge-rendered course pages sub-50ms globally"
VercelConvexClerkInngestResend
18,000 MAU2M + 500k jobs req/mo3 devsWorkflow SaaS
$125/mo
$0.007/user
"Inngest Pro $25 for background jobs. Convex Pro $25 replaces DB+realtime+scheduling. Clean architecture, moderate cost"
VercelSupabaseStripePostHogResend
15,000 MAU1.5M req/mo3 devsE-commerce
$120/mo
$0.008/user
"PostHog free tier covers analytics"
RailwayTursoLuciaLoopsBetterStack
5,000 MAU500k req/mo2 devsDev tools
$40/mo
$0.008/user
"Turso embedded replicas = near-zero latency reads"
VercelNeonClerkAlgoliaStripeCloudinary
120,000 MAU12M req/mo7 devsMarketplace
$980/mo
$0.008/user
"Algolia Grow $500 dominates for search. Cloudinary Plus $249 for seller media. Clerk Pro $100 at volume. Neon Scale $69. Classic over-reliance on SaaS adds up fast"
GCP Cloud RunCloud SpannerFirebase AuthPub/Sub
500,000 MAU80M req/mo20 devsGaming
$4200/mo
$0.008/user
"Spanner for global consistency across regions. Only justified at this scale — $2800/mo"
Fly.ioSupabaseAuth0PostmarkDatadog
75,000 MAU8M req/mo6 devsHealthcare
$650/mo
$0.009/user
"Datadog is the biggest cost driver ($200/mo for APM)"
DigitalOceanManaged PostgreSQLKeycloakPostfix
15,000 MAU2M req/mo3 devsEducation
$130/mo
$0.009/user
"DO App Platform $25 + Managed PG $50 + 1-click Keycloak droplet $20 for SSO"
NetlifySanityNextAuthMailgun
12,000 MAU1.2M req/mo3 devsContent
$110/mo
$0.009/user
"Sanity free tier covers content needs, Netlify Pro for build minutes"
Hasura CloudNeonVercel
18,000 MAU2.5M GraphQL ops req/mo3 devsGraphQL backend
$165/mo
$0.009/user
"Hasura Cloud Pro $99 vs PostGraphile self-host on Hetzner ~$8 — Hasura wins on auth/perms ergonomics"
Fly.ioRedis (Upstash)PostgreSQLStripeSentry
28,000 MAU3.5M req/mo5 devsMarketplace
$260/mo
$0.009/user
"Fly.io 3-region HA + Upstash Redis global for sessions. Sentry Business the big cost at $80"
CerebrasVercelNeonUpstash
15,000 MAU2M LLM calls req/moSolo founderAI writing tool
$140/mo
$0.009/user
"Cerebras Llama-3.3-70B ~$90 (fastest inference, 2000 tok/s) + Vercel $20 + Neon $19 + Upstash $10. Users feel instant responses"
VercelNeonClerkStripeSentryPostHog
40,000 MAU4M req/mo5 devsSaaS
$380/mo
$0.009/user
"Neon Scale + Clerk Pro + Sentry Business"
ExpoSupabaseClerkSentry
8,000 MAU1M req/moSolo founderMobile social app
$76/mo
$0.009/user
"Expo free + Supabase Pro $25 + Clerk Pro $25 + Sentry Team $26. Simple mobile backend, no push notifications yet"
AlgoliaVercelStripeNeon
30,000 MAU1.5M searches req/mo4 devsSearch-heavy ecommerce
$290/mo
$0.010/user
"Algolia Grow ~$200 dominates; Vercel Pro + Neon Scale; Stripe at 2.9%"
VercelSupabaseStripePostHogResendSentry
50,000 MAU5M req/mo4 devsSaaS
$490/mo
$0.010/user
"Vercel Pro $20 + Supabase Pro $25 + PostHog Scale $130 + Sentry Business $80 + Stripe 2.9% not included. Monitoring costs exceed infra at 50k MAU"
VercelNeonBetter AuthResendStripe
7,000 MAU700k req/moSolo founderSaaS
$72/mo
$0.010/user
"Better Auth replaces Clerk ($25/mo saved). Neon Scale + Vercel Pro the main costs"
AWS LambdaDynamoDBCognitoSESCloudWatch
200,000 MAU25M req/mo12 devsFintech
$2100/mo
$0.011/user
"DynamoDB on-demand is expensive at scale, considering reserved"
VercelSupabaseLemon SqueezyResendPlausible
8,000 MAU800k req/moSolo founderSaaS
$85/mo
$0.011/user
"Lemon Squeezy as MoR saves tax headaches, Plausible self-hosted"
RenderSupabaseBetter AuthResendPlausible
5,000 MAU500k req/mo2 devsIndie SaaS
$55/mo
$0.011/user
"Render Starter $7 + Supabase Pro $25 + Plausible $9. Better Auth zero cost as OSS"
SupabaseVercelLangfuseOpenRouter
8,000 MAU2M req/moSolo founderAI SaaS
$95/mo
$0.012/user
"Supabase Pro $25 + Vercel Pro $20 + Langfuse free tier + OpenRouter ~$50/mo for LLM calls. Langfuse tracks cost per user"
GCP Cloud RunCloud SQLFirebase AuthSendGrid
100,000 MAU10M req/mo8 devsMarketplace
$1200/mo
$0.012/user
"Cloud Run scales well, SQL is the big cost"
Fly.ioCockroachDBWorkOSPostmark
35,000 MAU4M req/mo4 devsB2B SaaS
$420/mo
$0.012/user
"WorkOS covers SSO/SCIM for enterprise tier, $149/mo. CockroachDB Serverless scales well"
VercelTinybirdClerkResend
12,000 MAU5M analytics events req/mo2 devsAnalytics SaaS
$145/mo
$0.012/user
"Tinybird p99 query <200ms on 200M rows, Pro tier"
VercelSupabasePolarResendPostHog
4,500 MAU450k req/moSolo founderDev tools
$55/mo
$0.012/user
"Polar 4% no monthly fee for indie devs; PostHog free tier generous at this scale"
VercelUpstash RedisUpstash QStashNeonResend
9,000 MAU900k + 100k jobs req/mo2 devsEmail automation
$110/mo
$0.012/user
"QStash for async email jobs ($20 Pay As You Go). Upstash Redis for rate limiting free tier"
DigitalOcean App PlatformManaged PostgresAuth0Mailchimp
25,000 MAU3M req/mo4 devsHealthcare
$320/mo
$0.013/user
"HIPAA compliance adds cost"
CloudinaryMuxBunny CDNVercelSupabase
80,000 MAU5TB delivered req/mo5 devsMedia Platform
$1100/mo
$0.014/user
"Cloudinary Plus $249 for transforms + Mux $480 for 2TB video delivery + Bunny CDN $80 for static + storage. Media egress is the dominant cost"
RailwayPostgreSQLLuciaResend
2,000 MAU200k req/moSolo founderDev tools
$28/mo
$0.014/user
"Self-managed auth saves a lot"
AWS ECS FargateAuroraElastiCacheCloudFrontDatadog
300,000 MAU50M req/mo15 devsEnterprise SaaS
$4200/mo
$0.014/user
"Fargate $800 + Aurora Multi-AZ $1200 + ElastiCache $400 + CloudFront $300 + Datadog $1500. Enterprise tax is real — same traffic on Hetzner+Coolify would be $200"
VercelNeonClerkTrigger.devResend
11,000 MAU1.1M req/mo3 devsB2B SaaS
$155/mo
$0.014/user
"Trigger.dev Pro for background jobs replaced our self-hosted BullMQ"
VercelPlanetScaleClerkKnockStripe
22,000 MAU2.5M req/mo4 devsB2B SaaS
$310/mo
$0.014/user
"Knock for multi-channel notifications ($100/mo Starter). PlanetScale Scaler for branching workflow"
AWS LambdaRDS Aurora Serverless v2CognitoSESX-Ray
120,000 MAU15M req/mo9 devsHealthcare
$1800/mo
$0.015/user
"Aurora v2 ACUs flexible but idle cost ~$80/mo minimum. SES $0.10/1k very cheap at volume"
GroqVercelUpstash RedisNeon
6,000 MAU600k LLM calls req/moSolo founderAI chatbot
$95/mo
$0.016/user
"Groq Llama-70B p50 ~250ms; ~10x faster than OpenAI 4o for the same query"
MuxCloudflare StreamBunny Stream
12,000 MAU500GB delivered req/mo2 devsVideo SaaS
$195/mo
$0.016/user
"Mux Standard ~$120 (best DX) vs Stream ~$50 (cheapest, no analytics) vs Bunny ~$25 (cheapest + good)"
GCP Cloud RunAlloyDBFirebase AuthSendGrid
60,000 MAU7M req/mo7 devsMarketplace
$980/mo
$0.016/user
"AlloyDB cheaper than Cloud SQL at this scale, Firebase Auth free tier holds"
RailwayMongoDB AtlasClerkLoops
8,000 MAU800k req/mo2 devsSocial app
$135/mo
$0.017/user
"MongoDB Atlas M10 $57 + Railway Pro $20 + Clerk Pro $25 + Loops $30 hobby tier"
AWS EC2RDSCognitoSESCloudWatch
50,000 MAU5M req/mo5 devsFintech
$850/mo
$0.017/user
"t3.large + RDS db.t3.medium multi-AZ"
Fly.ioNeonClerkPostmarkBetterStack
10,000 MAU1M req/mo2 devsSaaS
$175/mo
$0.018/user
VercelSupabaseLiveblocksClerk
5,000 MAU800k req/mo2 devsCollab tools
$89/mo
$0.018/user
"Liveblocks Pro for real-time cursors + comments on docs editor"
AWS LambdaAurora ServerlessCognitoSESDatadog
80,000 MAU12M req/mo10 devsFintech
$1450/mo
$0.018/user
"Aurora Serverless v2 ACU scaling helps, Datadog APM is $400/mo"
RailwayPlanetScaleStytchPolarSentry
9,000 MAU900k req/mo3 devsB2C SaaS
$165/mo
$0.018/user
"Polar 4% MoR vs Stripe saves on EU VAT compliance"
AWS FargateElastiCacheRDSCognitoCloudFront
80,000 MAU12M req/mo8 devsE-commerce
$1650/mo
$0.021/user
"Fargate for containerized tasks, CloudFront for CDN. ElastiCache Redis $180/mo for session caching"
Fly.ioTursoLuciaKnockCloudinary
14,000 MAU1.4M req/mo4 devsSocial
$290/mo
$0.021/user
"Knock for in-app + email + push notifications, Cloudinary Plus for media"
RenderNeonNextAuthResendSentry
3,000 MAU300k req/mo2 devsSaaS
$65/mo
$0.022/user
"Render starter + Neon Pro"
Next.jsVercelSupabaseStripeResend
3,000 MAU300k req/moFreelancerClient project (agency)
$65/mo
$0.022/user
"Standard agency stack. Vercel Pro $20 + Supabase Pro $25 + Resend $20. Bill client $2k/mo retainer. 97% margin on infra"
LiveKit CloudSupabaseClerkVercel
15,000 MAU500k connection-mins req/mo3 devsVideo conferencing SaaS
$350/mo
$0.023/user
"LiveKit $250 for 500k participant-min + Supabase Pro $25 + Clerk $25 + Vercel $20. Cheaper than Twilio Video or Daily.co"
NetlifyFaunaAuth0Loops
6,000 MAU600k req/mo2 devsSaaS
$148/mo
$0.025/user
"Fauna serverless handles spiky traffic well but gets pricey at scale. Considering Neon migration"
VercelConvexClerkLoops
1,000 MAU100k req/moSolo founderDev tools
$25/mo
$0.025/user
"Convex free tier is generous"
VercelConvexClerkMuxPostHog
8,000 MAU1M req/mo3 devsVideo SaaS
$210/mo
$0.026/user
"Mux is biggest line item ($120) at 500GB delivered/mo"
Anthropic APIOpenRouterVercelNeonUpstash
10,000 MAU1.5M LLM calls req/mo2 devsAI writing assistant
$280/mo
$0.028/user
"OpenRouter for model fallback ($180). Upstash for semantic cache saves ~40% on repeated queries. Neon $19 + Vercel $20"
Together AIQdrant CloudNeonVercel
12,000 MAU2M embeddings + 500k queries req/mo3 devsAI Search
$340/mo
$0.028/user
"Together AI embeddings $80 + Qdrant $120 for 5M vectors + Neon Scale $69 + Vercel Pro $20. Fine-tuned retrieval pipeline"
Cloudflare PagesSanityWorkOSLoops
1,500 MAU200k req/moSolo founderB2B content
$49/mo
$0.033/user
"WorkOS AuthKit free under 1M MAU. Sanity free tier. Loops $30/mo for transactional email"
Together AIVercelNeonClerk
5,000 MAU500k LLM calls req/mo2 devsAI writing
$185/mo
$0.037/user
"Together AI Llama-3.1-70B at $0.18/M tokens. ~2x cheaper than OpenAI 4o-mini for same quality"
AWS LambdaBedrockDynamoDBS3CloudFront
50,000 MAU5M + 2M LLM calls req/mo6 devsEnterprise AI
$1850/mo
$0.037/user
"Bedrock Claude Sonnet $1200 + DynamoDB $180 + Lambda $120 + S3 $50 + CloudFront $100. Enterprise-grade but 10x a Vercel+OpenRouter setup"
OpenAIPineconeSupabaseVercelLangfuse
20,000 MAU3M LLM calls + 1M vector queries req/mo4 devsAI SaaS
$890/mo
$0.044/user
"OpenAI GPT-4o $450 + Pinecone $200 for 10M vectors + Supabase Pro $25 + Langfuse free tier for tracing. Fine-tuning job $180 one-time"
VercelPlanetScaleAuth0SendGridSentry
5,000 MAU500k req/mo3 devsSaaS
$230/mo
$0.046/user
"PlanetScale Scaler + Auth0 Essential"
LiveKit CloudSupabaseVercel
4,000 MAU200k connection-mins req/mo2 devsRealtime collab
$220/mo
$0.055/user
"LiveKit Ship + Supabase Pro + Vercel Pro; bandwidth dominates at $0.04/GB"
Anthropic APIWeaviate CloudRailwayLangfuse
8,000 MAU1M RAG queries req/mo2 devsLegal AI
$520/mo
$0.065/user
"Claude Sonnet $320 (prompt caching saves 60%) + Weaviate $150 for 8M doc chunks + Railway $30 + Langfuse free"
ModalReplicateTogetherR2
8,000 MAU300k inferences req/mo2 devsML inference API
$540/mo
$0.068/user
"Modal A100 cheapest sustained, Replicate best cold start, Together for OSS LLMs at $0.20/M tokens"
RunPodFastAPINeonCloudflare
5,000 MAU100k GPU inferences req/mo2 devsImage generation SaaS
$380/mo
$0.076/user
"RunPod A40 spot $0.39/hr x ~800hrs = $312 + Neon $19 + Cloudflare R2 $15. Spot instances 60% cheaper than on-demand but can preempt"
SupabaseVercelPusherStripe
1,000 MAU150k messages req/moSolo founderChat SaaS
$78/mo
$0.078/user
"Pusher Startup tier $49 + Supabase Pro $25; Stripe takes 2.9%"
ModalNeonClerkResend
3,500 MAU50k GPU inferences req/mo2 devsAI tools
$280/mo
$0.080/user
"Modal GPU (A10G) ~$0.19/GPU-hr; keeping warm 2 instances = $130/mo. Neon + Clerk add $50"
VercelSupabaseClerkResend
500 MAU50k req/moSolo founderSaaS
$45/mo
$0.090/user
"All on free tiers except Supabase Pro"
VercelUpstashAnthropic APIClerk
3,000 MAU200k LLM calls req/moSolo founderAI SaaS
$340/mo
$0.113/user
"Anthropic Sonnet 4.5 is ~$280/mo; cache reads cut input cost ~80%"
ModalReplicateCloudflare R2Neon
4,000 MAU400k inferences req/mo2 devsAI/ML
$480/mo
$0.120/user
"A100 cold start on Modal ~12s vs Replicate ~25s; Modal cheaper at sustained load"
ModalHugging FaceNeonVercel
3,000 MAU50k fine-tune + inference req/mo2 devsCustom ML models
$420/mo
$0.140/user
"Modal A100 for fine-tuning ~$250/mo + inference $120 + HF Pro $9 + Neon $19 + Vercel $20. Fine-tuning Llama-3.1-8B takes ~2hrs on A100"
TinybirdVercel
2,000 MAU100M analytics events req/mo2 devsAnalytics backend
$320/mo
$0.160/user
"Tinybird Pro $299 vs ClickHouse Cloud ~$450 for same workload; Tinybird wins on DX"
RetoolPostgres on HetznerCaddy
25 MAUinternal only req/mo5 devsInternal tools
$65/mo
$2.600/user
"Retool Team $10/user x5 + Hetzner CX22 €4; replaced 3 admin dashboards"
AWS API GatewayLambdaDynamoDBCloudFrontCognito
0 MAU3M API calls/day req/mo3 devsDeveloper Tool API
$580/mo
$Infinity/user
"100k req/day baseline, peaks to 3M. API Gateway $3.50/M + Lambda compute $120 + DynamoDB on-demand $180 + CloudFront $80. No MAU — pure API product"
TimescaleDBMQTT broker (HiveMQ)Hetzner VPSGrafana
0 MAU500M writes/mo req/mo3 devsIoT Backend
$145/mo
$Infinity/user
"50k connected devices, ~200 writes/device/day. TimescaleDB on 2x Hetzner CX41 (€40) + HiveMQ Cloud $80 for MQTT + Grafana Cloud free tier. Hypertable compression at 90%"
InfluxDB CloudNATSHetzner VPSGrafana
0 MAU1B writes/mo req/mo4 devsIoT Telemetry
$320/mo
$Infinity/user
"10k industrial sensors at 100 writes/sec peak. InfluxDB Cloud Usage-based $220 at this volume. NATS on Hetzner CX32 ~$20 + Grafana Cloud Pro $100. Considered TDengine self-host to halve cost"
EMQX CloudTimescaleDBHetznerGrafana
0 MAU200M MQTT messages req/mo3 devsIoT Smart Home
$180/mo
$Infinity/user
"20k connected devices. EMQX Serverless $100 for MQTT broker + TimescaleDB on Hetzner CX41 (€20) + Grafana Cloud free"
ESP32AWS IoT CoreDynamoDBLambdaGrafana
0 MAU500M telemetry points req/mo4 devsIndustrial IoT
$280/mo
$Infinity/user
"5k ESP32 sensors. AWS IoT Core $180 + DynamoDB on-demand $60 + Lambda $20 + Grafana $20. MQTT + rules engine built-in"
n8nHetznerPostgreSQLCoolify
0 MAU500k workflow executions req/moSolo founderAutomation agency
$15/mo
$Infinity/user
"n8n self-hosted on Hetzner CX22 (€4) via Coolify. Replaces Zapier ($20-70/mo) for 50 client automations. 90% savings vs hosted n8n"