Hosting Cost Estimate — Reverse Auction SaaS · May 2026

Infra costs only · people listed separately · growth stage assumed (500–5k users, ~20 live auction sessions/mo)

Option 1
Self-hosted on-prem
Your own physical servers at your office or warehouse. You own every layer.
Monthly infra cost (excl. people)
~$4,400
+ $86,000 one-time hardware · refreshed every 4–5 years
Hardware (amortised over 5 years)
Server hardware one-time $86k
2× app servers, 2× DB servers, Redis server, network gear, UPS, rack
$1,433/mo
Facilities
Server room space
Dedicated locked room in your office · ~200 sq ft
~$800
Precision cooling (CRAC)
Server-grade A/C · runs 24/7 · $3k one-time install
~$400
Power consumption
~15–20 kW draw · 24/7 · $0.12/kWh US commercial average
~$260
Primary business fiber
1 Gbps symmetric · SLA-backed ISP · not residential
~$500
Redundant fiber (2nd ISP)
Different carrier · critical for live sessions · BGP failover
~$400
Physical security + fire suppression
Keycard, cameras, FM-200 clean agent system · annual inspection
~$230
Dell ProSupport (hardware warranty)
Next-business-day onsite parts replacement · 5 servers
~$600
Software (still needed)
OS + monitoring stack
Rocky Linux (free) · Grafana + Prometheus self-hosted (free)
$0
Offsite backup (Backblaze B2)
Never backup to same location · ~500 GB/mo
~$15
DDoS / CDN (Cloudflare Pro)
Your IP is public · must protect it
~$20
Email (Amazon SES)
$0.10/1k emails · 50k/mo · cheapest option
~$5
Sentry error tracking
Still use managed · self-hosted Sentry not worth it
~$26
SSL + domain
Let's Encrypt (free) + domain renewal
~$2
Monthly infra total~$4,691
People required (not included above)
2× Senior Infra / Systems Engineers — own all hardware, OS, Postgres, Redis, networking, on-call rotation. Cannot run with one — single point of failure. ~$150k–175k/yr each + 30% employer cost = ~$32k–$38k/mo combined.
0.5× Security Engineer — firewall rules, patch management, intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning. Your servers are directly internet-facing. ~$7k/mo.
Optional: 0.25× Network Engineer — BGP config, ISP relationships, switch management. Can be contracted.
Option 2
Cloud self-hosted
Your code and config on AWS/GCP/Azure VMs. You manage the stack, they manage the physical hardware.
Monthly infra cost (excl. people)
~$1,500
No upfront hardware cost · pay-as-you-go · scales with usage
Compute (AWS EC2 · reserved 1yr)
Primary app server
m6i.xlarge · 4 vCPU · 16 GB · us-east-1 · 1yr reserved
~$170
Redundant app server
Identical · different AZ · active-active HA
~$170
Bid engine / WS server
m6i.large · dedicated · handles real-time session load
~$90
Application Load Balancer
ALB + health checks · $16 base + LCU usage
~$25
Database (AWS RDS)
RDS Postgres · Multi-AZ
db.m5.large · 500 GB gp3 · automated backups · primary
~$425
RDS read replica
db.m5.large · offloads buyer dashboard queries
~$180
ElastiCache Redis cluster
cache.r6g.large · 2-node · timer state + bid lock
~$140
Networking + storage
Data egress
~1 TB/mo outbound · $0.09/GB after 1 GB free
~$90
CloudFront CDN
Static assets · ~500 GB transfer · replaces Vercel edge
~$45
S3 file storage
Auction docs · ~200 GB · $0.023/GB
~$5
Route 53 + VPC + misc
DNS, NAT gateway, security groups overhead
~$20
Software still needed
Email (Amazon SES)
Already on AWS · $0.10/1k · 50k emails/mo
~$5
Sentry + monitoring
Sentry Team + CloudWatch for AWS metrics
~$36
CI/CD (GitHub Actions)
2,000 free mins/mo · likely enough at this stage
~$0
Monthly infra total~$1,501
People required (not included above)
2× DevOps / SRE Engineers — deploy and manage EC2, RDS, Redis, ALB, CloudFront, CI/CD pipelines, on-call. AWS abstracts hardware but you still manage everything above the VM. ~$150k/yr each + 30% = ~$32k/mo combined.
0.5× Security Engineer — IAM policies, security groups, CloudTrail auditing, vulnerability scanning. AWS gives you tools but not judgment. ~$7k/mo.
No hardware management — AWS handles physical failures, disk replacements, data center security. Biggest people saving vs on-prem.
Option 3
Managed stack
Vercel + Supabase + Ably + Upstash + Inngest + Resend. No servers to manage, period.
Monthly infra cost (excl. people)
~$460
No upfront cost · no hardware · usage-based billing
Hosting + compute
Vercel Pro
$20/seat · 1 TB bandwidth · Next.js hosting + serverless functions · 1 dev seat
$20
Database + auth + storage
Supabase Pro
$25 base · 8 GB DB · 100k MAU · daily backups · no pausing · RLS included
~$25
Supabase compute add-on
Small instance ($50 add-on) for live session write load · recommended at this stage
~$50
Supabase storage + egress overages
Auction docs · $0.021/GB storage · $0.09/GB egress above 250 GB
~$10
Real-time (WebSockets)
Ably
Base package + $2.50/M messages consumed · ~20 sessions/mo · 10 suppliers each
~$80
Timer + background jobs
Upstash Redis
PAYG · $0.20/100k commands · ~5M commands/mo (timer ticks + bid locks)
~$10
Inngest
50k executions/mo free · likely covered at this stage
$0
Email
Resend Pro
50k emails/mo · 10 domains · no daily cap · session invites + winner emails
$20
Observability + misc
Sentry
Error tracking · Developer plan free · Team if needed
~$0
Cloudflare (free tier)
DDoS protection + DNS · free plan sufficient at this stage
$0
Domain
Annual renewal amortised
~$2
Monthly infra total~$217 – $460
People required (not included above)
0 dedicated infra engineers — no servers to manage. Deployments are git push. Supabase handles DB backups, scaling, and failover automatically.
1 backend developer (part of product team) — monitors dashboards, manages service configs, watches for cost spikes. Not a dedicated role — this is ~10% of a developer's time.
No on-call rotation needed — provider incidents are handled by Supabase/Ably/Vercel. You open their status page, not a PagerDuty alert.
On-prem — the real numbers
Infra: ~$4,400/mo + $86k upfront.
People: ~$39k–$45k/mo (2 engineers + security).
All-in: ~$43k–$49k/mo (~$530k/yr).

Hardware refreshes every 4–5 years add another $86k hit. DRAM prices in 2026 are 7–8× higher than a few years ago — budget more.
Cloud self-hosted — the real numbers
Infra: ~$1,500/mo. No upfront hardware.
People: ~$39k/mo (2 SREs + security).
All-in: ~$40k–$45k/mo (~$490k/yr).

AWS handles physical hardware — you handle everything above the VM. Similar people cost to on-prem, far lower infra cost. Still overkill at your stage.
Managed stack — the real numbers
Infra: ~$460/mo. Zero upfront.
People: ~10% of 1 dev's time. No dedicated hire.
All-in: ~$5,000–$8,000/mo when you factor a developer's salary.

The 100× cost difference vs on-prem is almost entirely people savings. You're buying back engineering time to spend on the product.
Monthly infra cost only — visual comparison (excl. people)
Managed stack (Vercel + Supabase + Ably + etc)
~$460/mo
Cloud self-hosted (AWS VMs + RDS + ElastiCache)
~$1,500/mo
On-premise (hardware amortised + facilities + software)
~$4,400/mo