When designing cloud infrastructure, understanding costs is crucial. Different architectures offer varying capabilities and price points — knowing how they stack up helps you make smart decisions based on your budget and scalability needs. Here’s a price comparison overview of various AWS architecture approaches, from basic setups to advanced enterprise-grade and serverless solutions.
1. Basic EC2 + RDS Setup
Architecture:
- Single EC2 instance (t2.micro/t3.micro for dev/test, or larger for production)
- RDS database instance (db.t3.micro or db.t3.medium)
- Basic networking (VPC, security groups)
- Manual scaling
Cost Components:
- EC2 hourly instance charges (~$8–$25/month for micro/small instances)
- RDS hourly charges (~$15–$60/month depending on instance size)
- EBS storage (~$0.10/GB-month)
- Data transfer (minimal for internal use)
Estimated Monthly Cost: $30–$100
Use Case: Small projects, development, proof of concept, low traffic websites.
2. Enterprise Setup with Load Balancer, ACM, IAM, VPC
Architecture:
- Multiple EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB)
- VPC with public/private subnets and NAT Gateway
- IAM roles for security
- SSL certificates managed by ACM
- CloudWatch logging and monitoring
- RDS Multi-AZ or Aurora for high availability
Cost Components:
- EC2 instances (2–4 medium instances): $50–$200/month
- ALB charges (~$18 + $0.008 per LCU/hour)
- NAT Gateway (~$32/month + data processing fees)
- RDS Multi-AZ or Aurora (~$200+ depending on size)
- ACM is free for SSL certs
- CloudWatch monitoring (basic free tier + additional charges)
- Data transfer costs can increase with traffic
Estimated Monthly Cost: $300–$800
Use Case: Production workloads requiring high availability, security, and scalability.
3. Auto Scaling EC2 with Terraform/CDK
Architecture:
- Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances
- Load Balancer (ALB)
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/CDK) for deployment automation
- IAM for security management
- CloudWatch alarms and scaling policies
Cost Components:
- Variable EC2 costs depending on number of instances (starts small, scales out)
- ALB and NAT Gateway as above
- Minimal management overhead due to automation (no direct cost but saves time)
Estimated Monthly Cost: Varies widely ($100 to $1,000+ depending on scale)
Use Case: Workloads with fluctuating traffic requiring elasticity and automated infrastructure management.
4. Serverless Architecture: Lambda + API Gateway
Architecture:
- AWS Lambda functions triggered by API Gateway
- DynamoDB or Aurora Serverless database
- IAM roles and API Gateway authorization
- CloudWatch logging and monitoring
- S3 for static website hosting (optional)
Cost Components:
- Lambda: Charged per invocation and duration; free tier includes 1M requests and 400,000 GB-seconds per month
- API Gateway: $3.50 per million requests (REST APIs)
- DynamoDB or Aurora Serverless: Pay per use (reads/writes/storage)
- S3 storage and data transfer minimal cost
- No fixed server costs
Estimated Monthly Cost: Often <$50 for low to moderate workloads; scales with usage
Use Case: Event-driven applications, microservices, APIs with unpredictable traffic, and minimal management overhead.
5. Additional Considerations
- Secrets Manager: Adds ~$0.40 per secret per month + API calls cost — important for securely managing environment variables.
- Logging and Monitoring: CloudWatch costs grow with log volume and custom metrics.
- Data Transfer: Inter-AZ or internet traffic can increase costs significantly.
Summary Table
| Architecture | Estimated Monthly Cost | Scalability | Management Overhead | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic EC2 + RDS | $30 – $100 | Manual scaling | High (manual setup) | Small projects, testing |
| Enterprise with ALB & VPC | $300 – $800 | High availability | Medium (complex setup) | Production workloads |
| Auto Scaling + Terraform/CDK | $100 – $1,000+ | Automatic scaling | Low (IaC automation) | Variable traffic apps |
| Lambda + API Gateway (Serverless) | <$50 – variable | Auto scales instantly | Very low (managed) | APIs, microservices, event-driven apps |
Conclusion
Choosing the right cloud architecture depends on your project needs and budget. Basic setups keep costs low but require more hands-on management and lack resilience. Enterprise setups provide robustness and security but come at higher prices. Auto scaling architectures blend flexibility and cost-efficiency, especially when combined with Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform or CDK. Serverless architectures offer the lowest management overhead and pay-as-you-go pricing, ideal for unpredictable workloads.
If you want to optimize costs, start small with serverless or basic EC2, then evolve to autoscaling and enterprise-grade solutions as demand grows.