Cost Estimates
Estimated monthly costs for each deployment pattern. All prices are US East (N. Virginia) as of 2025. Actual costs vary by usage, data transfer, and reserved instance pricing.
By Deployment Pattern
| Pattern | Components | Est. Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| EC2 + Managed RDS | t3.medium EC2 + db.t4g.micro RDS + VPC | ~$45-60 |
| EC2 + BYO ClickHouse | t3.medium EC2 + VPC | ~$35-50 (+ your ClickHouse) |
| EC2 + BYO ClickHouse (dev) | t3.micro EC2 + VPC | ~$10-15 (+ your ClickHouse) |
| EKS + BYO ClickHouse | EKS control plane + t3.medium node + VPC | ~$110-140 (+ your ClickHouse) |
| k3s + BYO ClickHouse | t3.medium EC2 (no EKS fee) + VPC | ~$35-50 (+ your ClickHouse) |
| Bare Metal + BYO ClickHouse | Your VPS cost only | ~$5-20 (Hetzner/OVH) |
What Drives Cost
Biggest Cost Drivers
| Component | Cost | How to Reduce |
|---|---|---|
| EC2 instance type | $8-133/mo | Use t3.micro for dev, t3.medium for production |
| EKS control plane | $73/mo (fixed) | Use k3s instead ($0 control plane) |
| NAT gateway | ~$35/mo + data | Set network_enable_nat_gateway = false for dev |
| RDS instance | $13-175/mo | Use db.t4g.micro for dev, or switch to BYO ClickHouse |
| EBS storage | ~$2.40/mo per 30GB gp3 | Default is fine for most workloads |
| Data transfer | $0.09/GB outbound | Minimal for indexers (inbound RPC data is free) |
Free or Near-Free
| Component | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| VPC, subnets, SGs | $0 | No charge for VPC resources themselves |
| Secrets Manager | ~$0.40/secret/mo | Negligible |
| S3 VPC endpoint (gateway) | $0 | Free gateway endpoint |
| k3s control plane | $0 | Runs on your EC2 instance |
| ClickHouse Cloud free tier | $0 | 10M rows, good for dev/testing |
Cost Optimization Tips
Dev Environment
Save ~80% on dev costs:
# Use smallest instances
ec2_instance_type = "t3.micro" # $8/mo vs $33/mo
postgres_instance_class = "db.t4g.micro" # $13/mo (if using RDS)
# Skip expensive networking
network_enable_nat_gateway = false # saves ~$35/mo
network_enable_vpc_endpoints = false # saves ~$7-22/mo
# Fast secret cleanup
ec2_secret_recovery_window_in_days = 0 # immediate deletionk3s Instead of EKS
If you want Kubernetes but not the EKS bill:
| EKS | k3s | Savings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control plane | $73/mo | $0 | $73/mo |
| Worker node | t3.medium ($33) | Same instance runs k3s | $0 |
| Total | ~$106/mo | ~$33/mo | $73/mo |
Both run the same Helm charts and K8s workloads. Trade-off: k3s is single-node (no HA), uses static kubeconfig (not IAM-based).
BYO ClickHouse vs Managed RDS
| RDS PostgreSQL | ClickHouse Cloud (free) | Self-hosted ClickHouse | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $13-175 | $0 (10M rows) | Your infra cost |
| Setup | Automatic | Sign up, get URL | You manage |
| Best for | Small datasets, ACID | Analytics, time-series | Large-scale analytics |
Example: Cheapest Production Setup
Bare metal VPS (Hetzner CX22) + ClickHouse Cloud free tier:
| Component | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Hetzner CX22 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM) | ~$4 |
| ClickHouse Cloud free tier | $0 |
| Domain + DNS | ~$1 |
| Total | ~$5/mo |
infrastructure_provider = "bare_metal"
compute_engine = "docker_compose"
bare_metal_host = "your-hetzner-ip"
indexer_storage_backend = "clickhouse"Example: Production AWS Setup
| Component | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| t3.medium EC2 | $33 |
| VPC + NAT gateway | $35 |
| db.t4g.small RDS | $26 |
| Secrets Manager | $0.40 |
| EBS (30GB gp3) | $2.40 |
| Total | ~$97/mo |