Cloud Hosting Cost Comparison (AWS / Vercel / Render)
Compare estimated monthly hosting cost across AWS, Vercel, and Render for a typical SaaS workload, with editable compute, bandwidth, and storage figures. Runs in your browser.
Edit the monthly estimates for compute, bandwidth, and database/storage to match your workload.
Monthly cost comparison
| Provider | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| AWS (EC2 + S3 + RDS) | $210 | $2,520 |
| Vercel (Pro + usage) ✓ | $85 | $1,020 |
| Render | $95 | $1,140 |
Default figures are rough indicative estimates for a typical small SaaS workload — real cloud pricing is complex and usage-dependent (AWS especially varies widely with traffic and configuration). Replace each line with figures from the providers' own pricing calculators for an accurate comparison. PaaS (Vercel, Render) is simpler but can cost more at scale; IaaS (AWS) is cheaper at scale but needs more ops work. Informational only.
About this tool
Choosing where to host a SaaS app means weighing very different pricing models, and this tool puts three popular options side by side: AWS (raw infrastructure — EC2, S3, RDS), Vercel (a platform optimized for frontend/serverless with usage-based pricing), and Render (a developer-friendly platform-as-a-service). It breaks each provider's monthly cost into compute, bandwidth, and database/storage, sums them, and compares the totals and annual costs, highlighting the cheapest. The defaults are rough indicative figures for a typical small SaaS workload — and the page is emphatic that cloud pricing is genuinely complex and usage-dependent (AWS in particular swings widely with traffic, instance choices, and data transfer), so every field is editable and you should replace the defaults with figures from each provider's own pricing calculator. The broader trade-off it illustrates: platform-as-a-service (Vercel, Render) is simpler and faster to ship on but can cost more as you scale, while raw infrastructure (AWS) is cheaper at scale but demands more operations work. It is informational, not an endorsement. Everything runs in your browser.
How to use it
- Review the indicative defaults for each provider.
- Replace compute, bandwidth, and storage figures with your real workload from each provider's calculator.
- Compare monthly and annual totals; the cheapest is highlighted.
- Weigh cost against operational effort, not price alone.
Frequently asked questions
- How accurate are the default figures?
- They are rough indicative estimates for a small SaaS workload, meant only as a starting point. Real cloud bills depend heavily on traffic, instance types, storage, and data transfer — so replace them with figures from each provider's pricing calculator for a meaningful comparison.
- Why does AWS cost vary so much?
- AWS is raw infrastructure with hundreds of priced components and steep data-transfer (egress) charges. The same app can cost very differently depending on architecture, reserved vs on-demand instances, and traffic. It is powerful but easy to over- or under-estimate.
- When is a platform (Vercel/Render) worth the premium?
- When developer speed and low ops overhead matter more than squeezing the bill — early-stage products, small teams, frontend-heavy apps. PaaS handles deploys, scaling, and infra so you ship faster, often worth the higher per-unit cost until scale makes IaaS compelling.
- What cost drivers should I watch?
- Bandwidth/egress (often underestimated, and pricey on AWS), database (managed DBs add up), compute hours, and serverless invocation/usage charges. Build/CI minutes and add-on services also contribute on the PaaS platforms.
- Does cheapest hosting mean best choice?
- No. Factor in operational effort, reliability, developer experience, scaling behavior, and lock-in. A slightly pricier platform that saves engineering time can be cheaper overall once you value those hours.
- Is this an endorsement of any provider?
- No. It is an informational comparison framework using figures you supply. Verify current pricing with each provider.