Infrastructure Cost — Budgeting Reference¶
Audience: Customer's CFO / commercial lead / CTO building the OpEx model for an Evospin deployment. Purpose: Give a defensible monthly run-rate for AWS infrastructure plus every paid third-party dependency, in four scaling scenarios, with sourced public pricing. Source dates: All third-party prices fetched from each provider's official site between 2026-04-24 and 2026-04-25. Re-validate every 6 months — SaaS pricing drifts, especially on the captcha and observability tiers. Companion docs:
integration-options.md(which providers can be swapped) ·nfr-sla.md(the SLA cost-defends) ·../delivery/prerequisites.md(lead-time per provider) ·../external-services.md(technical surface).
0. Executive summary¶
Four scenarios, monthly OpEx in USD. AWS sub-totals use eu-north-1 (Stockholm) rates, matching terraform/perf/. Third-party totals exclude gateway fees on payment providers (charged as % of GGR — see §5) and gaming-provider rev-share (negotiated, see §3.10).
| Scenario | DAU | AWS infra | Third-party SaaS | Variable (per-event) | Total monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local dev (no cloud) | n/a | $0 | $0 (free tiers) | $0 | $0 |
| MVP / Pilot | ~100 | $230–$320 | $310–$520 | $50–$150 | $590–$990 |
| Growth | ~10k | $1,400–$2,200 | $1,800–$3,200 | $1,500–$3,500 | $4,700–$8,900 |
| Scale | ~100k | $7,500–$12,000 | $8,000–$15,000 | $15,000–$45,000 | $30,500–$72,000 |
Caveats: - Numbers exclude one-time setup costs (gaming licence application, KYC integration, accountancy/legal). - Crypto-network fees (deposit/withdrawal gas) are pass-through — paid by the player or absorbed depending on commercial policy. - Fluctuating items: payment-provider % of GGR, KYC verification volume, support ticket volume, egress on viral campaigns.
1. Methodology¶
For every line item: 1. Source URL — provider's own pricing page. 2. As-of date — when we last fetched (2026-04-24 / 2026-04-25 unless noted). 3. Plan tier chosen per scenario, with overage rate when applicable. 4. Volume assumption — explicit, so it can be replaced by your forecast. 5. {{Quote-only}} marker for B2B-only providers (Sumsub Enterprise, Cloudflare Enterprise, Softswiss, PM8, BGaming, ST8).
Volume assumptions per scenario:
| Metric | MVP | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Active Users (DAU) | 100 | 10,000 | 100,000 |
| Monthly Active Users (MAU) | 500 | 40,000 | 350,000 |
| Sign-ups / month | 200 | 8,000 | 50,000 |
| Bets / month | 50,000 | 5,000,000 | 50,000,000 |
| Emails / month | 2,000 | 80,000 | 800,000 |
| KYC verifications / month | 50 | 2,500 | 18,000 |
| Support conversations / month | 100 | 4,000 | 30,000 |
| API calls (CoinGecko) / month | 30,000 | 400,000 | 4,000,000 |
| Egress (GB) / month | 50 | 3,000 | 40,000 |
2. AWS infrastructure breakdown (eu-north-1)¶
Terraform under terraform/perf/ targets ARM64 c7g.* instances in a single AZ. Production should clone the same module set into a multi-AZ topology.
2.1 EC2 on-demand (Graviton3 ARM)¶
Spec confirmed via aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/c7g/ (fetched 2026-04-25). Hourly rates are list on-demand; AWS Pricing Calculator's eu-north-1 numbers as observed via 3rd-party trackers (see instances.vantage.sh — 2026-05-02). Prefer 1-year compute Savings Plans for −34 % vs on-demand in production.
| Instance | vCPU | RAM | On-demand $/hr (eu-north-1) | $/month (730h) | Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
t4g.medium |
2 | 4 | $0.0376 | $27 | Bastion / small pilot SUT |
c7g.large |
2 | 4 | $0.0775 | $57 | Pilot SUT (single-node compose) |
c7g.xlarge |
4 | 8 | $0.1550 | $113 | Growth API / RT replica |
c7g.2xlarge |
8 | 16 | $0.3100 | $226 | Growth single SUT, Scale API node |
c7g.4xlarge |
16 | 32 | $0.6200 | $453 | Scale DB host, monitoring host |
Per-scenario allocation:
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| API + RT + admin (single host MVP) | 1 × c7g.large = $57 | 2 × c7g.xlarge LB = $226 | 4 × c7g.2xlarge ASG = $904 |
| Postgres (RDS or self-hosted) | shared | 1 × c7g.xlarge = $113 | RDS db.r7g.2xlarge ≈ $850 |
| Redis | shared | ElastiCache cache.t4g.medium ≈ $50 | ElastiCache cache.r7g.large ≈ $200 |
| Monitoring host (Grafana/Loki/Tempo) | n/a | 1 × c7g.large = $57 | 1 × c7g.2xlarge = $226 |
| Bastion / NAT host | 1 × t4g.nano ≈ $4 | 1 × t4g.medium = $27 | NAT GW (see §2.5) |
| EC2 sub-total | ~$60 | ~$470 | ~$2,180 |
2.2 EBS gp3 storage¶
Public reference rates from aws.amazon.com/ebs/pricing/ (fetched 2026-04-24): gp3 storage $0.08/GB-month, IOPS $0.005/provisioned-IOPS-month beyond 3 000 baseline, throughput $0.06/MB-s-month beyond 125 MB/s baseline. eu-north-1 typically tracks the global list.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volumes | 1 × 100 GB = $8 | 4 × 200 GB = $64 | 8 × 500 GB + DB 2 TB = $480 |
| Provisioned IOPS premium | 0 | 0 | +$50 (DB warm path) |
| EBS sub-total | $8 | $64 | $530 |
2.3 ECR¶
aws.amazon.com/ecr/pricing/ (2026-04-25): $0.10 per GB-month, intra-region pulls free. New-customer free tier 500 MB/month for 1 year. We push ~5–8 GB of images per environment (api / rt / bj / bo / speed-roulette + 2 FE).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | 8 GB = $1 | 30 GB = $3 | 80 GB = $8 |
| Cross-region transfer | 0 | $0.09/GB × 5 GB = $0.45 | $0.09 × 50 GB = $4.50 |
| ECR sub-total | $1 | $4 | $13 |
2.4 CloudWatch logs & metrics¶
aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/pricing/ (2026-04-25): logs ingestion $0.50/GB, custom metrics $0.30/metric-month (first 10k), API requests $0.01 per 1k. Free tier: 5 GB ingestion + 10 custom metrics.
Most logs go to Loki on the monitoring host (cheaper). CloudWatch is only used for the AWS-native CW logs (RDS slow query, ALB access, NAT flow). If you forward everything to CW the costs jump 5–10×.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logs ingested (GB) | 2 ($1) | 60 ($30) | 600 ($300) |
| Custom metrics | 0 | 30 ($9) | 200 ($57) |
| CW sub-total | ~$1 | ~$40 | ~$360 |
2.5 NAT Gateway (production only)¶
Per AWS VPC pricing (2026-04-25, indicative for eu-north-1 — verify when applying tfvars): hourly ~$0.052 ($38/mo) + $0.052/GB processed. Compose-on-EC2 single-host topology in MVP avoids NAT entirely (instance has public IP).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAT GW hours | 0 | $38 | 2 × HA = $76 |
| Data processed | 0 | 1 TB × $0.052 = $53 | 30 TB = $1,560 |
| NAT sub-total | $0 | ~$90 | ~$1,640 |
NAT GW is famously a top-3 unexpected AWS cost line for high-traffic sites. Mitigations: VPC endpoints for S3/ECR (free), egress consolidation, Cloudflare-as-frontdoor (most user traffic never touches NAT).
2.6 Data egress to internet¶
aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/ — first 100 GB/month free across all AWS Services, then $0.09/GB (first 10 TB), tiering down to $0.05/GB beyond 150 TB.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egress GB | 50 (free) | 3,000 ($261) | 40,000 ($2,800 — tiered) |
| Egress sub-total | $0 | ~$260 | ~$2,800 |
2.7 Backups (RDS / EBS snapshots)¶
EBS snapshot S3-backed, list ~$0.05/GB-month. RDS automated backup quota = DB size at no cost; storage beyond ~$0.095/GB-month.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snapshot storage | $5 | $30 | $200 |
2.8 AWS sub-total per scenario¶
| AWS line | MVP | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| EC2 | $60 | $470 | $2,180 |
| EBS | $8 | $64 | $530 |
| ECR | $1 | $4 | $13 |
| CloudWatch | $1 | $40 | $360 |
| NAT GW | $0 | $90 | $1,640 |
| Egress | $0 | $260 | $2,800 |
| Backups | $5 | $30 | $200 |
| AWS total (low–high) | $230–$320 | $1,400–$2,200 | $7,500–$12,000 |
The range absorbs reserved-vs-on-demand variance, snapshot policy choices, and burst egress.
3. Third-party services (SaaS)¶
For each: link → fetched plan → recommended tier per scenario → monthly $.
3.1 Cloudflare¶
- Source: cloudflare.com/plans (fetched 2026-04-24). Plans are per-zone (per-domain).
- Plans: Free · Pro $25/mo ($20/mo annual — 2026 rate) · Business $200/mo · Enterprise {{Quote-only — typical commitments $5k–$10k/mo per zone}}.
- What we use: DNS, TLS, CDN, WAF, DDoS, bot management. Sits in front of
dropbet.*andadmin.*. Lower NAT/egress costs by absorbing static traffic. - Per scenario:
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Free (1 zone) | Pro × 2 zones = $50 | Business × 2 = $400 + Enterprise consult |
| Add-ons | – | Argo Smart Routing $5 | Bot Mgmt + Page Shield ≈ $200 |
| CF total | $0 | $55 | $600+ |
3.2 Doppler¶
- Source: doppler.com/pricing (fetched 2026-04-24).
- Plans: Developer free for 3 users (then $8/seat) · Team $21/seat/mo · Enterprise custom.
- What we use: secrets management; perf-env tokens already provisioned (see
reference_doppler_workspace.mdrow).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seats | 5 (Dev $16) | 12 (Team $252) | 25 (Team $525) |
| Doppler total | $16 | $252 | $525 |
3.3 Sentry¶
- Source: sentry.io/pricing (fetched 2026-04-24).
- Plans: Developer free (5k errors / 5M spans / 5 GB logs) · Team $26/mo (50k errors) · Business $80/mo · Enterprise.
- Overages: errors $0.30/k, spans $0.20/M (Team), logs $0.50/GB.
- What we use: error tracking + source maps for
ebit-api,ebit-fe,ebit-admin-fe(3 projects).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Developer (free) | Team + ~3M extra spans = $90 | Business + 5M errors + 50M spans ≈ $850 |
| Sentry total | $0 | $90 | $850 |
3.4 SendGrid (Twilio)¶
- Source: twilio.com/en-us/sendgrid → pricing redirects to twilio.com (fetched 2026-04-25; SendGrid still publishes legacy
sendgrid.com/pricing). - Plans: Free trial 60 days (100 emails/day) · Essentials from $19.95/mo (100k emails) · Pro from $89.95/mo (2.5M, dedicated IP) · Premier custom, $12k/yr commitment minimum.
- What we use: transactional templates — verify email, welcome, password reset, deposit success (see
.example.envtemplate IDs).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Essentials $19.95 | Pro $89.95 | Premier ≈ $1,200 |
| Volume | 2k emails (incl.) | 80k emails (incl.) | 800k emails (incl. + dedicated IP warmup) |
| SendGrid total | $20 | $90 | $1,200 |
3.5 Sumsub (KYC/AML)¶
- Source: sumsub.com/pricing (fetched 2026-04-24).
- Plans: Basic $1.35/verification, $149/mo minimum (ID + face + reusable KYC) · Compliance $1.85/verification, $299/mo minimum (adds AML monitoring + PoA) · Enterprise {{Quote-only}}.
- What we use: KYC document + selfie + sanctions screen on first deposit and on jurisdictional triggers.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier | Basic ($149 min) | Compliance + 2.5k checks × $1.85 = $4,625 | Compliance + 18k × $1.85 = $33,300 (negotiate Enterprise) |
| Sumsub total | $149 | $4,625 | $15,000–$33,300 |
Sumsub costs are the single biggest variable line at scale. Negotiate Enterprise pricing past ~5 000 verifications/mo; expect 30–50 % discount on per-verification rate.
3.6 Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise¶
- Source: cloud.google.com/recaptcha-enterprise/pricing (fetched 2026-04-25 — page returned 404 to direct fetch; pricing confirmed via Google docs index).
- Plans: Free 10k assessments/mo per org · Standard $1/1k beyond · Fraud Prevention higher tier (~$1/1k assessment + fraud add-ons).
- What we use: sign-up + sign-in + sensitive actions. (
.local.envRECAPTCHA_SECRET).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | 5k (free) | 200k = $190 | 2M = $1,990 |
| reCAPTCHA total | $0 | $190 | $1,990 |
3.7 GeeTest (alternate captcha)¶
- Source: geetest.com/en/Price (fetched 2026-04-25 — 404, no public pricing). Listed as {{Quote-only}}; reviews on Capterra/G2 cite custom pricing.
- What we use:
.local.envGEETEST_CAPTCHA_ID— currently unused at runtime, supplanted by reCAPTCHA. Keep at $0 until activated.
| All scenarios | $0 | Maintenance keys only — switch to GeeTest only if regional preference (e.g. CN) demands it; budget $300–$1,500/mo on quote |
3.8 MaxMind GeoIP¶
- Source: maxmind.com/en/geoip-web-services (fetched 2026-04-25).
- Plans: pay-as-you-go, no minimums. Country $0.0001/q · City Plus $0.0003/q · Insights $0.002/q. Pre-paid bundles from $25. GeoLite2 free DB is also available — viable for non-regulated screening.
- What we use: country gating + jurisdictional risk scoring (
apps/api/src/country/).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mode | GeoLite2 (free) | City Plus, 100k queries/mo = $30 | Insights, 1M queries = $2,000 |
| MaxMind total | $0 | $30 | $2,000 |
3.9 CoinGecko API¶
- Source: coingecko.com/en/api/pricing (fetched 2026-04-24).
- Plans: Demo (free) 10k credits/mo · Basic $35/mo (100k) · Analyst $129 (500k) · Lite $499 (2M) · Enterprise.
- Overage: $250 per additional 500k calls.
- What we use: FX feed (
COINGECKO_API_KEYin.local.env) forusdAmountconversions on every bet/deposit.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Demo (free) | Basic $35 | Lite $499 |
| CoinGecko total | $0 | $35 | $499 |
3.10 Game providers (Softswiss / PM8 / BGaming / EvoGames / ST8)¶
All {{Quote-only — rev-share}}. Public pricing does not exist; commercial terms are typically:
- Setup / integration fee: $0–$25,000 one-time per provider.
- Monthly minimum: $0–$2,500 per provider on small operators.
- Revenue share: 10–20 % of GGR (Gross Gaming Revenue) on the provider's catalogue. Higher for premium studios (Pragmatic, Evolution); lower for indie aggregators.
- Aggregator markup: when accessed via Softswiss / Aviator gateway, +1–3 % stacked.
These are not OpEx in the SaaS sense — they're cost-of-goods-sold proportional to GGR. Forecast as a % of revenue, not a fixed monthly. For the totals in §0 we exclude them from the SaaS column.
3.11 Intercom¶
- Source: intercom.com/pricing (fetched 2026-04-24).
- Plans: Essential $29/seat/mo · Advanced $85 · Expert $132. Fin AI Agent $0.99 per resolved outcome.
- What we use: customer support chat (
INTERCOM_SECRET_KEYin.local.env).
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan + seats | Essential × 2 = $58 | Advanced × 5 = $425 | Expert × 10 = $1,320 |
| Fin AI volume | 50 outcomes = $50 | 1.5k outcomes = $1,485 | 10k outcomes = $9,900 |
| Intercom total | $108 | $1,910 | $11,220 |
3.12 NOWPayments (crypto payment processor)¶
- Source: nowpayments.io/pricing (fetched 2026-04-25 via search).
- Fees: 0.5 % per single-currency transaction · +0.5 % conversion fee on auto-convert (1 % total) · 0 % on payouts. Network fees pass-through.
- What we use: alternate crypto deposit/withdraw provider.
These are % of transaction volume, not fixed monthly. Modelled in §5.
3.13 CCPayment (crypto payment processor)¶
- Source: ccpayment.com (fetched 2026-04-24).
- Fees: 0.2 % service fee on payment amount; deposit/withdrawal fees not on public site — {{verify on signup}}. Supports 900+ coins.
- What we use: primary crypto deposit/withdraw provider.
Modelled in §5.
3.14 Skindeck (skins-as-deposit, optional)¶
- Source: skindeck.com — no public pricing, {{Quote-only}}.
- What we use:
SKINDECK_API_KEY/SKINDECK_API_SECRETin.local.env. Adapter wired but typically off by default. - Typical commercial: 2–5 % of skin valuation + variable network fees.
3.15 NowNodes / Greymass (EOS RPC)¶
- Source: nownodes.io/pricing; Greymass public node free.
- What we use: speed-roulette block-hash for provable fairness (
apps/speed-roulette). MVP uses public Greymass (free); production should use NowNodes paid for SLA. - NowNodes plans: Free 50k req/day · ~$20/mo entry tier · ~$100+ pro.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Provider | Greymass (free) | NowNodes $20 | NowNodes $200 + dedicated |
| EOS RPC total | $0 | $20 | $200 |
3.16 GitLab (Unleash feature flags + CI + repo)¶
- Source: about.gitlab.com/pricing.
- Plans: Free · Premium $29/seat/mo · Ultimate $99/seat/mo. Unleash feature-flags (used at
https://gitlab.com/api/v4/feature_flags/unleash/58746240) is included on all tiers. - What we use: source hosting, CI runners, feature flags.
| MVP | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Free × 5 | Premium × 8 = $232 | Premium × 20 = $580 |
| Runner minutes | free | $50 add-on | $500 add-on |
| GitLab total | $0 | $280 | $1,080 |
3.17 Telegram Bot API¶
Free — no monthly cost. Bot tokens issued by @BotFather. Listed for completeness.
3.18 Postman (API tooling, dev only)¶
- Source: postman.com/pricing.
- Plans: Free · Basic $14/seat · Professional $29 · Enterprise $49.
- We use it for collection-driven QA. Optional.
| All scenarios | Free–$200 |
4. Third-party SaaS sub-total¶
| Service | MVP | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | $0 | $55 | $600 |
| Doppler | $16 | $252 | $525 |
| Sentry | $0 | $90 | $850 |
| SendGrid | $20 | $90 | $1,200 |
| Sumsub | $149 | $4,625 | $15,000–33,300 (use Enterprise) |
| reCAPTCHA | $0 | $190 | $1,990 |
| MaxMind | $0 | $30 | $2,000 |
| CoinGecko | $0 | $35 | $499 |
| Intercom | $108 | $1,910 | $11,220 |
| EOS RPC | $0 | $20 | $200 |
| GitLab | $0 | $280 | $1,080 |
| Postman | $0 | $50 | $200 |
| Sub-total (low–high) | $310–$520 | $1,800–$3,200 | $8,000–$15,000 (excl. payment-processor %, game-provider rev-share) |
5. Variable / per-event costs¶
These scale linearly with traffic. Multiply scenario volume by unit rate.
| Item | Unit rate | MVP | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Email — SendGrid overage | $0.00085/email beyond plan | included | included | $200 |
| KYC verification — Sumsub | $1.35–$1.85 | folded into §3.5 | folded | folded |
| GeoIP query — MaxMind Insights | $0.002 | folded | folded | folded |
| reCAPTCHA assessment | $0.001 | folded | folded | folded |
| AWS egress beyond free tier | $0.05–$0.09/GB | folded | folded | folded |
| Crypto-deposit fee — CCPayment | 0.2 % of $ | $200/mo (on $100k volume) | $4,000 (on $2M) | $40,000 (on $20M) |
| Crypto-deposit fee — NOWPayments | 0.5 %–1 % of $ | (alt only) | (alt only) | (alt only) |
| Game-provider rev-share | 10–20 % of GGR | varies | varies | varies |
Payment-processor fees and game-provider rev-share are revenue-linked and thus typically modelled as % of GGR rather than as a fixed line — but they dwarf SaaS at scale. A $2 M monthly deposit volume on CCPayment is $4 000 in fees, not the $35 CoinGecko bill.
6. Hidden costs¶
These rarely make budget v1 and bite later.
- AWS data transfer between AZs — $0.01/GB each direction. A multi-AZ Postgres + multi-AZ app tier can add $200–$2 000/mo at Scale.
- NAT Gateway data processing — already called out (§2.5), worth re-stating: a single chatty integration (e.g. CoinGecko polling) can rack up $50–$500/mo.
- Sentry session-replay overage — replays over the 50/mo plan limit cost $0.0029 each; viral incident with auto-capture can spike to $200+ in a day.
- Intercom seat creep — adding seats mid-month is prorated up; removing is end-of-cycle. Budget +20 % for headcount churn.
- Currency conversion (USD billing → EUR/GBP card) — Stripe/bank typically takes 1–2 %.
- SaaS commitment discounts left on table — annual commits save 15–25 % across SendGrid, Sentry, Doppler, Intercom, CoinGecko. Lock in once Phase 7 traffic confirms volume.
- Support tier upgrades — AWS Business Support: greater of $100/mo or 3–10 % of monthly AWS bill. Treat as an SLA-defending cost (see
nfr-sla.md§2 — the 99.9 % aspirational tier presumes Business Support). - On-call premium — third-party paging (PagerDuty $21/seat) + after-hours hourly or retainer for the on-call rotation. Not yet listed above; add ~$100–$1 500/mo.
- Compliance tooling — DPO retainer, security questionnaire automation, third-party AML feed if Sumsub doesn't cover the jurisdiction — variable.
- Egress to game providers — provider RGS calls are usually low volume but high frequency; budget $20–$200/mo on cross-region API calls.
7. Total OpEx tables (sorted by % of total)¶
MVP / Pilot (~100 DAU)¶
| Line | $ | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| AWS infrastructure | $275 | 36 % |
| Sumsub (KYC) | $149 | 19 % |
| Intercom | $108 | 14 % |
| AWS variable + egress headroom | $50 | 6 % |
| SendGrid Essentials | $20 | 3 % |
| Doppler | $16 | 2 % |
| All others | $30 | 4 % |
| Reserve / contingency 15 % | $120 | 16 % |
| Total | ~$770 | 100 % |
Growth (~10k DAU)¶
| Line | $ | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| Sumsub | $4,625 | 36 % |
| CCPayment fees (% of $2 M volume) | $4,000 | 31 % |
| AWS infrastructure | $1,800 | 14 % |
| Intercom | $1,910 | 15 % |
| Sentry / reCAPTCHA / Doppler / GitLab | ~$800 | 6 % |
| Egress + variable | $400 | 3 % |
| Reserve 15 % | ~$2,000 | 15 % |
| Total | ~$15,500 | 100 % |
Scale (~100k DAU)¶
| Line | $ | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| CCPayment fees (% of $20 M volume) | $40,000 | 50 % |
| Sumsub Enterprise | $15,000 | 19 % |
| Intercom Expert + Fin | $11,220 | 14 % |
| AWS infrastructure | $9,500 | 12 % |
| Sentry / reCAPTCHA / MaxMind / SendGrid | $6,000 | 8 % |
| GitLab / Postman / Cloudflare / Doppler | $2,500 | 3 % |
| Reserve 15 % | $13,000 | 16 % |
| Total | ~$80,000+ | 100 % |
Game-provider rev-share is modelled separately because it scales with GGR not DAU. Forecast separately.
8. Optimization opportunities (top 5)¶
Rough savings, in priority order:
- Self-host Sentry on the monitoring host — saves the entire Sentry bill ($90 Growth → $850 Scale). The Loki/Tempo/Grafana stack already runs there. Trade-off: maintenance burden + no Sentry-managed source-map service. Saving: 5–10 % of OpEx at Scale.
- Use Cloudflare in front of static assets + APIs — absorbs 60–80 % of egress and most NAT-GW data processing. Saving: $1 500–$3 500/mo at Scale, more than offsets Cloudflare Pro/Business.
- Negotiate Sumsub Enterprise past 5 000 verifications/mo — list-price linear extension is $33 300; expect $15 000–$22 000 negotiated. Saving: 15–25 % of Scale OpEx.
- Switch CoinGecko to in-process FX cache + on-chain oracle for ~5-min freshness — drops to free Demo tier. Saving: $35–$499/mo, plus cuts Scale-tier API rate-limit headaches.
- AWS Compute Savings Plan (1-year, no-upfront) — −34 % on EC2 vs on-demand. Saving: ~$700 Growth, ~$3 000 Scale.
Honourable mentions: - Reserved RDS / ElastiCache instances (similar 30–40 % saving). - Self-host MaxMind GeoLite2 monthly DB instead of web-service queries (MVP already does this; revisit at Scale). - Annual SaaS billing across Doppler / Intercom / Sentry / SendGrid (15–25 % each). - Drop Postman in favour of in-CI Newman runs (free). - Replace Intercom with Crisp ($25/seat) or self-host Chatwoot for cost-sensitive markets — −80 % support cost, but with FE-side integration work.
9. Pricing-as-of footer¶
| Provider | Pricing page | Last fetched | Re-validate by |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS EC2 | pricing/on-demand | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| AWS EBS | ebs/pricing | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| AWS ECR | ecr/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| AWS CloudWatch | cloudwatch/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| Cloudflare | plans + Pro/Business sub-pages | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| Doppler | doppler.com/pricing | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| Sentry | sentry.io/pricing | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| SendGrid | sendgrid.com/pricing (→ twilio.com) | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| Sumsub | sumsub.com/pricing | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| reCAPTCHA Enterprise | cloud.google.com/recaptcha-enterprise/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| GeeTest | geetest.com/en/Price — {{Quote-only, page 404}} | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| MaxMind | maxmind.com/en/geoip-web-services | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| CoinGecko | coingecko.com/en/api/pricing | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| Intercom | intercom.com/pricing | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| NOWPayments | nowpayments.io/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| CCPayment | ccpayment.com | 2026-04-24 | 2026-10 |
| GitLab | about.gitlab.com/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| NowNodes | nownodes.io/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
| Postman | postman.com/pricing | 2026-04-25 | 2026-10 |
Re-validation cadence: every 6 months, or when a SaaS provider sends a renewal email. Pin the table above into the next budgeting cycle.
10. Cross-references¶
integration-options.md— which providers can be swapped (with effort estimates).nfr-sla.md— what these costs buy you in availability/latency.../delivery/prerequisites.md— lead-time per provider (signs-up to active).../external-services.md— technical surface (env vars, SDK paths).../engineering/observability.md— what self-hosting Sentry / Grafana costs you in maintenance.terraform/perf/— actual AWS module set; sizes match the §2 table.