Hosting on AWS or Azure is expensive.
But if you’re listening to what you development agency is telling you – those guys ARE in LOVE and in LOVE HARD with AWS or Azure.
They do this for two reasons. Firstly, developers don’t care about things as vulgar as cold hard cash. Developers are notoriously awful at knowing how much it costs to develop and run software. You do know, because you’re paying for it. They don’t know, because they have no need to.
Secondly, developers CVs look better when they have AWS and Azure experience on it – and it’s always cool to be working on the latest thing.
By default then, without being asked, your development agency is going to say “oh yeah, we’ll just chuck that on AWS. Chuck it on Azure.”
You need to get them to pause… breathe… and ask them if they can run your solution on a “Tier 2” solution (where AWS and Azure is Tier 1).
Teir 1 solutions are for people who have more money than sense. Your solution will probably run just fine on a Tier 2 hosting solution, and you’ll spend half as much money.