The Cloud Tax Is Real

Cloud computing was supposed to make infrastructure cheaper. Instead, it created a $600B industry built on a simple trick: charge 5-10x what hardware actually costs, and make the pricing so complex nobody notices.

We ran Eulerpool, a financial data platform serving millions of requests. Our cloud bill was $7,370/month on Fly.io + Vercel. When we migrated to bare metal, it dropped to $460/month.

That's $82,920 saved per year. Same performance. Same uptime. Actually better latency.

The Numbers

Here's what you actually pay for equivalent compute across providers:

SpecRAWAWS EC2Fly.ioRenderDigitalOcean
2 vCPU · 4 GB$0 FREE$34$62$85$24
4 vCPU · 8 GB$11$105$124$175$48
8 vCPU · 16 GB$21$209$248$450$96
16 vCPU · 32 GB$36$522$496—$192
32 vCPU · 128 GB$279$1,152———

Prices as of April 2026. RAW uses Hetzner bare metal infrastructure.

Why Is Cloud So Expensive?

Three reasons:

  1. Abstraction tax. Every layer of abstraction (containers, serverless, managed services) adds margin. You're paying for convenience you might not need.
  2. Egress fees. AWS charges $0.09/GB for outbound data. A server pushing 1TB/month? That's $90 just for bandwidth. RAW and bare metal: $0.
  3. Complexity premium. AWS has 200+ services. You need a consultant to understand the bill. That complexity is by design — it creates lock-in.

When Bare Metal Wins

  • You need predictable, flat-rate pricing
  • You want full root access and control
  • Your workload is CPU or memory intensive (AI/ML, databases, builds)
  • You're spending >$100/month on cloud
  • You hate surprise bills

When Cloud Wins

To be fair, managed cloud services win when:

  • You need serverless/auto-scaling (though most apps don't)
  • You need 15+ regions globally
  • You have enterprise compliance requirements (SOC2, HIPAA) that require specific certifications
  • Your team has zero ops experience and no desire to learn

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