4 ms·

Why is your linode bill so high with so few users? I see a 32GB plan is $120/month. Do you really need that?

jcadam 9y ago
1. App Server (all my Clojure services... and the one transient service written in golang) 2. Postgres (Master) 3. Postgres (Standby) 4. Elasticsearch server (yea, only one right now, you know, few users) 5. One linode running RabbitMQ 6. The linode running NGINX that sits in front of the app server and does all of the reverse proxying Also, 7. The linode running the marketing site (wordpress). I know, I know, I'm a nerd and just couldn't help myself with the architecture. Hey, at least it should be fairly scalable.
- lettergram 9y ago
  Don't need the standby server, just use automated backups. You also don't need the linode running nginx, with so few users put it on one server. Finally wordpress should be $5/month or less. Right there you could drop at least $15 / month.
  - lugg 9y ago
    $15 / month. Kind of not even worth thinking about when you're a developer and should be internally billing yourself for $100/hour+.
    - lettergram 9y ago
      Fair, what I decribed should reduce overhead as well (less nodes = less complexity typically). Also when you're starting something you can't bill yourself anything mentally. Else you'd go out and be billing someone else, you'd likely make more money. In part cutting costs is important because it's actual savings, i.e. imagning billing yourself doesn't produce real money.
    - jcadam 9y ago
      Hey, my day job doesn't pay nearly that much :)
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Consolidate that all down to a single server and save your configurations in case you ever do get customers. There’s no need to be wasting $120/month when you literally have no customers at this point.
  - danenania 9y ago
    I'd disagree. Optimizing infrastructure costs is the last thing you should be worried about at the start. Your time is far, far more valuable. If it works, leave it alone and spend your time on product/sales/marketing.
    - pfarnsworth 9y ago
      He has 5 trial signups after 6 weeks. Let’s be realistic here. His time is literally valueless because he hasn’t made a single sale. Better to save money and expand if and when a paying customer shows up.
      - jcadam 9y ago
        Well, you know, I'd like to think my problem is sales/marketing and not product.
        tarsinge 9y ago
        Maybe you know it, but reading your comments it looks like you are treating sales/marketing as an afterthought. For running a successful business, I think you should try to always have the others in mind when you work on one, because that’s how you can find product/market fit (otherwise it’s mostly luck, and/or you had perfect hindsight of your market).
      - icedchai 9y ago
        $120/month is a drop in the bucket. You need to look at the opportunity cost. His time is worth over $100/hour and better spent on other things (features, marketing, whatever..) If he gets a ton of customers, he'll need to expand anyway and will waste even more time setting things back up.
- tonyhb 9y ago
  You could containerize all of these services and run them on the same machine.
  - lugg 9y ago
    I'd advise against single machine container deployment. You'll hit big problems the day you need to horizontally scale. If you're going to dockerize, at least spread things over a two node swarm so you find these issues early.

1. App Server (all my Clojure services... and the one transient service written in golang) 2. Postgres (Master) 3. Postgres (Standby) 4. Elasticsearch server (yea, only one right now, you know, few users) 5. One linode running RabbitMQ 6. The linode running NGINX that sits in front of the app server and does all of the reverse proxying Also, 7. The linode running the marketing site (wordpress). I know, I know, I'm a nerd and just couldn't help myself with the architecture. Hey, at least it should be fairly scalable.

lettergram 9y ago
Don't need the standby server, just use automated backups. You also don't need the linode running nginx, with so few users put it on one server. Finally wordpress should be $5/month or less. Right there you could drop at least $15 / month.
- lugg 9y ago
  $15 / month. Kind of not even worth thinking about when you're a developer and should be internally billing yourself for $100/hour+.
  - lettergram 9y ago
    Fair, what I decribed should reduce overhead as well (less nodes = less complexity typically). Also when you're starting something you can't bill yourself anything mentally. Else you'd go out and be billing someone else, you'd likely make more money. In part cutting costs is important because it's actual savings, i.e. imagning billing yourself doesn't produce real money.
  - jcadam 9y ago
    Hey, my day job doesn't pay nearly that much :)
pfarnsworth 9y ago
Consolidate that all down to a single server and save your configurations in case you ever do get customers. There’s no need to be wasting $120/month when you literally have no customers at this point.
- danenania 9y ago
  I'd disagree. Optimizing infrastructure costs is the last thing you should be worried about at the start. Your time is far, far more valuable. If it works, leave it alone and spend your time on product/sales/marketing.
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    He has 5 trial signups after 6 weeks. Let’s be realistic here. His time is literally valueless because he hasn’t made a single sale. Better to save money and expand if and when a paying customer shows up.
    - jcadam 9y ago
      Well, you know, I'd like to think my problem is sales/marketing and not product.
      - tarsinge 9y ago
        Maybe you know it, but reading your comments it looks like you are treating sales/marketing as an afterthought. For running a successful business, I think you should try to always have the others in mind when you work on one, because that’s how you can find product/market fit (otherwise it’s mostly luck, and/or you had perfect hindsight of your market).
    - icedchai 9y ago
      $120/month is a drop in the bucket. You need to look at the opportunity cost. His time is worth over $100/hour and better spent on other things (features, marketing, whatever..) If he gets a ton of customers, he'll need to expand anyway and will waste even more time setting things back up.
tonyhb 9y ago
You could containerize all of these services and run them on the same machine.
- lugg 9y ago
  I'd advise against single machine container deployment. You'll hit big problems the day you need to horizontally scale. If you're going to dockerize, at least spread things over a two node swarm so you find these issues early.