^^ This 1000x. Humans are incredibly expensive and notoriously unreliable when compared against “machines”; or in this case an API. It’s usually worth paying

^^ This 1000x. Humans are incredibly expensive and notoriously unreliable when compared against “machines”; or in this case an API. It’s usually worth paying 2-3x the cost to have someone else manage something for you with a given SLA, because that’s what it will end up being when you decide to bring it in house when you take into account the time and effort needed as well. A “good” & “reliable” Systems Engineering team, that can offer 24/7 support will take around a year to hire and setup, and they need roughly the same amount of time to transition you off AWS in to your system. They probably need closer to 3-5yrs to give the same level of documentation, API’s, tooling, processes, UI’s and training that AWS already provides. Let’s call it 5 years to get to the level of AWS when you started the transition. A decent team of 5-7, including engineers + PO/PM + UX and so forth, is at least $1.5M/yr. That’s $7.5M over 5 years, not including your new hardware and networking costs. Let’s call it $10M. You’re also 5 years behind AWS now, and over that transition you’re still paying AWS, and your development speed has halved as you wait for your new team to build or transition infrastructure. You can trade cost and quality for speed and have everything ready in 2-3 years by setting up a few teams. Add HR support, more contractors etc etc. you’re looking at a $10M+ outlay again, regardless. Or you can keep paying AWS $5M/yr, renegotiate fees often and literally not worry about that headache and focus on your product.