If you don't have fixed demand, you may want to consider spot instances. The upside is that they can be much cheaper, but the downside is that they can disappea

If you don't have fixed demand, you may want to consider spot instances. The upside is that they can be much cheaper, but the downside is that they can disappear at any second. If you design your app around high availability, it may work for you. This HNer runs core services on spot instances and claims at least a 70% savings: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4662442 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4662442