Its worth noting that you get more than just EC2 + a full-time sysadmin with EY (speaking as an EY customer myself), and I don't mean this to question your own

Its worth noting that you get more than just EC2 + a full-time sysadmin with EY (speaking as an EY customer myself), and I don't mean this to question your own decision...that's something we all have to make considering the budgets we have available. With EY, you get EC2 + several heavily experienced sysadmins who work every day on the exact stack that you're working with...they know it in and out like the back of their hand + the EY stack which has been battle-tested for several years now in all sorts of unique situations + performance that you couldn't replicate yourself without all that experience. Again, not attacking your choice at all, I'm just saying that its hard to appreciate all that you're getting until you actually use the service and once you are, its easy to justify the costs.