AWS is a giant and navigating through the vast information is confusing. I get it. In this guide on the cost of WordPress site on AWS, I will break down all the crucial aspects that affects your costs when hosting a WP on AWS, helping you make informed decisions that fit your budget and requirements.

Let’s dive in!

Table of Content

• AWS Pricing Structure
• Understanding Your Hosting Requirements
• Choosing the Right Instance for Your Website
• Storage Costs
• Choosing the Database
• CDN
• Bandwidth and Data Transfer Costs
• Backup and Disaster Recovery
• Estimates based on Traffic

1. Overview of AWS Pricing Structure

AWS pricing is based on a “pay-as-you-go” model, which means you only pay for the resources you actually use. This includes services for compute, storage, data transfer, and additional services like security and backups. AWS offers various services to help you build a scalable, high-performance WordPress site, but the exact costs depend on how you configure them.

Key AWS Pricing Components

• Compute (EC2)
• Storage (S3, EBS)
• Data Transfer (Bandwidth)
• Databases (RDS, Aurora)
• Content Delivery (CloudFront)
• Additional Services (CloudWatch, Route 53, Elastic Load Balancing)

2. Determine Your Hosting Requirements

Before diving into costs, you need to define the key elements of your AWS WP Hosting:

• Traffic Volume: High traffic means you need more compute power and possibly load balancing, which will increase costs.
• Scalability Needs: Will your traffic grow over time? You may need to plan for auto-scaling and storage scaling.
• Performance: You may want to optimize for speed with Content Delivery Networks (CDN) or dedicated database instances, which can increase costs.
• Redundancy & Backup: To ensure high availability and disaster recovery, additional resources like backup and replication could add to your overall cost.

3. Choosing the Right EC2 Instance for WordPress

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is where your WordPress website’s server will run. EC2 pricing is based on:

• Instance Type: A larger instance with more CPU and memory will cost more. For small websites, you can start with a t2.micro or t3.micro instance (eligible for the AWS Free Tier).
• On-Demand vs Reserved: On-demand instances are priced hourly, while Reserved instances (long-term commitment) offer lower prices for one- or three-year terms.
• Scaling: If you’re running an ecommerce store, you might need an EC2 instance that can scale depending on traffic (using Auto Scaling).

Example:

• t2.micro (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM) – Free tier eligible for up to 750 hours per month for the first year.
• t3.medium (2 vCPUs, 4GB RAM) – Approx. $0.0416 per hour ($30/month).

4. Cost of Storage (EBS & S3)

Your WordPress site will require storage for both the operating system and the content (media files, themes, plugins, etc.).

• EBS (Elastic Block Store): This is where your instance’s data is stored. You can choose between SSD or HDD-backed storage.

Example: General Purpose SSD (gp3) – This is ideal for WordPress and will cost around $0.08 per GB per month.

• S3 for Media Storage: If your site hosts a lot of media files (images, videos, etc.), you might consider storing these in Amazon S3 instead of on your EC2 instance to reduce load and improve performance.

Example: S3 Standard Storage – $0.023 per GB per month.

5. Choosing the Database: RDS or EC2 MySQL

WordPress uses a MySQL database to store its content. AWS provides two options for hosting this database:

Option 1: EC2 MySQL

• You can install MySQL directly on an EC2 instance.
• The cost depends on the EC2 instance type and the amount of storage you require.
• It may be cheaper at the start, but it requires more manual management and more of your time.

Option 2: Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service)

• RDS simplifies database management (backups, updates, etc.) and offers better scalability and reliability.
• Pricing depends on the instance type, storage, and data transfer.
  • db.t3.micro (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM): Around $0.017 per hour ($12/month).
  • Storage: $0.10 per GB for General Purpose (SSD).

6. Content Delivery Network (CloudFront)

If your ecommerce store targets a global audience, you’ll want to use Amazon CloudFront, which is a CDN (Content Delivery Network). CloudFront caches your content closer to your users, improving load times.

• Pricing: CloudFront charges based on data transfer and the number of requests.
  • Data Transfer: $0.085 per GB (first 10TB per month).
  • HTTP/HTTPS Requests: $0.0075 per 10,000 requests.

7. Bandwidth and Data Transfer Costs

Data transfer costs are incurred when users access your site. AWS charges for data transferred out of their data centers to the internet (inbound traffic is free).

• Data Transfer Out: First 1GB per month is free, then costs start at $0.09 per GB for the next 10TB.
• If you use CloudFront, it can reduce these costs because CloudFront’s caching minimizes the need for repeated data transfer from your EC2 instance.

8. Backup & Disaster Recovery (Snapshots)

You should always plan for regular backups of your WordPress site and database.

• EBS Snapshots: Amazon allows you to create snapshots of your EBS volumes. Snapshots cost around $0.05 per GB per month.
• Amazon S3 Backups: Storing backups on S3 is a cost-effective solution. S3 Storage: $0.023 per GB (Standard storage).

9. Other AWS Services to Consider

There are other services like DNS, load balancer and more that helps in efficient AWS performance on WordPress.

Amazon Route 53 (DNS Service)

• Pricing is based on the number of hosted zones and queries.

For example:

• $0.50 per hosted zone per month.
• $0.40 per million queries for the first 1 billion queries.

Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)

If you plan to distribute traffic across multiple EC2 instances (to scale your application), you’ll need an ELB.

For example:

• $0.025 per hour for the load balancer.
• $0.008 per GB of data processed by the load balancer.

WordPress Site on AWS: Cost Estimates

Let’s calculate the monthly breakdown on the basis of traffic.

Example: Website Traffic >50k per month

• EC2 Instance: t3.medium – $30
• EBS Storage (100GB): $8
• RDS (db.t3.micro MySQL): $12
• CloudFront (1TB data transfer): $85
• S3 Storage (50GB media): $1.15
• Backup Costs (Snapshots & S3): $3
• Route 53: $1

Got questions? Get a free consultation and our experts will help you structure and manage your AWS on WordPress.

Total Estimated Monthly Cost: Around $140-150 per month

Cost of AWS WP Hosting (Based on Monthly Visits)

Traffic	Low (50K Visits/Month)	Medium (200K Visits/Month)	High (1M Visits/Month)
EC2 (Compute)	$30-$50	$60-$150	$300-$600
RDS (Database)	$20-$50	$50-$100	$200+
EBS (Storage)	$5-$10	$10-$20	$20+
S3 (Static Files)	$5-$20	$20-$50	$100+
CloudFront (CDN)	$20-$50	$50-$150	$200+
Data Transfer	$10-$50	$50-$200	$500+
Route 53 (DNS)	$0.50	$0.50	$0.50
CloudWatch	$5-$10	$10-$20	$30+
Estimated total	$95-$190/month	$250-$960/month	$1350+/month

This is a basic estimate. Costs can vary based on traffic, scalability requirements, and additional AWS services you use.

If servers are left unchecked, AWS costs can shoot up and you can end up paying more than your budget. Most successful business owners deligate AWS management to professional services and effectively utilize their times to focus on core business activities like scaling and marketing.

Conclusion

Amazon Web Services offers flexibility and scalability for hosting WordPress site on AWS but understanding the pricing structure is key to controlling your costs. As an ecommerce store owner or CTO, you must carefully assess your traffic, scalability needs, and performance goals when determining the most cost-effective AWS resources.

By selecting the right EC2 instance, using RDS for database management, leveraging CloudFront for performance optimization, and controlling your storage and data transfer costs, you can build a powerful and cost-efficient WordPress hosting environment on AWS.