Total project AWS cost: ~$0.25 Ongoing monthly cost: ~$0.23 (within Free Tier) / ~$1-2 (after Free Tier)
| Phase | Duration | AWS Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch 1: Design | 2 hours | $0.00 | Documentation only |
| Ch 2: MVP Build | 8 hours | $0.00 | Local development |
| Ch 3: First Deploy | 4 hours | ~$0.10 | CDK deploy + debugging |
| Ch 4: Cold Start | 6 hours | ~$0.15 | Multiple Fargate task launches |
| Ch 5: Lambda Migration | 4 hours | $0.00 | Lambda Free Tier |
| Ch 6: Smart Routing | 3 hours | $0.00 | Within Free Tier |
| Ch 7: Release Automation | 2 hours | $0.00 | No AWS resources |
| Total | ~29 hours | ~$0.25 |
| Service | Usage | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| API Gateway (WebSocket) | ~1000 connections | ~$0.01 |
| API Gateway (HTTP) | ~500 requests | ~$0.00 |
| Lambda | ~2000 invocations | ~$0.00 |
| DynamoDB | ~5000 R/W units | ~$0.01 |
| S3 | ~100MB storage | ~$0.00 |
| CloudFront | ~1GB transfer | ~$0.09 |
| ECR | ~1.5GB image | ~$0.15 |
| CloudWatch | 1 dashboard, 10 metrics | ~$0.00 |
| Fargate Spot (on-demand) | ~2 hours/month | ~$0.05 |
| Total | ~$0.31 |
Note: Fargate cost assumes
AGENT_RUNTIME=bothwith occasional heavy tasks routed to Fargate. WithAGENT_RUNTIME=lambda, Fargate cost drops to $0.
These are the services we intentionally avoided to stay under budget:
| Service | Would Have Cost | How We Avoided It |
|---|---|---|
| NAT Gateway | $32+/month | Fargate Public IP + VPC Gateway Endpoints |
| ALB | $18+/month | API Gateway (WebSocket + HTTP) |
| VPC Interface Endpoints | $7+/month each | Gateway Endpoints (free for S3/DynamoDB) |
| RDS | $15+/month | DynamoDB on-demand (Free Tier) |
| Fargate (always-on) | $15+/month | On-demand only + Lambda default |
| EC2 (traditional) | $20+/month | Fully serverless architecture |
| Total avoided | $107+/month |
Traditional approach: ~$107/month
Phase 1 (Fargate only): ~$15/month (85% reduction)
Phase 2 (Lambda): ~$0.23/month (99.8% reduction)
Phase 3 (Smart routing): ~$0.31/month (hybrid, both available)
Assuming ~100 conversations/month:
| Runtime | Cost/Conversation |
|---|---|
| Lambda | ~$0.001 (1/10 cent) |
| Fargate (warm) | ~$0.003 |
| Fargate (cold start) | ~$0.02 |
Within the first 12 months of an AWS account:
| Service | Free Tier Allowance | Our Usage | Covered? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lambda | 1M requests, 400K GB-sec | ~2K requests | Yes |
| DynamoDB | 25 RCU, 25 WCU, 25GB | ~5K ops, <1GB | Yes |
| S3 | 5GB, 20K GET, 2K PUT | ~100MB | Yes |
| CloudFront | 1TB transfer, 10M requests | ~1GB | Yes |
| API Gateway | 1M HTTP calls | ~500 | Yes |
| CloudWatch | 10 metrics, 3 dashboards | 10 metrics, 1 dashboard | Yes |
Within Free Tier, the entire platform costs ~$0.23/month (mainly ECR storage and minimal CloudWatch).
| Metric | EC2 Instance | Serverless OpenClaw |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $20-50 | $0.23-1.00 |
| Cold start | 0s (always on) | 1.35s (Lambda) / 0s (pre-warm) |
| Maintenance | OS updates, patches | Zero |
| Scaling | Manual | Automatic |
| Availability | Single AZ | Multi-AZ (managed) |
| Deployment | SSH + scripts | cdk deploy |
The 99% cost reduction comes from a fundamental shift: pay for what you use, not for what you have.