So you probably didn’t notice (hopefully didn’t) but Signal-Chief recently made a move. About a month ago, I was checking my email when I got a notice from GoDaddy. I’ve been using them to host Signal-Chief on a dedicated Virtual Private Server (VPS) for a couple of years ago. I had kinda forgotten that my anniversary was coming along and that it was going to be time to renew the thing. When I opened my email and saw that they were looking for just shy of $1,000 for another two years, I about lost it (apparently I got a hell of a discount the first time because I promise I don’t like you guys enough to pay that much for hosting).
So, it was time to do some shopping. I went over to the AWS pricing calculator to see what the price would look like. Looking at the calculator, cost comes out to about $34 a month (or $816) or a difference of about $143 for the year. Not to shabby.
Then I decided to take it a step further. That estimate was based on what they call an “on-demand” instance. I can turn that instance on and off whenever I want and even destroy it; I’m under no obligation. But Amazon also gives discounts if I commit to a period of service. Looking at this additional table, I see that if I commit to a year or more of service (either fully prepaid, partially, or monthly billing), I get substantial discounts. For example if I commit to a year and don’t put any money down, my yearly costs drops from $407 for the on-demand instance to $251. If I take a step further and pre-pay for the year it drops down to $235 for the year.
Still if I go one more step and do a three year commit, it takes me to a three year cost of $525 without the prepay or $458 with the prepay.
| Monthly | 1 Year | 3 Years | |
| GoDaddy | $39.99 | $479.88 | $1439.64 |
| AWS On-Demand | $33.97 | $407.64 | $1222.92 |
| AWS 1 Year (non-prepaid) | $20.96 | $251.42 | $754.24 |
| AWS 1 Year (prepaid) | $19.59 | $235.00 | $705.00 |
| AWS 3 Year (non-prepaid) | $14.60 | $175.20 | $525.60 |
| AWS 3 Year (prepaid) | $12.73 | $152.76 | $458.00 |
So looking at the table, it became really obvious that GoDaddy was not the freaking answer for me. That left a few choices for AWS. On-Demand, again right out. I’m comfortable with doing a 3 year commit (Signal-Chief has been around this long) but I’m debating if a total difference of $67.60 is worth the pre-paid or not. When you do the math, it’s a savings of $1.88 a month so screw it, I am doing the monthly option.
That being said, I’ve been running Signal-Chief for a very long time now on my own dime. I refuse to use advertising on it, for a variety of reasons. Up until now, I’ve never even asked for any donations. In all honesty, I’m not asking for donations now, however people have asked before how they can contribute and aside from writing (I would love to have other writers), cash donations are an option to. I’ve created an account on paypal that can accept donations to help me maintain the site. If you’re willing and able to donate, great. If not, I hope you still enjoy the site.
In the next few days I will do another article on how I managed to actually move everything over from GoDaddy to AWS, without losing services or anyone noticing.