amadan
business model: hosted = $1/app-mo + $0.004/instance-hour; S3 cost anatomy recorded
Paul's challenge on PR #197: hibernating apps cost cents (confirmed from live meters), so $5 flat mispriced the platform's core trick. CE usage-type split shows S3 is 94% requests — our own 2s polling, not litestream; Eleven's litestream lesson recorded as inherited risk.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
1 file changed,
+21
−4
docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-13-carloku-business-model-design.md+21 −4
diff --git a/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-13-carloku-business-model-design.md b/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-13-carloku-business-model-design.md| index 28c138280..f852db054 100644 |
| --- a/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-13-carloku-business-model-design.md |
| +++ b/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-13-carloku-business-model-design.md |
| @@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ dashboard, not published commitments. |
| | --- | --- | --- | --- | |
| | **Try** | everyone, forever | $0 (our permanent marketing cost) | 1 tiny hosted app; hard caps (1 GB egress/mo, 250 MB storage); sleeps aggressively | |
| | **Free pool** | hobbyists | $0 (pool-funded — see below) | generous limits (10 GB egress, 1 GB storage shape) while the pool covers it | |
| -| **Hosted** | indies, agencies | per app | **$5/app-month**; egress $0.15/GB past allowance; storage $0.05/GB-month past allowance | |
| +| **Hosted** | indies, agencies | per app + usage | **$1/app-month baseline** + **$0.004/instance-hour** (a hibernating app ≈ $1/mo; an always-on app ≈ $3.90/mo — hibernation is the product and the price says so); egress $0.15/GB and storage $0.05/GB-month past allowances | |
| | **Fleet** | self-hosting companies (Eleven shape), edge/IoT (Pi shape), agencies on own metal | per box, tiered by device class | **$5/box-month server class**, **$1/box-month device class**; 10+ boxes → 40% off; relay egress $0.15/GB past 20 GB/box/mo; direct-served traffic free (unmetered by construction); **apps free** | |
| | **Dedicated** | big orgs wanting the efficiency without self-hosting | per dedicated box we run | **cost × multiple** all-in; at the standard 5× a t4g.small is ≈ $95/box-mo and a t4g.medium ≈ $170 (2026-08 all-in costs ≈ $19/$34) — the dedicated multiple is expected to settle LOWER than 5× (managed capacity competes with raw EC2 at ~$13); it is a first-class knob. **Apps free**; metered egress/storage on top; idle included — they rent the whole box, so no idle-smearing question exists | |
| @@ -110,8 +110,20 @@ commons, which is a story we can tell. |
| ≈ **$91/month all-in** at steady state (live rate card |
| `actual-prices`, AWS Pricing API rates, EIP/Route53/S3-churn/DNS |
| overheads included). |
| -- A hosted app's marginal cost at current utilization ≈ **$0.60/month** |
| - → $5/app-month ≈ 88% margin, comfortably above the 80% target. |
| +- Per-app cost truth (2026-08-15, live meters + CE usage-type split): a |
| + **hibernating app costs cents** (storage at $0.023/GB; no running unit |
| + = no box allocation, by metering construction); an always-on ~190 MB |
| + app allocates ≈ **$1.20–1.80/month** of box. Hence the $1 + $0.004/h |
| + shape: sleeper ≈ $1 (very high margin on cents of cost), always-on |
| + small ≈ $3.90 (~60–70% margin — acceptable for the volume play; |
| + a `mem_gb_hour` overage price axis is the v2 lever for heavy apps). |
| +- **S3 cost anatomy** (flagship MTD, CE by usage type): $4.32 total = |
| + $2.31 PUT/LIST + $1.71 GET + **$0.26 storage** — 94% requests, and the |
| + GETs are our own 2 s control-plane polling (~$1/box/month of |
| + heartbeat), NOT litestream. Litestream is currently quiet on flagship |
| + (uploads only on change) but Eleven's litestream-spam lesson is an |
| + inherited RISK as tenant data planes grow — recorded as a watch-item, |
| + and per-tenant S3-request metering is the future guard. |
| - A fleet box costs us ≈ **$0.20–0.50/month** (control-plane bucket |
| churn) plus relay egress at $0.09/GB when tunnelled → $5/box-month is |
| ~90%+ margin; $1/box-month device class still >50% margin if the |
| @@ -155,7 +167,12 @@ work, own spec); the carloku.com pricing page (follows this doc). |
| ## Follow-ups recorded |
| -- Fleet metering + pool ledger spec (items 1–4 above). |
| +- Fleet metering + pool ledger spec (items 1–4 above), plus a |
| + `mem_gb_hour` overage price axis and per-tenant S3-request metering |
| + (the litestream guard). |
| +- Control-plane polling efficiency: ~$1/box/month of 2 s heartbeat GETs |
| + is the platform's own S3-cost floor — a poll-interval/long-poll lever |
| + worth a look before the fleet is 50 boxes. |
| - Enforcement spec for Try/pool caps (sleep/cap policy hooks). |
| - Pricing-page copy for carloku.com once numbers survive a month of |
| dashboard contact. |