Goodbye $500 Node Bills: How I Run a Full Ethereum Node on AWS for 80% Less

The moment of truth had arrived. I was finalizing the architecture for our new Web3 project, and we needed a reliable, scalable connection to the Ethereum blockchain. I looked at the pricing for managed node services like Infura and Alchemy.

My heart sank. For the data throughput we needed, the bill was pushing over $500 a month.

As a DevOps engineer, this felt wrong. I was used to finding cost-effective, scalable solutions on AWS. So I asked myself: could I run our own full node on the cloud and wrestle back control of our infrastructure — and our budget?

The answer was a resounding yes. After a week of experimentation, I had a production-ready, fault-tolerant Ethereum node running on AWS. The monthly cost? Under $100. Here’s the blueprint I used to slash our infrastructure costs by over 80%.

Why You Shouldn’t (and Should) Run Your Own Node

First, let’s be honest. Using a service like Infura is the right call for most prototypes and early-stage dApps. It’s fast to set up and saves you from operational headaches.

But as you scale, the costs scale with you. Running your own node becomes a necessity when:

• Costs are spiraling with a…