A professional-grade website for under $5 a month

Description and use

The migration reduced hosting costs from US$40 to US$2–5/month, eliminated lead loss, added robust security, automated deployment, and introduced event-driven reliability with DLQ handling.

Problem

The original clinic website on Base44 cost US$40/month, lost leads, had a single URL per condition, and lacked visibility into operations.

Outcome

The migration reduced hosting costs from US$40 to US$2–5/month, eliminated lead loss, added robust security, automated deployment, and introduced event-driven reliability with DLQ handling.

Workflow

• 1. Design stack with Astro static site, S3 + CloudFront, API Gateway + Lambda, DynamoDB, EventBridge + SQS, Cognito, Route 53.
• 2. Implement security: TLS 1.2+, HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, OIDC for GitHub Actions, SSM Parameter Store for secrets, Cognito for /admin, signed webhooks, least-privilege IAM.
• 3. Build event-driven pipeline: signup, booking, payment events go to EventBridge → SQS → Lambda → email platform, with DLQ after 5 retries.
• 4. Automate deployment: GitHub Actions runs lint, typecheck, tests, Playwright, Lighthouse, link check; on success, CDK deploys preview then production; smoke tests run; uptime probe every 5 minutes.
• 5. Perform atomic Route 53 DNS cutover after testing on CloudFront URL; rollback script available.
• 6. Monitor: 11 CloudWatch alarms, 5-minute uptime checks, email alerts for failures.
• 7. Maintain cost optimization: serverless pay-per-use, no NAT, ARM Lambdas, short log retention, S3 versioning with 30-day expiry.

Evidence

My wife runs a natural skin clinic. Her first website lived on Base44, an AI app builder, for US$40 a month.

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It now runs for an estimated US$2–5 a month, ships through a fully automated pipeline, and was designed against all six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

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Base44 had a quiet bug. One signup form saved emails but never sent them to the email platform, so those people never got their free guide.

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On AWS, every signup, booking and payment becomes an event. The event sits in a queue until the email platform confirms it.

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No infrastructure change goes through the AWS console. Every change, whether it's my code or my wife's blog post, takes the same path.

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The stack: Astro static site · S3 + CloudFront · API Gateway + Lambda (Node 22 on Graviton) · DynamoDB · EventBridge + SQS · Cognito · Route 53.

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Before: US$40/month on Base44. After: under US$5. That's a saving of about US$420 a year.

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