DEV Community

Hive80-lab
Hive80-lab

Posted on

The $0 Infrastructure That Handles 10K Requests/Day (No AWS, No Kubernetes)

#devops #beginners #tutorial #cost

The $0 Infrastructure That Handles 10K Requests/Day

I run a SaaS product that gets 10,000+ API requests per day. My infrastructure bill is $0. Here is the exact stack.

No, this is not clickbait. No, I am not running on someone's free tier forever. This is a deliberate architecture designed for small teams who want to ship without burning runway on AWS.

The Stack

Component Service Cost
API hosting Cloudflare Workers $0 (100K req/day free)
Database Supabase (Postgres) $0 (500MB, 50K MAU)
Static assets Cloudflare Pages $0 (unlimited)
Email Resend $0 (3K emails/mo)
Monitoring UptimeRobot $0 (50 monitors)
DNS Cloudflare $0
SSL Cloudflare $0 (automatic)
CDN Cloudflare $0 (global)

Total monthly cost: $0

Why This Works (And When It Breaks)

This stack works because of three principles:

1. Edge-First Architecture

Instead of a central server, every request hits the nearest Cloudflare edge node. My API code runs in 300+ locations worldwide. Latency is under 50ms for 95% of users.

// Cloudflare Worker — the entire API
export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const url = new URL(request.url);
    const path = url.pathname;

    // Route handling
    if (path === '/api/health') {
      return jsonResponse({ status: 'ok', timestamp: Date.now() });
    }

    if (path.startsWith('/api/users') && request.method === 'GET') {
      const users = await env.DB.prepare(
        'SELECT id, name, email FROM users LIMIT 50'
      ).all();
      return jsonResponse(users);
    }

    if (path.startsWith('/api/users') && request.method === 'POST') {
      const body = await request.json();
      const result = await env.DB.prepare(
        'INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES (?, ?) RETURNING *'
      ).bind(body.name, body.email).first();
      return jsonResponse(result, 201);
    }

    return new Response('Not Found', { status: 404 });
  }
};

function jsonResponse(data, status = 200) {
  return new Response(JSON.stringify(data), {
    status,
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }
  });
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

2. Database as a Service (Not a Database Server)

Supabase gives you a real Postgres database. Not a toy. Not a limited subset. A real PostgreSQL instance with:

  • Row-level security
  • Real-time subscriptions
  • REST API auto-generated
  • 500MB storage (plenty for a small app)
  • 50,000 monthly active users 
# Python client for background jobs
from supabase import create_client

supabase = create_client(SUPABASE_URL, SUPABASE_KEY)

# Insert
result = supabase.table('events').insert({
    'type': 'signup',
    'user_id': user_id,
    'metadata': {'source': 'organic'}
}).execute()

# Query with filters
result = supabase.table('events') \
    .select('*') \
    .eq('type', 'signup') \
    .order('created_at', desc=True) \
    .limit(10) \
    .execute()
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

3. Static Everything Else

Your landing page, docs, and dashboard are all static. They live on Cloudflare Pages and load in under 1 second anywhere in the world.

# wrangler.toml — deploy config
name = "my-api"
main = "src/worker.js"
compatibility_date = "2024-01-01"

[[d1_databases]]
binding = "DB"
database_name = "my-db"
database_id = "xxx"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The Traffic Math

Here is why 10K requests/day fits in the free tier:

  • Cloudflare Workers: 100,000 requests/day free → 10K uses 10%
  • Supabase: 500MB DB, 50K MAU → 10K req/day = ~300 unique users
  • Cloudflare Pages: Unlimited bandwidth and requests
  • Resend: 3,000 emails/month → ~100 emails/day

You have 10x headroom before you need to pay for anything.

What Happens When You Outgrow Free?

Threshold What Breaks Cost to Fix
100K req/day Workers free tier $5/mo (Workers Paid)
500MB DB Supabase free tier $25/mo (Pro plan)
50K MAU Supabase auth $25/mo (Pro plan)
3K emails/mo Resend free tier $20/mo (Pro plan)

The beauty: you only pay for what you outgrow. Most apps never hit these limits.

The Monitoring Stack (Also Free) 

import json, urllib.request

# UptimeRobot API — free monitoring
def check_uptime():
    # 50 free monitors, 5-minute intervals
    api_key = "your-uptimerobot-key"
    url = "https://api.uptimerobot.com/v2/getMonitors"
    data = json.dumps({
        "api_key": api_key,
        "format": "json",
        "logs": 1
    }).encode()

    req = urllib.request.Request(url, data=data, method="POST")
    req.add_header("Content-Type", "application/json")

    with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as resp:
        result = json.loads(resp.read())
        for monitor in result.get("monitors", []):
            status = "UP" if monitor["status"] == 2 else "DOWN"
            print(f"{monitor['friendly_name']}: {status}")
            print(f"  Uptime: {monitor.get('all_time_uptime_ratio', '?')}%")
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The Deployment Pipeline

No CI/CD service needed. Cloudflare's CLI handles everything:

# Deploy API
npx wrangler deploy

# Deploy static site  
npx wrangler pages deploy ./dist

# Run database migration
npx wrangler d1 execute my-db --file=./schema.sql
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Total deploy time: 12 seconds. No build servers. No Docker images. No Kubernetes YAML.

Real Numbers From My App

  • Daily requests: 10,000-12,000
  • Average response time: 47ms
  • Uptime: 99.97% (measured over 6 months)
  • Database size: 87MB (out of 500MB)
  • Monthly cost: $0
  • Time to deploy: 12 seconds
  • Time to scale: automatic (Cloudflare handles it)

When This Stack Is Wrong For You

This is not a silver bullet. Do NOT use this stack if:

  1. You need long-running processes — Workers have a 30-second CPU limit
  2. You need WebSocket connections — Workers don't support persistent connections
  3. You need more than 500MB of database storage — You will need to pay
  4. You need full server control — You can't SSH into a Worker
  5. You process large files — Workers have a 100MB memory limit

For 80% of small SaaS apps, none of these matter.

Want the Complete Setup Guide?

I have put together a complete Ops Mega Bundle with all 5 automation kits (34 files total) that includes:

  • Infrastructure-as-code templates (Terraform + Wrangler)
  • CI/CD pipeline configurations
  • Monitoring and alerting scripts
  • Database migration tools
  • Security audit checklists
  • Cost optimization guides

Get the full bundle: Ops Mega Bundle — $49 (normally $88)

Or start smaller:

Use code MEGA50 for 50% off (first 20 buyers). 30-day money-back guarantee.

What is your current infrastructure bill? Could this stack replace it? Comment below.

Top comments (0)