The 3 AWS Services Every Small Business Should Know

Your business runs on software. But you probably don't think about where that software lives. Most small businesses rent a server somewhere or hire an engineer to manage infrastructure. That's expensive and unnecessary. AWS has three services that do 99% of what small businesses need - and the total monthly cost is often less than a business lunch.

1. Lambda: Run Code Without Servers

What it does: You upload code (Python, JavaScript, etc.). AWS runs it when something triggers it. You only pay when it runs.

Plain English: Imagine hiring a worker who only shows up when there's work to do. No salary. No benefits. You pay per task. Done at 2pm? They leave. Back tomorrow when work arrives.

Real example: A customer uploads a document. That triggers your code. Your code reads the document, extracts data, stores it. Takes 2 seconds. AWS charges you for those 2 seconds and nothing more.

Cost: For most small businesses processing 50-200 documents per day, this is $0-$10/month.

When to use: Anything that happens periodically or in response to an event. Processing uploads. Sending emails. Transforming data. Approving requests.

When not to use: Anything that runs 24/7. A live website (use EC2 or app hosting). Real-time gaming. Video streaming.

2. S3: Store Anything

What it does: Cloud file storage. Upload a PDF, image, CSV, video. It's there. Accessible. Secure.

Plain English: Think of it like Google Drive for your business data, but cheaper and more reliable.

Real example: Your accounting software needs to store receipts. Instead of buying a file server, you upload to S3. It's automatically backed up. It's encrypted. It's accessible from anywhere.

Cost: For 100 GB of storage (enough for 50,000 documents), this is roughly $2-$5/month.

When to use: Anything you need to store. Documents. Logs. Images. Backups. Source code.

When not to use: Never. You should always use S3. It's cheaper than a file server, more reliable, and more secure.

3. DynamoDB: Fast Database

What it does: A database that's fast, scales automatically, and bills by usage (not by server size).

Plain English: Imagine a filing cabinet that automatically expands when you add files, shrinks when you delete them, and you only pay for the space you use.

Real example: You're processing 1,000 customer records per day. Each record is stored in DynamoDB. Tomorrow, 5,000 records. DynamoDB handles it automatically. No reconfiguration. No downtime.

Cost: For most small business usage (thousands of reads/writes per day), this is $5-$25/month.

When to use: Any data that needs to be queryable and fast. Customer records. Inventory. Order history. Settings.

When not to use: Very large documents (use S3). Highly relational data with complex joins (use PostgreSQL). But for 80% of small business cases, DynamoDB is simpler and cheaper.

A Real Workflow: How They Work Together

Let's say you're an accountant. You process expense reports.

1. Client uploads a receipt (PDF) to your system. Files go to S3. Cost: ~$0.02 per file per month.
2. S3 automatically notifies Lambda that a new file arrived. Lambda reads the PDF. Calls Claude AI to extract: vendor, amount, date, category. Cost: ~$0.0001 per request (for 2 seconds of compute).
3. Lambda writes the extracted data to DynamoDB. Structured record: vendor name, amount, category, date. Queryable and indexed. Cost: ~$0.001 per write.
4. You query DynamoDB weekly: "Show me all expenses over $500." Instant results. Cost: ~$0.001 per query.

The Cost Comparison

Traditional approach:

• Hire contractor or full-time person: $3,000-$5,000/month.
• Or rent managed hosting: $50-$200/month + engineer time.

AWS Lambda + S3 + DynamoDB:

• $20-$100/month, fully automated, zero downtime, infinitely scalable.

Getting Started

You don't need to be technical. Here's what you need to know:

1. AWS has a free tier. 1 million Lambda invocations per month. 5 GB of S3 storage. Enough to test.
2. You can use the AWS console (web interface). Point and click. No command line.
3. Hire an engineer for a day or two. They set up the workflow. You manage it from the AWS console.

Or hire us. We build these for small businesses all the time.

The Honest Truth

You probably don't need a complex cloud infrastructure. You don't need Kubernetes. You don't need DevOps. You need Lambda + S3 + DynamoDB.

These three services scale from $0/month (if you use nothing) to enterprise volume without changing a line of code. That's why they're the foundation of every automation we build at Three Moons Network.