TL;DR: In August, the total operating cost of the https://vernissage.photos platform was $451.30, of which $397.60 was covered by contributions from supporters. This month, your donations covered almost all of the platform's operating costs. Thank you very much for every contribution!
Below is a detailed financial report covering the operation of https://vernissage.photos in August 2026. The report is broken down by individual service providers whose services are essential to keeping the platform running.
Amazon (S3 + CloudFront)
Vernissage uses Amazon S3 to store user-uploaded files and relies on Amazon CloudFront - a content delivery network (CDN) - to distribute them quickly and reliably across the internet.
- Total storage used: 1.02 TB (1,020,436,002,700 bytes)
- Total number of objects: 4,481,177
- Total cost: $49.31
In August, the amount of stored data exceeded one terabyte for the first time. Despite this growth, the total AWS cost remained almost unchanged compared with July, which is very encouraging.
Fly.io
There were no changes to the infrastructure hosted on Fly.io in August, and the total cost remained almost identical to the previous month.
Fly.io has recently introduced Managed Postgres v2, so a migration to the new infrastructure will probably be necessary in the near future. I have not yet had an opportunity to examine the new offering in detail, and at this point I do not know how the migration might affect the monthly cost of running Vernissage.
- Total cost: $399.91
Here is a breakdown of the services currently in use:
| Name | Type | RAM | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| push Web Push notifications | shared-cpu-1x | 512MB | 2 machines |
| relay iOS Push notifications | shared-cpu-1x | 512MB | 2 machines |
| web Angular (SSR) application | shared-cpu-2x | 1024MB | 2 machines |
| api Core API | shared-cpu-4x | 2048MB | 2 machines |
| jobs Background/async jobs | shared-cpu-4x | 2048MB | 2 machines |
| proxy Proxy (nginx) service | shared-cpu-2x | 512MB | 2 machines |
| redis Queue service | shared-cpu-2x | 1024MB | 1 machine |
| database PostgreSQL database | performance-2x | 8192MB | 2 machines |
OpenAI
OpenAI services are used by Vernissage to generate photo descriptions and suggest relevant tags.
- Total tokens used: 770,372
- Total requests: 956
- Total cost: $2.08
Usage increased noticeably in August, but the cost remains very low while helping to improve the accessibility and discoverability of photos shared across the platform.
Donations
Thank you very much to everyone who contributed to supporting Vernissage in August. The platform can continue operating only because of your donations, and this support makes a real difference to its future.
- Patreon contributions: $192.60
- Stripe contributions: $205.00
I would like to offer a particularly heartfelt thank-you to Sebastian for his exceptionally generous donation. Sebastian, thank you so much for this incredible support. Your generosity means a great deal to me and has made an enormous difference in covering this month's operating costs. 💚
In August, the total operating cost of the service was $451.30, while contributions from supporters amounted to $397.60. This means that donations covered almost all of the month's expenses, leaving only $53.70 to be covered from my personal funds. This is an extraordinary result, and I am deeply grateful.
Vernissage does not display advertisements, sell user data, or use engagement-driven algorithms. It is an independent platform built for people who want to share and enjoy photography in a calm and respectful space. Maintaining that independence has a real cost, and the project can operate in its current form only thanks to donations from its community.
Thank you again to Sebastian and to every single person who supports Vernissage - whether through Patreon, Stripe, or by helping the community in other ways. Your support keeps the platform online and gives the project a chance to continue growing. Thank you all very much.
— Marcin Czachurski