Cost & Profitability Report¶
Document purpose
This page is a standalone cost summary designed for business meetings, investor presentations, and partner evaluations. It consolidates the key financial metrics from the detailed cost analysis pages into a single reference. For full breakdowns, see the individual pages: Summary & Pricing | Infrastructure | Projections | Optimization | Competitive Analysis.
Financial Snapshot¶
$1.61 Per-User Cost / Month (Empirical)
94.8% Gross Margin
16 Breakeven Users
NT$999 Monthly Subscription (Pro)
Unit Economics¶
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue per user | NT$999/mo (~$31 USD) | Pro subscription |
| Variable cost per user | $1.61/mo (NT$52) | Empirical Pareto model (50% DAU, 70% peak concurrency) |
| Gross margin per user | NT$947/mo (94.8%) | Revenue minus variable cost |
| Fixed infrastructure | ~$485/mo (NT$15,520) | Always-on baseline (1 worker instance, 1 API instance, Valkey, Aurora Serverless v2, Lambda, VPC) |
| Breakeven | 16 paying users | NT$15,520 / NT$999 = 15.5 |
| CAC target | < NT$2,000 | ~2.1 month payback at NT$947 margin |
| LTV (12-month) | > NT$11,364 | 12 months x NT$947 profit |
| LTV/CAC ratio | > 5.7 | Healthy SaaS benchmark: > 3.0 |
| Monthly churn target | < 5% | Multi-market stickiness reduces switching |
Cost Scaling Summary¶
| Users | Monthly Cost (USD) | Per-User | Revenue (TWD) | Net Margin | Key Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | $485 | $30.31 | NT$15,984 | Breakeven | Fixed costs only |
| 100 | $495 | $4.95 | NT$99,900 | 84% | 1 worker instance |
| 500 | $695 | $1.39 | NT$499,500 | 96% | 3 worker instances |
| 1,000 | $1,210 | $1.21 | NT$999,000 | 96% | 6 worker instances |
| 5,000 | $4,300 | $0.86 | NT$4,995,000 | 97% | r7g.2xlarge, scaling |
| 10,000 | $7,920 | $0.79 | NT$9,990,000 | 97.5% | r7g.4xlarge, 100K ECPU |
| 100,000 | $64,000 | $0.64 | NT$99,900,000 | 98.0% | r7g.8xlarge cluster |
Full tiered breakdown with component-level detail: Projections & Profitability.
Why Costs Are Low¶
| Optimization | Impact | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| EC2 over Fargate | 75% savings on worker compute | Fargate charges per-vCPU/per-GB premium; EC2 capacity providers run 60 workers on one r7g.xlarge |
| Graviton ARM64 | ~20% savings on all EC2 | r7g/m7g instances replace Intel x86; per-worker cost drops from $0.00507/hr to $0.00431/hr |
| Bridge networking | 2x task density | Workers share host ENI instead of one ENI per task (awsvpc limit: ~3 per large instance) |
| Pool pre-warming | 897ms startup vs 45-60s cold | Pre-warmed workers claimed via SQS; no cold EC2 launches in the hot path |
| 30-min idle timeout | 55% cost reduction | Workers self-terminate after inactivity; empirical per-user cost drops from $2.79 to $1.61 |
| Lambda orchestration | $8.50/mo total | Five Lambda functions replace a dedicated orchestrator EC2 instance |
| No NAT Gateway | $35/mo saved | Workers in public subnets with security groups; outbound-only to broker APIs |
| Shared public IP | 97% IP cost savings | Bridge networking shares one host IP instead of 60 ENI-attached IPs |
Competitive Cost Position¶
| Platform | Monthly Fee | Markets | 4pass Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| MultiCharts + data | NT$43,800+ upfront + NT$14K/yr data | TW only | No upfront; NT$999/mo covers TW + Crypto + US |
| 3Commas | NT$480-1,920/mo | Crypto only | Multi-market + per-user isolation |
| 下單大師 | NT$255-999/mo | TW only | Add crypto + US; cloud SaaS, no desktop |
| QuantConnect | ~NT$1,920/mo+ | US only | TradingView-native; visual builder; TW + Crypto |
| 4pass Pro | NT$999/mo | TW + Crypto + US | Single subscription, all markets, no upfront |
Detailed competitor profiles: Competitive Analysis.
Key Risks and Mitigations¶
| Risk | Likelihood | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Low early adoption (< 15 users) | Medium | Free tier lowers barrier; NT$447/mo burn rate is manageable during ramp |
| Broker SDK dependency (Shioaji ARM64) | Resolved | Graviton ARM64 deployed in production; Shioaji broker SDK runs via x86 compatibility layer |
| AWS cost increases | Low | RI/Savings Plans lock pricing; multi-cloud not needed at current scale |
| High churn from single-market users | Medium | Multi-market coverage creates switching cost; roadmap adds in-app backtest and native execution |
| TradingView pricing changes | Low | Roadmap includes native strategy execution to reduce TradingView dependency |
Annual Revenue Projections¶
| Users | Annual Revenue (TWD) | Annual Cost (TWD) | Annual Profit (TWD) | Net Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | NT$1,198,800 | NT$190,080 | NT$1,008,720 | 84% |
| 500 | NT$5,994,000 | NT$266,880 | NT$5,727,120 | 96% |
| 1,000 | NT$11,988,000 | NT$464,640 | NT$11,523,360 | 96% |
| 5,000 | NT$59,940,000 | NT$1,651,200 | NT$58,288,800 | 97% |
| 10,000 | NT$119,880,000 | NT$3,041,280 | NT$116,838,720 | 97.5% |
Optimization Levers (Not Yet Applied)¶
| Lever | Trigger | Potential Savings |
|---|---|---|
| 1-year Reserved Instances | 1K users | ~37% on baseline EC2 |
| Graviton (ARM64) instances | ✅ Deployed | ~20% (realized) |
| Spot instances (mixed strategy) | 5K users | Up to 65% on burst capacity |
| 3-year RI + Savings Plans | 50K users | ~57% on all EC2 |
Full optimization strategies: Cost Optimization.
Report updated: 2026-03 | Region: ap-southeast-1 | Exchange rate: 1 USD = 32 TWD