[raxxorrax]

You can just rent servers. My problem is that I don't know the CPU time I need to run my app. If you say an app needs 100 or 100,000,000 CPU hours a month, I wouldn't be able to really verify that.

I don't know how cloud providers even measure the CPU-time. Probably from VMs. What about services like logging, health-checks and load balancer? Is there a position for that too?

At the end of the month I get an invoice from my providers that say that I needed X processing power. I have to believe it and just accept the price if it is worth it.

I am sure there is elaborate performance monitoring software out there, but I doubt many developers really verify the bills they get.

Providers could just randomly add a few dollars on my bills and I heavily doubt that I would notice. Not wanting to give them any ideas here...

So a rented server in the end gives you much more control about unknowns related to costs. Doesn't mean it has to be cheaper and is as easy to maintain.