Guides / Who pays for client Django hosting? Three models, and how Django Cloud bills each
Peter van Doorn
Who pays for client Django hosting? Three models, and how Django Cloud bills each
Hosting is small money until the first invoice is late. Decide who pays before the first deploy, and write it into the contract. There are three common models, and each suits a different kind of client.
Model 1: the client pays the cloud provider directly
The client owns the cloud account and the card on file. You charge for your time and nothing else.
- Good for: larger clients, regulated clients, and anyone with an IT department that wants control.
- Upside: no float, no markup debates, and a clean handover when the contract ends.
- Downside: the client has to open an account and be willing to look at a bill.
Model 2: you pay and pass the cost through at cost
You host in your own account and invoice the actual cost monthly with the bill attached.
- Good for: small clients who do not want an AWS account.
- Upside: simple for the client.
- Downside: you carry the risk of late payment, and moving the app later means a migration.
Model 3: you pay and add a margin
You host, you invoice a fixed monthly hosting fee that includes your time to keep it running.
- Good for: clients who want one invoice and one phone number.
- Upside: predictable income for you.
- Downside: you are now an operations business. Price the on-call time honestly.
What goes in the contract
- Who owns the cloud account and the domain.
- What happens if a hosting invoice is more than 30 days late: usually, the app is stopped, not deleted.
- Whether the hosting fee covers support, or whether support is billed by the hour.
- What the client gets when the contract ends: the account, the data and a runbook.
Estimating the monthly bill
Add up a server, a database and the platform fee, then add a small buffer for data transfer and backups. A typical small Django app (one small server, one small Postgres database) is a modest monthly figure. The exact prices for every size are public on the pricing page.
Or skip it
On Django Cloud Self-hosted, AWS bills the account owner directly at list price and we add a flat fee. On Fully managed there is no AWS bill, and every server and database size has a published monthly price.
pip install djangocloud-cli
djangocloud deployFree plans are available for students, AWS Activate startups, open-source, non-profit and research projects. See how Django Cloud compares with other ways to host Django.
Django is a registered trademark of the Django Software Foundation. Django Cloud is not affiliated with or endorsed by it. Found a mistake in this guide? Tell us and we will fix it.