aws is silly expensive. Why didnt you build this on top of digitalocean? Digitalocean is so awesome right now. They dont even charge for bandwidth overages.
Both VMs are single core, 1GB RAM. DO gives you 30GB SSD, but AWS has a freely adjustable disk size. Upscaling from 8 to 30GB is another $2 - but how many single-core low ram instances use double-digit GB?
In the middle, DO has 8 core, 16GB for $160/mo, AWS has 4 core 16GB for 185/mo + storage.
At the top end of the DO offerings, DO's 20-core 64GB machine in $640/mo, and AWS's 16-core 64GB machine is $725mo + storage (not much). The difference in pricing is not that crazy, and you get a crapload of extra free features on AWS.
Those AWS prices are with the "On-Demand pricing". If you're willing to lock-in for a year, reduce by 1/3. The argument that DO is "OMG cheaper" than AWS is no longer valid.
[1] https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/ [2] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/