Complete cost transparency — every dollar accounted for, every dollar beyond costs funds freedom.
These costs are shared openly because transparency matters. All revenue from The Trinity Beast subscriptions goes directly to the Cross Power Ministries of Pakistan (CPMP) bank account in Pakistan. Cory Dean Kalani, as the Administrator and Sole Support for all US operations, is reimbursed for the technology infrastructure costs listed below, plus a 10% administration fee on net revenue after technology fees. Every dollar beyond operating costs funds freedom from brick kiln debt bondage in Pakistan.
Complete financial pipeline from donor/subscriber to mission impact. Every dollar is accounted for at every stage.
Diagram 1.1: Revenue Flow — Financial Pipeline
flowchart TD
%% Sources
A["🙏 Gifts
(One-time giving)"] --> S["💳 Stripe
Payment Processing"]
B["📡 Subscriptions
(Trinity Beast API tiers)"] --> S
%% Stripe to CPMP
S -->|"Payout (minus Stripe fees)"| C["🏦 CPMP Bank Account
Pakistan"]
%% Invoice from Cory to CPMP
D["📋 Cory Dean Kalani
USA Operations"] -->|"Monthly Invoice"| C
%% Invoice breakdown
D --- INV["📄 Invoice Breakdown:
• Total Payout received
• Stripe processing fees
• Per-impact totals (Water, Freedom,
Provisions, Medical, etc.)
• AWS infrastructure costs
• Net = Payout − Stripe Fees − AWS
• 10% Administration Fee on Net"]
%% CPMP pays invoice
C -->|"Invoice Payment"| E["🏦 Cory Dean Kalani
CPMP Operations Account
(USA)"]
%% What Cory receives
E --> F["☁️ AWS Costs
Reimbursement"]
E --> G["📊 10% Administration Fee
USA Operations & Support"]
%% Mission impact
C -->|"Remaining Funds"| H["✨ Mission Impact
Freedom · Water · Medical
Provisions · Education · Bibles"]
%% Styling
style A fill:#10b981,stroke:#059669,color:#fff
style B fill:#FF9900,stroke:#cc7a00,color:#fff
style S fill:#635bff,stroke:#4b44cc,color:#fff
style C fill:#60a5fa,stroke:#3b82f6,color:#fff
style D fill:#f59e0b,stroke:#d97706,color:#fff
style E fill:#f59e0b,stroke:#d97706,color:#fff
style F fill:#a855f7,stroke:#7c3aed,color:#fff
style G fill:#a855f7,stroke:#7c3aed,color:#fff
style H fill:#10b981,stroke:#059669,color:#fff
style INV fill:#f8fafc,stroke:#94a3b8,color:#1e293b
| Step | From | To | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Givers & Subscribers | Stripe | All giving and subscriptions are processed through Stripe Payment Links and Checkout Sessions. |
| 2 | Stripe | CPMP Bank (Pakistan) | Stripe pays out collected funds (minus processing fees) directly to the CPMP bank account in Pakistan. |
| 3 | Cory Dean Kalani | CPMP | Monthly invoice submitted showing: total payout, Stripe fees, per-impact-type totals, AWS infrastructure costs, and the 10% administration fee on net revenue. |
| 4 | CPMP Bank (Pakistan) | Cory Dean Kalani (USA) | CPMP pays the invoice to a dedicated bank account used exclusively for CPMP operations. |
| 5 | Invoice Payment | Cory Dean Kalani | Reimbursement for AWS infrastructure costs + 10% administration fee for USA operations and technical support. |
Key Point: Cory Dean Kalani receives passive income from CPMP as compensation for administration of all CPMP technical operations — infrastructure management, deployment, monitoring, development, and ongoing support. The 10% administration fee is calculated on net revenue (total incoming minus Stripe fees minus AWS costs).
Final billed amounts for May 2026. This was the translation push month — 407 document translations (37 docs × 11 languages) established the multi-lingual library. These AI costs are one-time investments, not recurring operational expenses.
| Category | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| AWS Infrastructure | ECS Fargate, Aurora, ElastiCache, ALB, NLB, VPC, CloudWatch, WAF, S3, Lambda, Route 53, CloudFront, ECR, SQS, Secrets Manager | $2,825 |
| Bedrock AI (Marketplace) | Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($1,681), Haiku ($8), Opus ($2) — custom translation engine | $1,690 |
| AWS Translate | Legacy batch translation (one-time, replaced by custom Bedrock engine — never recurring) | $727 |
| MemoryDB Reserved | Dead reservation — cluster deleted April 2026, commitment still billing (under appeal) | $359 |
| Business Support+ | AWS support plan | $170 |
| Tax | Sales tax | $159 |
| AWS Total — May 2026 | $5,419 | |
| Kiro AI IDE | Development environment (billed separately) | $622 |
| Grand Total — May 2026 | $6,041 | |
Non-recurring items ($1,086): AWS Translate ($727) was a one-time batch before the custom engine was built — never used again. MemoryDB Reserved ($359) is a dead commitment under appeal (case 178032695500463). Removing these non-recurring items, May's operational cost was $4,333 — and that still includes $1,690 of translation AI that won't repeat at this scale. True infrastructure steady-state is ~$1,800/month.
AWS Cost Explorer forecast based on right-sized infrastructure (4 vCPU / 16 GB ECS containers since May 30). Translation batches will add Bedrock costs as they run, but at a fraction of May's push.
Running ledger of actual billed amounts. Each month tells a story — infrastructure stabilized, one-time investments completed, steady-state emerging.
| Month | AWS | Kiro | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | $5,419 | $622 | $6,041 | Translation push (407 docs), AWS Translate ($727 one-time), MemoryDB dead ($359) |
| April 2026 | $1,993 | $272 | $2,264 | 17 stress test runs, architecture development, 8 vCPU / 32 GB (pre-right-sizing) |
Trend: May was artificially high due to the translation library investment. April was elevated from stress testing. June forecast ($3,083) still includes $348 MemoryDB dead weight and the first translation batches on the new engine. True operational baseline (infrastructure only, no one-time costs) is tracking toward $1,800/month.
Visual breakdown of where every dollar goes after savings plans are applied. Aurora is now the largest after-savings line item, followed by ECS Fargate (right-sized May 30 — Savings Plans now over-cover the smaller compute footprint), the cache layer, development tooling, and AI operations.
Estimated monthly costs based on us-east-2 pricing. The "On-Demand" column shows what you'd pay without any commitments. The "You Pay" column reflects the net cost after all active savings plans and reservations are applied. ECS Fargate was right-sized from 8 vCPU / 32 GB to 4 vCPU / 16 GB on May 30, 2026.
| Resource | Configuration | On-Demand | You Pay | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECS Fargate (4 containers) | 4 × 4 vCPU / 16 GB, 24/7 (right-sized 2026-05-30) | $680 | $352 | −$328 |
| Aurora Serverless v2 (writer + reader) | 2–18 ACU, avg ~6 ACU total (Optimized I/O) | $701 | $592 | −$109 |
| ElastiCache | cache.r7g.2xlarge, Valkey 7.2, single node | $637 | $265 | −$372 |
| ALB | Trinity-Beast-TCP-ALB + LCU | $30 | $30 | — |
| NLB | Trinity-Beast-UDP-NLB + NLCU | $25 | $25 | — |
| CloudWatch | Logs, metrics, 4 dashboards, 18 alarms | $15 | $15 | — |
| Route 53 | 5 DNS records (api, lrs, udp, www, root) | $3 | $3 | — |
| CloudFront | Global edge distribution, low traffic | $5 | $5 | — |
| WAF (CloudFront + ALB) | 2 Web ACLs, 10 managed rule groups, 2 rate-based rules | $15 | $15 | — |
| GuardDuty | Threat detection — VPC flow logs, CloudTrail, DNS analysis | $4 | $4 | — |
| Kiro AI IDE | Implementation & support — AI-powered development environment | $200 | $200 | — |
| Other | S3, ECR, Lambda (receipt + queued-writer), Secrets Manager, EventBridge, SES, Translate | $5 | $5 | — |
| AutoOps (5 Layers) | 7 Lambdas (1770 MB), 6 EventBridge rules, Step Functions, Bedrock (Claude Sonnet 4.6), SNS, Anomaly Detection | $100 | $100 | — |
| SQS (Standard Queue) | trinity-beast-queued-usage-logs — $0.40/million messages | $1 | $1 | — |
| Total Estimated Monthly Cost | ~$2,049 | ~$1,753 | −$296/mo | |
Savings breakdown: ECS Fargate covered by two Compute Savings Plans ($0.63/hr 3-year + $0.09/hr 1-year). After the May 30 right-sizing (8 vCPU / 32 GB → 4 vCPU / 16 GB), the Compute Savings Plans now over-cover the smaller ECS footprint — the unused capacity is held in reserve and absorbs the first wave of any future scale-up at zero additional cost. Aurora covered by two Database Savings Plans ($0.111/hr + $0.45/hr, both 1-year). ElastiCache covered by a 3-year reserved node. All plans are No Upfront.
For ~$1,753/month (estimated, after May 30 right-sizing — Savings Plans now over-cover the smaller ECS footprint, holding capacity in reserve for future scale-up), The Trinity Beast provides:
Migrated from MemoryDB db.r7g.2xlarge (primary + replica) at ~$2,383/month to ElastiCache cache.r7g.2xlarge (single node) at $637/month — saving $1,755/month ($21,060/year). Aurora is the source of truth; the cache layer is rebuilt by the nightly sync job in 16 seconds. No replica needed because cache loss is a performance event, not a data loss event.
Purchased a 3-year No Upfront reserved node for cache.r7g.2xlarge — reducing the hourly rate from $0.873 (on-demand) to $0.363 (reserved), saving $372/month ($4,464/year, $13,392 over 3 years). Zero upfront cost. Size flexibility within the r7g family means scaling up is covered by the reservation. Reservation ID: ri-2026-04-28-16-40-37-233, expires April 28, 2029.
Three savings plans purchased during initial infrastructure buildout: two Compute plans ($0.63/hr 3-year + $0.09/hr 1-year) covering ECS Fargate, and one Database plan ($0.111/hr 1-year) covering Aurora Serverless v2 ACU-hours. These were purchased before the full cost profile was understood — the 1-year plans would have been 3-year terms with higher commitments if purchased today. Combined estimated savings: ~$100–150/month across compute and database. The 1-year plans expire in early 2027 and will be replaced with properly sized 3-year commitments.
Purchased a second 1-year No Upfront Database Savings Plan at $0.45/hr ($328.50/month) to cover the growing Aurora Serverless v2 baseline ahead of subscriber and partner onboarding. Combined with the existing $0.111/hr plan, total database commitment is now $0.561/hr ($409.53/month) — covering approximately 4–5 ACU at the discounted rate. 3-year Database Savings Plans are not yet available from AWS; both 1-year plans will be re-evaluated at expiration in April 2027.
The Lambda receipt handler uses public admin endpoints (/admin/invalidate-key) instead of VPC-internal access. This avoids a $32/month NAT Gateway — a small savings that adds up, and the architectural simplicity is worth more than the dollars.
Transparency note: The Compute and initial Database savings plans were purchased early in the project before the full infrastructure cost profile was understood. The 1-year Compute plan ($0.09/hr) would have been a 3-year term with a higher commitment. The Database commitment was increased in April 2026 with an additional $0.45/hr plan to cover the growing Aurora baseline ahead of launch. 3-year Database Savings Plans are not yet offered by AWS — only 1-year terms are available. All 1-year plans expire in early-mid 2027 and will be re-evaluated based on actual production usage.
| Commitment | Type | Rate | Monthly | Term | Expires | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compute Savings Plan | ECS Fargate | $0.630/hr | $459.90 | 3-year | April 2029 | ✅ Active |
| Compute Savings Plan | ECS Fargate | $0.090/hr | $65.70 | 1-year | March 2027 | ✅ Active |
| Database Savings Plan | Aurora Serverless v2 | $0.111/hr | $81.03 | 1-year | April 2027 | ✅ Active |
| Database Savings Plan | Aurora Serverless v2 | $0.450/hr | $328.50 | 1-year | April 2027 | ✅ Active |
| ElastiCache Reserved Node | cache.r7g.2xlarge (Valkey) | $0.363/hr | $264.99 | 3-year | April 2029 | ✅ Active |
Total committed: $1,200.12/mo. All plans are No Upfront. The 1-year plans (Compute $0.09/hr and Database $0.111/hr + $0.45/hr) will be re-evaluated when they expire in 2027. Note: 3-year Database Savings Plans are not currently offered by AWS — only 1-year terms are available.
| Opportunity | Potential Savings | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Increase Compute commitment at 1yr renewal (Mar 2027) | ~$50–100/mo additional | 3-year term, higher hourly commitment |
| Re-evaluate Database commitment at renewal (Apr 2027) | Size to actual production ACU baseline | 1-year term (3-year not yet available from AWS) |
| Reduce to 2 containers (off-peak) | ~$335/mo | Reduced redundancy during low traffic |
Pricing as of: April 2026, us-east-2 on-demand rates.
| Service | Rate |
|---|---|
| ECS Fargate vCPU | $0.04048/vCPU-hour |
| ECS Fargate Memory | $0.004445/GB-hour |
| Aurora Serverless v2 | $0.12/ACU-hour |
| ElastiCache cache.r7g.2xlarge | $0.363/hour (3yr reserved) |
| ALB | $0.0225/hour + $0.008/LCU-hour |
| NLB | $0.0225/hour + $0.006/NLCU-hour |
| CloudFront | $0.085/GB (first 10 TB) |
| Route 53 | $0.50/hosted zone + $0.40/M queries |
Costs exclude data transfer between AZs and to the internet. Data transfer within the same AZ is free.
The Trinity Beast is built and operated by Cory Dean Kalani — one engineer, one vision, one binary. This is a deliberate architectural choice, not a limitation. The system is designed to run unassisted unless something occurs outside preset tolerances.
Every component is self-healing by design:
The Trinity Beast does not require a babysitter. It runs itself, heals itself, and serves its purpose without manual intervention. Human attention is reserved for evolution — not survival. This is a miracle machine with a mission.