Oleksandr Gamaniuk

Recently migrated from Namecheap DNS to Cloudflare DNS for better performance and easier control.

Remove unassigned public IP addresses on Azure to cut expenses. Here's a direct link to check all your IP addresses: https://portal.azure.com/#browse/Microsoft.Network%2FPublicIpAddresses.

Here's the screenshot for our projects (https://instafill.ai/ and https://hipa.ai) after the clean up https://imgur.com/a/Ye1vvZ9. Before we had a few public IP addresses and were paying $24/year for each of them.

It’s super easy to launch a clean WordPress site using a Bitnami image on Microsoft Azure. A 1-core, 1GB RAM virtual machine is more than enough to handle early traffic.

The VM instance can be reserved, cutting costs by 65-70%, so I ended up paying less than $10/month for a multi-site WordPress instance with full control over the server. No DevOps experience needed.

For a real-world example, check out blog.hipa.ai it runs on this setup and loads fast even under traffic spikes.

There are always ways to find a discount and write off Stripe processing fees. Last time it for Hipa.ai, I did it by partnering with HubSpot—they waived processing fees for the first $20K or 1 year of usage, whichever came first.

Ping me if you need this too, and I’ll tell you the steps to get it.

I use Cloudflare because it makes the Hipa.ai site, faster, more secure, and more reliable—without a ton of effort. Here’s why:

Cloudflare caches static files (like images, CSS, and JavaScript) on its global network of servers. That means when someone visits a web page, they’re loading files from a server closer to them, not my main server every time. This cuts down on load times and makes everything feel snappier.

It’s hard to notice in day-to-day browsing, but Cloudflare’s DNS resolution is one of the fastest out there—faster than most free alternatives like Google’s or whatever your ISP gives you. This shaves off milliseconds, which might not seem like much, but over time, it adds up and makes a real difference in page speed.

Cloudflare sits in front of my site as a reverse proxy, filtering out bots, attackers, and spam before they even reach my server. This keeps the site running smoothly even if someone tries to flood it with bad traffic.

Cloudflare makes sure my site is secure by default, with free SSL that encrypts traffic. That’s good for SEO, protects user data, and builds trust. No need to mess around with certificates or renewals.

Cloudflare doesn’t just cache files—it also finds the fastest paths across the internet for requests. That means even if some networks are slow or congested, my site’s traffic gets routed efficiently, making pages load even faster.

I can block bad traffic, specific IPs, or even entire countries if needed. Cloudflare’s bot management also helps cut down on fake traffic and scrapers while keeping Google and other legit bots crawling normally.

If my origin server has an issue, Cloudflare can still serve a cached version of my pages, so visitors don’t just see an error message. It’s not perfect, but it’s way better than complete downtime.

Cloudflare’s free plan already covers a ton of what I need, and if I ever need more, their paid plans are way cheaper than running separate CDN, security, and DNS services. Plus, there’s no hassle with scaling—Cloudflare just handles it.

Buying Reservations in Microsoft Azure helped us at https://instafill.ai save thousands of dollars each month. We usually reserve virtual machines, disks, and app services. When needed, reservations can be canceled. Microsoft allows to cancel up to $50,000 per year.

A few years ago we joined Microsoft for Startups program. We received $150/mo creds and started using MS Azure. The check increased as we grew but we loved Microsoft Azure and decided to stay.