TLDR: Figma’s recent IPO filing revealed a staggering daily expenditure of $300,000 on Amazon Web Services (AWS), amounting to approximately $100 million annually, or 12% of its $821 million reported revenue. This substantial cloud bill highlights the increasing financial commitment and inherent dependency risks faced by companies heavily reliant on hyperscale cloud providers, with Figma committing to a minimum of $545 million in AWS services over the next five years.
In a disclosure that has sent ripples through the tech industry, collaborative design platform Figma revealed in its initial public offering (IPO) filing that it incurs a daily cloud computing cost of around $300,000 on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This translates to an approximate annual expenditure of $100 million, representing about 12% of the company’s reported revenue of $821 million .
The S-1 filing further detailed a renewed hosting agreement with AWS, signed on May 31, 2025, which commits Figma to a minimum spend of $545 million in cloud hosting services over the next five years . This massive financial commitment underscores Figma’s profound reliance on AWS for its ‘computing, storage capabilities, bandwidth, and other services,’ as the company’s entire infrastructure operates within the AWS ecosystem .
Figma’s disclosure brings to the forefront the significant risks associated with extensive cloud integration. The company explicitly acknowledges its complete dependence on AWS’s performance, making it vulnerable to potential outages that could severely impact its operations . Furthermore, AWS retains the authority to alter its terms of service and policies, even during contract renewals, which could negatively affect Figma’s business . The filing also points out the critical challenge if AWS were to terminate the contract, given Figma’s cloud service infrastructure is custom-built for AWS .
While the filing does not break down the allocation of these costs across specific services like storage, compute, or bandwidth, it’s understood that Figma’s architecture, which includes AI-powered search and the generation and indexing of billions of UI element embeddings, requires substantial compute and storage . To manage these escalating costs, Figma has undertaken optimization efforts, including shifting from Ruby to C++ pipelines, moving thumbnailing to CPU, debouncing indexing, and dynamically scaling clusters. The company also transitioned from AWS ECS to Kubernetes (EKS) to enhance cost optimization, resilience, and developer efficiency .
Industry experts are weighing in on Figma’s situation. Per Borgen, CEO of Scrimba, commented on LinkedIn, ‘For comparison, at Scrimba, we spend far less than 1% of our revenue on infrastructure. This is because we skipped the cloud and run on dedicated servers instead.’ This sentiment echoes the broader industry discussion around cloud repatriation, exemplified by companies like 37signals, which initiated efforts in 2022 to move away from cloud services, estimating millions in annual savings .
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Figma’s substantial cloud bill serves as a stark reminder of the core dilemma facing modern tech companies: balancing the agility and convenience offered by hyperscale cloud providers against the escalating costs and the inherent risks of deep vendor lock-in . As Figma prepares for its IPO, managing cloud expenditures, mitigating vendor risk, and optimizing profit margins will be central to its financial narrative.
