Case Study: Substack saves 90% on image processing costs with imgproxy

Substack cuts image processing costs by 90% with imgproxy

Substack, a newsletter subscription platform, was processing approximately 5 million images daily and needed a more cost-effective, self-hostable, and open source solution for its image operations. Their previous vendor, imgix, had pricing that was higher than desired for features like resizing and optimization. This led them to explore the imgproxy product.

By implementing the self-hosted Pro version of imgproxy, Substack was able to significantly improve its image processing infrastructure. The results were substantial, with the average asset processing latency decreasing from 500ms to 350ms. Most notably, imgproxy helped Substack achieve a 90% reduction in their image processing infrastructure costs.

Substack