Case Study: Earlybird cuts hosting costs and future-proofs startups with Microsoft Azure

For this successful startup for startups, a disruptive approach begins with the cloud

Earlybird is a Chicago–based software studio (10 employees) that builds minimum‑viable products and early‑stage solutions for startups. The company needed a way to keep client hosting costs low, simplify per‑client infrastructure management, and “future‑proof” apps so they could scale without costly reengineering — limitations Earlybird was running into on Amazon Web Services.

Earlybird switched to Microsoft Azure and joined BizSpark Plus, gaining up to $60,000 in free Azure services per year (and the ability to extend benefits to clients), plus Linux/PHP support, Azure App Service, built‑in load testing, and hands‑on guidance from a Microsoft evangelist. The move reduced client hosting fees by thousands annually, simplified scaling and VM management, and provided a clear growth path (including deeper .NET and enterprise/big‑data capabilities) without rebuilding solutions.

Earlybird

Richard Hankison

Head of Accounts