Smoking Out Costs: How Traeger Grills Cut Per-Device Cloud Costs by 50% with AWS

Traeger Grills, a pioneer in wood-pellet grilling technology, revolutionizes outdoor cooking by combining traditional wood-fired flavor with modern, smart connectivity. Its WiFIRE®-enabled grills and mobile app allow home cooks to monitor and control their grills remotely. This convenience helps users bring precision to grilling, smoking, baking, and BBQ. With hundreds of thousands of connected devices across North America—growing 1,500 percent over 5.5 years—Traeger’s IoT platform plays a crucial role in delivering a signature cooking experience.

Figure 1: Traeger IoT fleet growth over 5.5 years

Executive Summary
By partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Traeger Grills achieved a remarkable 50 percent reduction in per-device cloud costs while scaling to support hundreds of thousands of connected grills. Traeger strategically implemented Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), and other AWS services, transforming its IoT platform into a model of cost-efficient reliability. Working closely with AWS Solutions Architects, Traeger optimized its cloud architecture while maintaining the 99.99 percent uptime that customers depend on—even during peak cooking holidays like Thanksgiving. This post explores how Traeger evolved from experiencing service disruptions during high-traffic periods to building a resilient, scalable IoT platform on AWS that’s high performing and cost efficient.

Key achievements include a:

• 71% reduction in Amazon DynamoDB costs through dynamic provisioning
• 54% reduction in Amazon API Gateway expenses through improved caching
• 53% reduction in Lambda costs through containerization and optimization
• 47% reduction in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) costs through optimized data-retention policies and compression improvements

The Evolution of Traeger’s IoT Journey

Since migrating to AWS IoT Core in 2020, Traeger’s connected cooking platform has undergone several transformations. Traeger successfully moved its initial architecture and entire device fleet to AWS in only three months, but scaling during peak cooking periods became challenging, especially as usage increased. During Thanksgiving 2022, a surge in traffic revealed limitations in Traeger’s original design, leading to service disruptions that required immediate architectural improvements.

Throughout 2023, Traeger focused on strengthening its system by enhancing observability, decoupling services, migrating high-traffic Lambda functions to Amazon ECS containers, and implementing strategic caching. While these changes significantly improved reliability, they also presented new opportunities for optimization.

“After solving our reliability challenges, we identified significant room for improvement in how we were utilizing AWS services,” explains Justin Larsen, VP of Technology at Traeger. “We saw an opportunity to maintain the resilience we had built while dramatically reducing our operational costs. The infrastructure team partnered closely with development to identify optimization opportunities without compromising customer experience. Our goal was to make our IoT platform both more resilient and more cost-effective simultaneously.”

The Cost-Optimization Challenge

With hundreds of thousands of connected grills sending data to the cloud, costs can quickly escalate. Each connected device generates telemetry data, including temperature readings, cooking status, and user interactions. This constant stream of information requires careful management to control costs while maintaining the seamless experience Traeger customers expect.

Traeger established an ambitious goal: reduce the per-device cost by 50 percent while supporting its growing user base. This required a systematic review of every component in its architecture and a data-driven approach to optimization.

“We started with an AWS Well-Architected Review to establish a baseline and identify key optimization opportunities,” explains Larsen. “Working closely with our AWS Solutions Architect, Matt Richards, we developed a comprehensive strategy that would preserve our reliability improvements while significantly reducing costs.”

Richards adds: “Traeger’s customer obsession and commitment to the AWS Well-Architected principles made it easy to realize significant optimizations without sacrificing customer experience for their grill users.”

Strategic optimizations: turning up the heat
The close collaboration between Traeger’s engineering team and AWS experts was instrumental in identifying and implementing optimizations across Traeger’s entire stack. By consulting bi-weekly with its AWS Solutions Architect and Technical Account Manager, and connecting with AWS specialists for each service, Traeger implemented best practices while avoiding common pitfalls that could compromise performance or future scalability.

NoSQL database refinement: low and slow provisioning
One of Traeger’s most significant cost drivers was Amazon DynamoDB, which stores user accounts, device information, and cooking data. By shifting from on-demand capacity to dynamic provisioning, Traeger dramatically reduced costs while maintaining performance. The team implemented an automated provisioning system that monitors usage patterns and adjusts capacity ahead of demand spikes.

“We discovered that we were significantly over-provisioning our database resources,” explains Larsen. “By implementing dynamic provisioning based on actual usage patterns, we were able to cut our database costs dramatically without impacting performance.”

Serverless optimization: trimming the excess
Traeger’s Amazon API Gateway and Lambda functions handle millions of requests daily from both mobile applications and connected grills. By analyzing usage patterns, Traeger identified high-volume endpoints that could benefit from containerization. Moving these workloads from Lambda to container-based services reduced costs while improving consistency.

“For remaining Lambda functions, we optimized memory allocations and execution times, resulting in a 53% reduction in costs,” notes Larsen. “We also implemented more aggressive caching strategies at both the API Gateway and application levels, further reducing our API Gateway expenses by 54%.”

Data storage and transfer refinement: stoking efficiency
Traeger’s review revealed opportunities to optimize how it stores and accesses data. By implementing intelligent data-retention policies and improving compression, Traeger reduced storage costs while maintaining all necessary historical information for its users. Traeger also reduced unnecessary data transfers between services by consolidating related functions and implementing better data batching.

Results That Cook

Traeger’s optimization efforts exceeded expectations, with the following results:

• A 50% reduction in per-device cloud costs
• Dramatic decreases across all major AWS services
  • 71% reduction in DynamoDB costs
  • 54% reduction in API Gateway expenses
  • 53% reduction in Lambda costs
  • 47% savings in storage costs
• Improved performance with lower latency for key user interactions
• Enhanced scalability supports continued growth of Traeger’s connected device fleet
• Maintained 99.99% uptime, even during major cooking holidays, including Thanksgiving 2023

Figure 2: Cost per cooks

Most importantly, these improvements were achieved without compromising the user experience. In fact, most customers have noted improved app responsiveness and connection reliability.

Lessons for IoT at Scale: A Recipe for Success

This process has helped Traeger develop several key insights for managing IoT costs at scale.

1. Monitor everything—detailed metrics across all services are essential for identifying optimization opportunities.
2. Test assumptions—what worked well on a smaller scale may not be the most efficient approach as you grow.
3. Right-size services—each AWS service has different cost structures; choose the right tool for each specific workload.
4. Automate adjustments—dynamic resource allocation based on actual usage patterns prevents both over-provisioning and performance issues.
5. Balance costs with experience—some optimizations may save money while degrading the user experience; always prioritize the customer.
6. Use AWS expertise—regular consultations with AWS specialists can help you identify best practices and avoid costly mistakes.

Future Directions: Keeping the Fire Burning

While Traeger has made significant progress in optimizing its IoT platform, there are still additional opportunities ahead. Traeger is exploring machine learning capabilities to provide more personalized cooking experiences while further optimizing resource usage through predictive scaling.

“This is an ongoing journey,” Larsen notes. “As our user base grows and we add new features, we continuously look for ways to improve both the experience and the efficiency of our platform.”

“The balance of performance, cost, and reliability is always evolving,” adds Larsen. “Our team is already exploring new approaches that will allow us to deliver even more value to our customers while continuing to optimize our cloud infrastructure.”

Optimize your own IoT deployments on AWS

• Learn about the Cost Optimization Pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
• Review the AWS Well-Architected Tool to assess your current architecture.
• Explore AWS IoT Core documentation to learn about building scalable IoT applications.
• Contact your AWS account team to schedule a cost-optimization workshop.