The client needed a custom e-commerce website with no monthly fees, full control over products and images, manual payment processing via WhatsApp and email, measurement based sizing instead of S/M/L, and an admin panel simple enough for a non technical client to use independently. Off the shelf solutions were either too expensive, too rigid, or came with ongoing subscription costs.
Then came the performance crisis. Product images were 3 to 9 MB each. Supabase egress hit 50.85 GB — that's 1,017% of the free tier limit. Customers on slow Pakistani internet connections couldn't load the site. A streetwear brand lives and dies on visuals. If the images don't load, the brand looks broken.
Built entirely from scratch in 4 weeks. Custom admin panel with drag to reorder images. Measurement based sizing. Email ordering system with no cart complexity. HEIC to JPG auto conversion for iPhone uploads. Splash screen with logo pulse animation. Hosted for zero dollars a month on Vercel and Supabase.
Then I spent 2 more weeks fixing the performance. Migrated all images from Supabase Storage to Cloudflare R2. Implemented on the fly image transformations. Built a custom Cloudflare Worker for uploads. The result is enterprise grade image delivery on a zero dollar budget.
Full CRUD for products, measurement based sizes, images, orders, and subscribers. Client learned the system in 15 minutes.
Admin drags thumbnails to reorder product images. Sort order saved to database. Complete visual control over every product page.
Free text size field. Admin types any measurement. No rigid S/M/L system. Perfect for streetwear where fit is personal.
No cart, no checkout, no payment gateway. Buy Now opens pre filled email. Order data saved to database for tracking.
iPhone photos convert to JPG automatically on upload. Client never thinks about file formats. Works in every browser.
Zero egress fees for image hosting. On the fly transformations resize images to 50-200 KB. 95% smaller, 85% faster.
| Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Image size | 3-9 MB | 50-200 KB | ~95% smaller |
| Page load time (3G) | 8-12 seconds | less than 2 seconds | ~85% faster |
| Supabase egress | 50.85 GB | ~1 GB | ~98% reduction |
| Monthly cost | $0 (at risk) | $0 (safe) | Sustainable |
What big brands do versus what I did:
| Strategy | Big Brands | RipKultr. |
|---|---|---|
| Image CDN | Cloudflare R2 / Fastly | Cloudflare R2 (Free) |
| Image Optimization | On the fly resizing | Cloudflare Transformations |
| Egress Fees | Pay for bandwidth | Zero egress fees (R2) |
| Caching | Multi layer caching | Cloudflare Cache + Browser Cache |
| Cost | $100+/month | $0/month |
The fix was three steps. First, migrate all images from Supabase Storage to Cloudflare R2. R2 has zero egress fees — unlimited bandwidth at no cost. Second, implement Cloudflare Image Transformations. When a user requests an image with a width parameter, Cloudflare fetches the original from R2, resizes and compresses it, and caches the result. Third, build a custom Cloudflare Worker that handles uploads directly to R2 from the admin panel. The worker includes CORS support, automatic WebP conversion, and proper cache headers.
3 to 9 MB images were causing 8 to 12 second load times on slow Pakistani internet connections. Supabase egress reached 1,017% of the free tier limit — 50.85 GB against a 5 GB allowance. Customers couldn't browse products. The site was at risk of service throttling. A streetwear brand lives on visuals. If the images don't load, the brand is dead.
Migrated all images to Cloudflare R2 with zero egress fees. Implemented Cloudflare Image Transformations for on the fly resizing and compression. Built a custom Cloudflare Worker for direct R2 uploads from the admin panel. Images now serve at 50 to 200 KB in under 2 seconds. Monthly cost remains zero dollars.
95% smaller images. 85% faster load times. 98% reduction in egress. Zero dollar monthly cost. The site is now scalable to 10 times the current catalog without any additional infrastructure cost.
The client has a fully functional ecommerce site with zero monthly hosting cost, complete control over their brand, and an admin panel they can use independently. The site performs well even on slow Pakistani internet connections. It can scale to 10 times the current product catalog without any additional infrastructure cost. The same architecture that powers enterprise platforms is running on a free tier budget.