A payments platform must reach 99.995% availability and survive the loss of an entire region. Three AZs and a Multi-AZ database top out around four-nines — five-nines needs more than one region.
Targets: 99.995% availability, critical durability, p99 ≤ 160 ms, under $2,500/mo.
Deploy active-active across regions, keep three AZs with a Multi-AZ database and a read replica for in-region resilience, add a cache, and use a Savings Plan on Graviton to keep the doubled footprint affordable.