Stack A · read 5 min · ~6 EUR/mo
Run your entire product for 5 EUR/month
A production AI-assisted product runs for ~6 EUR/mo all in - VPS + domain, zero paid services. The real bill, what you don't pay for, and what you give up.
Run your entire product for 5 EUR/month
The real bill
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| VPS (OVH / Hetzner, 1 vCPU / 2 GB) | ~5 EUR/mo | app + SQLite + nginx + the AI agent |
| Domain | ~10 EUR/yr | ~0.83 EUR/mo amortised |
| Cloudflare (DNS + CDN + proxy) | 0 | free tier is enough |
| SQLite | 0 | one file on the VPS |
| nginx + systemd | 0 | built in |
| TLS cert (Cloudflare Origin) | 0 | free from Cloudflare |
| Backups | 0 | sqlite3 .backup to a second file on the same box, cron weekly |
| Monitoring | 0 | journalctl + a free uptime check |
| Total fixed | ~6 EUR/mo |
The only thing that scales with usage is your AI plan (Claude, OpenCode Go, etc.) - and that you’d pay regardless of where the app runs.
What you do NOT pay for
- No managed database (hosted Postgres/MySQL): SQLite is enough.
- No CI pipeline: direct-to-prod,
npm run deploy:vps. - No container registry, no Kubernetes, no staging environment.
- No CDN paid plan: Cloudflare free.
- No observability SaaS:
journalctl,/health, a free uptime monitor. - No email SaaS until you need it: start with a transactional free tier.
What you give up
- You patch the box yourself (
apt upgrade,fail2ban). - If the VPS dies, you restore from the SQLite backup onto a new box (a 20-minute job with this setup).
- Single region - wherever the VPS is.
For a solo product in 2026, that is a great trade. You get full control, a fixed tiny bill, and nothing between you and your users.
The cheapest serious production setup that exists - and the one this site runs on.
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