$3.19 or 3,04 Euro excluding VAT per month for all website server, data and labour costs (1-7) over several years, including running the big LLM (as tested, with some large LLM's and MLX/EXO you might need dual 64GB servers[2], doubling the monthly cost).
Explanation of the details:
For 33 years[1] I've hosted several huge websites from several servers in several peoples homes for less than 5 euro per month. As a professional datacenter builder and as ISP I've never found a cheaper option and that is not an opinion but a deeply and constantly researched measurement based on hundreds of servers. In 2025 we lowered the price to 3 Euro per month. By sharing a server with other customers, we can lower the cost to below 1 euro per month (redundant backup servers double this cost).
In short, you have these costs:
1) Energy cost per kWh per year from a supplier or the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of a solar/battery, windmill/battery or hydro/battery system.
2) ISP or datacenter cost per Mbit/s per year for the internet connection, fiber optic or copper leased line, satellite.
3) Colocation or closet/attic/barn space cost per year (with redundant servers you need several spaces)..
4) Server hardware cost per year based on the Total Cost of Ownership (over the lifetime).
5) Labour setting up and maintaining the software on the server (excluding content) per year.
6) Labour setting up and maintaining the content (excluding software and maintenance cost) per year.
7) Domain name registration, IP number registration, certificate cost.
8) Cooling cost[3].
The energy cost is highest of the world in my region (EU, The Netherlands) because of the inflating energy prices per kWh since November 2021. So you move the server to another home or datacenter with the lowest kWh price of the region (7.0 Euro cent from a hydro dam in rural Spain). Or you install solar panels and batteries (1.2 Euro cent per kWh LCOE).
With an €479 M4 Mac mini server in 2024 I lowered my server's power from an average 12 watt (a 2006 Mac mini using 10.4-30.6 watt and in period 1993-2006 a 20.2-31.3 watt server) to today (januari 2025) a 4.0-4.7 watt with an expected lifetime of 12-14 years. The server power includes the modem and router power. If you need a few terabytes disk space your cost per month will go up by around a euro per month.
In 2025 I expect the customer wil pay €37.21 for a year redundant availability of 10 TB at 1 Gbps for IP transit traffic per month, 16 GB DRAM unix server with 10 cores, 10 GPU cores and 16 neural engine (unlimited websites, email). If you would max out the server's 43 Trillion operations per second at max performance the power cost might go up 10x. Almost 3 euro per month for a server that can run an LLM continuously.....
You might hear of hosted servers below 3 euro. They usually involve some discount scheme to lure new customers in. With a minimum price of €7 for the cheapest domain name and certificate registration (yearly, worldwide), servers maintenance labour of €30 per hour these price quotes below 3 euro per month usually are not based on true cost.
[1] In the perod 1986-1992 we hosted email, FTP and Gopher on the university's unix servers with UUCP and TCP/IP. Since 1992 I hosted on the TCP/IP servers in my home, my friends home and several offices. Since 1999 we host in the EU, US, Canada with options for Brazil and Asia.
[2] M4 Mac Mini Cluster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBR6pHZ68Ho
Anyone with experience or proof of a cheaper solution? Please contact me so we can bid on your knowledge.
[3] I heat my rooms with several servers, so the cooling and fan cost are $0, even in summer during heatwaves.