This website currently costs me $1.79 per month to keep online. If you include my personal email account, I spend $8.99 to maintain my online presence. Here's a breakdown of the costs:
| Service | Cost (Monthly) |
|---|---|
| Firebase & Google Cloud (Backend Services) | $0.12 |
| Netlify (Website Hosting, SSL & DNS) | $0.00 (Free Tier) |
| Imgix (Image CDN) | $0.00 (Free Tier) |
| Cloudinary (Image CDN) | $0.00 (Free Tier) |
| Google Workspace (Email) | $7.20 |
| Uptime Robot (Website Monitoring) | $0.00 (Free Tier) |
| SquareSpace (Domain Registration) | $1.67 |
| Codecov (Code Coverage Reporting) | $0.00 (Free Tier) |
| Total Website Costs | $1.79 |
| Total Including Email | $8.99 |
Service Breakdown
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Firebase & Google Cloud (Backend Services): These services provide the backend infrastructure, including databases, authentication, and serverless functions. The bulk of the cost comes from Cloud Scheduler jobs at $0.09. Other minor costs include Cloud Storage at $0.02 and Cloud Functions CPU time at $0.01.
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Netlify (Website Hosting, SSL & DNS): Netlify is used for hosting the website, providing secure connections via SSL, and managing DNS. I am using 1.5GB of bandwidth per month.
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Imgix (Image CDN): Imgix is used for optimizing and delivering images. I have 37 origin images hosted.
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Cloudinary (Image CDN): Cloudinary handles image storage, optimization, and transformations. My usage includes 228MB of storage, 5.3GB of bandwidth, and 210 transformations.
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Google Workspace (Email): This service provides professional email accounts. The current cost for this service is $7.20 per month.
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Uptime Robot (Website Monitoring): Uptime Robot monitors the website's uptime and provides notifications in case of downtime. The free tier is sufficient for my needs.
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SquareSpace (Domain Registration): SquareSpace manages the domain registration. The cost is $20 per year, which translates to approximately $1.67 per month.
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Codecov (Code Coverage Reporting): Codecov provides code coverage reporting to ensure code is well-tested. The free tier is sufficient for my needs.
A Comment on Redundancy
I know I can consolidate services and am using multiple providers for similar services. This website is a personal project where I feel safe experimenting with new tools and tech. In time, I'll migrate and consolidate service providers to my favorites.
Building the whole stack by hand keeps costs low: each service does one job and most of them offer a free tier that more than covers personal-site traffic. The infrastructure includes a full API behind the GatsbyJS front end—all of it inside $1.79 a month.