So, how much is this going to cost

To be fair, I already pay a significant amount for online services that don’t get much attention, so, don’t judge me and remember I generally have no idea what I’m doing (but I always end up figuring it out).

Now, that probably happens because I ended up hoarding products I used with the agency, and now I only use them on my personal projects (and like two clients). Please keep this in mind when you see this setup; it’s not the most efficient.

For the sake of transparency, I’ll list all the costs of keeping this alive as it currently is, and I’ll update over the weeks and months as I make changes and consolidate my expenses into a better setup, once and for all.

I have three hosting accounts. Why do you need so many? You don’t.

1. One of them is a reseller account, the one I used with the agency. It’s “cheap,” allows 30 cPanel accounts, and is where I hosted clients (I still have a couple, plus some friends’ projects, because, hey, I like to share). I bought it with A2 Hosting 6 years ago, now absorbed by hosting.com, and since then the customer service has been horrible. Honestly, don’t do it.
2. Another one is my blog hosting. I wanted to separate it because it was my main source of income for a while, and, honestly, the place where I have it has hosted my websites since I was 16 years old (yes, you read that right). At this point I might be their longest-lasting customer. That’s from back when I REALLY had no idea what I was doing, but the support was awesome, and the same lady (probably the owner), Amy, has replied to every single ticket ever since. It’s e-starr, and if you want “family” support, I’d totally recommend them.
3. The last one is a VPS I recently bought to experiment with n8n.

Could I simply use ONE VPS?

Yes, I know, but it was always a bit terrifying. I plan to make that move soon, since my reseller hosting is paid through Nov 2027. After I’ve reviewed everything, I’ll redesign the blog again (last time was 2021).

Because of all that, I also have an Elementor agency account (25 sites) for 199 USD a year. It was my main tool for building landing pages and WordPress sites until I had a better way, and I also shared the license with clients and friends. Sharing is caring.

And I also have like 14 domains… some of them because I liked the name, and I’d rather buy them now and sit on them until I have the time or the will to bring those projects to life than have to fight over the name in the future. Reasonable? Not much. But like this, I also feel guilty for not bringing those projects to life every time I look at the yearly bill. We all have our questionable methods.

Now on the “coding” part

When I started with Lovable after the free-credit rush, I was in a full-on manic episode (just exaggerating). I asked myself, wait, how much is this going to cost me if I actually have to pay for it? Look, I earn well, but still, this had to be sustainable. Anything that would push the bill too far would simply not be a good idea, and, being honest, there’s a difference between building something, pushing it out there, and maintaining it, so I had to account for that too.

I quickly realized the answer was: a lot.

I spent over 200€ on my first Lovable month and didn’t get very far.

If Lovable uses Claude, why couldn’t I? What I liked most about the Lovable experience was two things: the visual component of it, and the one-click Lovable Cloud install. I knew I could have a local view for the first, but I still didn’t know anything about the second one. So I researched a bit more.

I’m glad I went on that crusade early; otherwise it would have been a bigger mess. Once I understood what I’d actually done there, I decided to move out of Lovable as quickly as possible. But the trick is, if you use their Lovable Cloud, you own very little. Supabase sits in their project, and you’re using all their API keys. Simplicity vs control.

I spent a full afternoon setting up Supabase Cloud, properly connecting everything to GitHub, and learning to work with Claude Code locally. It was fun as hell. By then I already had 20 users registered, one active (besides me), which meant migrating would mean asking people to reset their passwords. And right that same weekend, I did a small publication on my 55-people TikTok account that got about 900 views about the tool, so… probably the worst moment to do this.

Anyway, going back to the costs. I paid 18€ for the first month of Claude and canceled my ChatGPT subscription. That month was March, when they also offered extra limits, so I never hit the ceiling. As soon as March ended, it was clear I had to pay for the Max version at 90€ a month (and I sometimes hit limits, so I might go up to 180€). You might think it’s the same because eventually I’ll end up paying 200€ anyway, but it’s not. What I can do with those is not even comparable to paying for the wrapper.

So, Claude: 90€ a month.

Other costs to consider

Some of those projects use functions that call Gemini AI, also for image generation (this one pushes the bill), like Vestiari. I have a limit of 10€ a month set for now. I’ve also heard nightmare stories of people having their API either misused or leaked and facing bills of 50K for Gemini, which, well, I do not want to pay, so thankfully Google Studio created a way to set a limit. Far from there yet.

I’m also considering paying for Supabase in the future, at 25 USD a month. I’ve also used self-hosted Supabase on the VPS, and I’ll be putting the projects I think have fewer problems there, while migrating or keeping in the cloud those that require more complexity. Still not there yet, as their 2-project free package covers me so far.

And that’s where we are as of April 2026.

Next steps, consolidating a bit

I guess I’ll finally do the move, buy a Hetzner VPS, and move everything I have on the reseller and my blog over to it. I’ll probably keep the other VPS at Hostinger for now, since it’s also paid for a couple of years, and that’s hosting my self-hosted Supabase and n8n.

This will also mean canceling the Elementor account. So I’m aiming to reduce that yearly bill by about 400 USD. I’ll update when I do this, because setting up the VPS, as said, terrifies me, so once it’s done I’ll for sure have it as a milestone to celebrate.