How Much Does a Homelab Actually Cost Per Month? (Real Numbers)
The real monthly cost of running a homelab — power draw, hardware amortization, domain, and services. Based on what I actually pay, not estimates.
The number I see cited most often when people ask about homelab costs is “just the electricity.” That’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete. Here’s the full picture, using what I actually run.
My current setup
For context: I run a single Proxmox node on a mini PC (Intel N100, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD). On top of that runs a Docker host VM with a dozen or so containers, plus a few additional LXC containers for things like DNS. Nothing exotic.
Power draw
The N100 is a remarkably low-power chip. Under normal load — a handful of containers running, occasional backups — my node draws about 12-15 watts. I’ve measured this with a Kill-A-Watt meter; it’s not a guess.
At 15 watts continuous:
- Hours per day: 24
- Watts per day: 15W × 24h = 0.36 kWh
- kWh per month: 0.36 × 30 = 10.8 kWh
At $0.13/kWh (US average, though it varies wildly by region — my rate is closer to $0.11):
Monthly power cost: ~$1.40
If you’re in California or the Northeast paying $0.20-0.30/kWh, that becomes $2.16-$3.24/month. Still less than a single app subscription.
For comparison, a used Dell Optiplex with a Core i5 draws 35-50 watts under similar load. That’s roughly $3.50-$5/month at average US rates. Still cheap, but noticeably higher than an N100 box running 24/7.
Hardware amortization
I paid $155 for my Beelink S12 Pro. I’ve been running it for about 14 months. That works out to roughly $11/month in hardware cost, which will continue to drop over time.
Add a $40 SSD upgrade I did after 6 months (the stock drive felt slow), and the total hardware spend is $195 amortized over 14 months — about $14/month.
This number drops every month. A homelab that’s been running for 2 years on the same hardware is paying maybe $6-8/month in hardware cost. By year 3, the hardware is effectively free.
Domain name
I use a .com domain registered through Cloudflare Registrar, which charges at cost with no markup. That’s $8.57/year, or about $0.71/month.
If you use a .dev or .io, it’s more — typically $12-15/year. A .com or .net is the cheapest ongoing option.
Software and services
This is where I pay essentially nothing, because the entire stack is open source:
- Proxmox VE: free (no subscription required for home use)
- Docker: free
- Nginx Proxy Manager: free
- Tailscale: free (personal plan, up to 100 devices)
- Technitium DNS: free
- Authelia: free
- Syncthing: free
- Paperless-ngx: free
- Mealie: free
- Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates: free
The one thing worth noting: Tailscale’s free tier is currently very generous, but it’s a VC-funded company. I’d watch for pricing changes and keep a backup plan. Headscale (a self-hosted Tailscale coordination server) exists if you want to go fully self-reliant.
The full monthly number
| Category | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Electricity (N100, ~15W) | $1.40 |
| Hardware amortization (month 14) | $13.93 |
| Domain name | $0.71 |
| Software | $0 |
| Total | $16.04 |
After 36 months (hardware fully amortized): $2.11/month
What this replaces
These are the subscriptions I no longer pay:
| Service | What I replaced it with | Monthly savings |
|---|---|---|
| Google One 200GB ($3/month) | Syncthing | $3 |
| 1Password ($3/month) | Vaultwarden | $3 |
| Some document scanner app ($8/month) | Paperless-ngx | $8 |
| NordVPN ($5/month) | Tailscale (free) | $5 |
| Total saved | $19/month |
So at month 14, I’m net negative $3/month — meaning the homelab is saving me about $3 per month even after accounting for all costs including hardware amortization. After year 3, it’s saving me roughly $17/month.
That’s not retirement money. But it’s also not nothing, and it doesn’t include the services I run that don’t have clean subscription equivalents (Paperless-ngx, local DNS, etc.).
The honest caveats
Time is not free. Initial setup took a weekend. Ongoing maintenance is maybe 1-2 hours per month — updates, the occasional broken container, adding a new service. If your time is worth more than homelab is saving you, the math looks different.
Failures have a cost. I’ve had one SSD fail (recovered from Proxmox backup, lost maybe an afternoon). I’ve had containers go down overnight and not notice until morning. This is real operational risk that a cloud provider handles for you.
Hardware can fail unexpectedly. My N100 has been rock solid, but there’s always the possibility of a failed drive or a bad power supply. I keep a spare $15 SD card with a fresh Proxmox install ready to clone.
If you want to understand what this compares to on the cloud side, the self-hosting vs. cloud cost breakdown goes into more detail on the breakeven analysis.
For the actual setup, start with the Getting Started guide.