How Much Does a Homelab Cost Per Month? A Calculator With Example Numbers

The number you see cited most often when people ask about homelab costs is “just the electricity.” That is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Your monthly number depends on your hardware, your electricity rate, and what you pay for the extras, so this page is a calculator with labelled example figures, not a personal ledger. Replace every example with your own.

What goes into the monthly number

Power. Watts, times hours, times your rate. A small low-power box can idle in the low tens of watts, but check the manufacturer’s spec sheet or a named review for your model, and measure your own draw if you can. The method is in homelab power usage.

Hardware amortization. The purchase price spread over how long you expect to use the hardware. It drops every month you keep the same machine, and it jumps every time you buy something new.

Domain. A .com or .net is typically the cheapest ongoing option. .dev and .io cost more. The homelab itself only needs one domain for internal services.

Software. Most of a typical stack is open source and free: Proxmox VE (no subscription required for home use), Docker, Nginx Proxy Manager, Technitium DNS, Syncthing, Paperless-ngx, Mealie, and Let’s Encrypt certificates. Tailscale’s personal plan is free too, but it is a venture-funded company, so 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.

Monthly fees. Offsite backup storage, a VPN, anything else with a recurring bill. Put these in the monthly fees field below.

The calculator

Power use and monthly cost calculator

Example values

Enter what a device draws from the wall and what you pay for electricity to see its monthly running cost, with the hardware price spread over its life.

The starting numbers below are examples, not measurements. Replace them with your own.

Power and electricity

Average power draw (watts)

Example value. Measure yours with a plug-in watt meter, or add up the devices on one outlet. For several devices, enter the total.

Hours per day it runs (0 to 24)

Example value. 24 means always on.

Electricity rate (dollars per kWh)

Example value, not a quote. Use the price per kWh on your own electricity bill.

Hardware and fees

Hardware price (dollars)

Example value. What you paid, or expect to pay, including drives.

Expected life (months, at least 1)

Example value. How long you expect to keep using it.

Other monthly fees (dollars) (optional)

Optional. Recurring costs tied to it, such as a domain or backup storage. Leave at 0 if none.

Result

Based on the example values above.

Energy used per month: 43.8 kWh
Electricity per month: $6.57
Hardware per month (price spread over its life): $5.00
Other monthly fees: $0.00
Total per month: $11.57
Electricity per year: $78.89
Total per year: $138.89

How this is calculated

Energy per month (kWh): watts × hours per day × 30.44 days ÷ 1,000. (30.44 is the average number of days in a month: 365.25 ÷ 12.)
Electricity per month: energy per month × your rate per kWh.
Hardware per month: hardware price ÷ expected life in months. This is straight-line: no resale value, no interest.
Total per month: electricity + hardware per month + other monthly fees.
Worked example, using the example values: 60 W × 24 h × 30.44 ÷ 1,000 = 43.8 kWh; × $0.15 per kWh = $6.57 electricity; + $5.00 hardware = $11.57 per month.

Not sure of your rate? It is printed on your electricity bill. The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes average prices by state in Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A.

A worked example

As an example, a box drawing 40 W around the clock uses about 29 kWh a month (40 W x 24 hours x 30.4375 days / 1000). At an example rate of $0.15 per kWh, that is about $4.38 a month in electricity. Use your own wattage and your own rate. If your rate is $0.20 to $0.30 per kWh, which is common in parts of California and the Northeast, the same load costs proportionally more, and it still tends to be less than a single app subscription.

The hardware line works the same way: a $300 machine amortized over 60 months is $5 a month before electricity, and less per month the longer you keep it.

The honest caveats

Time is not free. Setup and ongoing maintenance take hours: updates, the occasional broken container, adding a new service. If your time is worth more than the homelab saves you, the math looks different. The hidden costs piece covers time and the other costs that do not fit in a calculator.

Failures have a cost. Drives fail, power supplies die, and containers go down overnight without you noticing until morning. That is real operational risk a cloud provider handles for you. Setting aside a small monthly amount as a hardware failure fund is a reasonable way to account for it.

The numbers move. Electricity rates change, hardware prices change, and so do subscription prices. Rerun the calculator when they do.

If you want to understand what this compares to on the cloud side, the self-hosting vs. cloud break-even calculator takes the monthly cost from this page and shows how long it takes to pay for itself. The self-hosting vs. cloud cost breakdown goes into more detail on the analysis, and for a broader view that includes hardware amortization, time investment, and the costs people forget to count, see the total cost breakdown.

For the actual setup, start with the Getting Started guide.