# Discourse Costs
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [January 8, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070 "2020-01-08T16:49:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Callum5124](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Callum5124)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/1 "2020-01-08T16:49:30Z")
Hi there,
I was wondering is it possible to set up and run a Discourse community for small scale use completely free of charge or are there neccesary costs at some stages?
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### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/2 "2020-01-08T16:56:19Z")
[Discourse](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.md) is an open source software and is free to use. In a self installation you will pay only the cost of the server that hosts the site, for example [Digital Ocean](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/?_campaign=DO_Dev_Awareness_G_Search_B_Generic_Beta&_adgroup=digital_ocean&_keyword=%2Bdigital%20%2Bocean&_device=c&_copytype=sitelink_ext&_adposition=1t1&_medium=brand_sem&_source=google&_dkitrig=&_2dkitrig=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk6v2xLv05gIVUflRCh1ekwlTEAAYASABEgIlgfD_BwE) has plans that start from $5/mo.
Take a look to [Recommended Hosting Providers for Self Hosters](https://meta.discourse.org/t/recommended-hosting-providers-for-self-hosters/79562)
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### Author:  [@Callum5124](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Callum5124)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/3 "2020-01-08T16:57:18Z")
Is there any way of fairly simply running a server for free. It’ll be fairly low traffic?
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/4 "2020-01-08T17:02:23Z")
Ultimately no, if you ignore sign-on bonuses.
tbh the higher cost by far is the time you will happily forego proper work and sink into it instead 😉
If you are successful you might be able to cover costs by member contribution and/or affiliate marketing.
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### Author:  [@tehspaceg](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tehspaceg)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/5 "2020-01-08T18:53:48Z")
Nothing is free, and software needs to run on something. $5 a month for a small Digital Ocean droplet is a pretty great steal. I run mine on a DO droplet and have zero issues. My monthly cost with image upload space is $15 a month.
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### Author:  [@danb35](https://meta.discourse.org/u/danb35)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/6 "2020-01-08T19:37:06Z")
…and Digital Ocean isn’t even the lowest-cost VPS out there. I use Contabo (whose lowest-cost tier is about the same as DO, but gives you quite a bit more in terms of CPU/RAM/storage), but these hosts seem to offer a basic VPS for $30/year or less:
> **[Shopping Cart - CrownCloud - Internet Services](https://crowncloud.net/clients/index.php?rp=%2Fstore%2Flos-angeles-ca-kvm-ssd-series)**
> **[Shopping Cart - Naranjatech](https://clients.naranja.tech/store/kvm-ssd/kvm-1gb)**
[https://clients.budgetnode.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=77&billingcycle=annually](https://clients.budgetnode.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=77&billingcycle=annually)
[https://freerangecloud.com/cart.php?gid=1](https://freerangecloud.com/cart.php?gid=1)
I don’t see a way that “free” Discourse is going to happen, but it can be very inexpensive.
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### Author:  [@Callum5124](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Callum5124)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/7 "2020-01-08T20:02:25Z")
Thanks for all the responses. Much appreciated.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-costs/138070/8 "2020-02-07T20:02:41Z")
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