Question triggered by the other post about instances shutting down due to costs
Summary of the answers:
- lowest number so far: lemmy.ml with 0.03€ per user per month
- a few others (feddit.uk, lemmy.zip) have around 0.11$ per user per month
- obviously single user instance have higher costs
For others, the number is 8 “monthly active users”.
As this instance is partially operating on “free” hardware, it’s unlikely one can host an instance for much cheaper.
For me it’s zero. In addition to reusing existing hardware, I have a subsidized internet connection that I reuse to connect my instance, and even the domain name is free.
Of course I also have fewer users - excluding me, zero.