Cost Ledger
Monthly cost breakdown of the Personal Digital Estate. Investment path: 🎯 Strategist — lean DIY infrastructure + premium AI budget that scales with motivation. See Investment Paths for the full analysis.
Fixed Costs (always on)
Section titled “Fixed Costs (always on)”| Component | Provider | Purpose | Monthly Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent Host | Hostinger VPS KVM2 | Hermes Agent + Drive Bridge (Workspace API) | €7.99 | pricing |
| Google Drive | Knowledge Vault (SSOT), Collaboration Hub, Photos | ~€3 | Family plan, already subscribed | |
| Domains | PlanetHoster | ducatillon.net, locationyeu.com, chateaudebourgon.com | ~€1 | ~€10-15/year total |
| Bitwarden | Bitwarden | Credential Vault + TOTP (Premium) | ~€1 | €10/year — consolidates 2FA |
| Cloudflare Pages | Cloudflare | Static site hosting (6 sites) | €0 | Free tier |
| Cloudflare DNS | Cloudflare | DNS, CDN, SSL for all domains | €0 | Free tier |
| Cloudflare Tunnel | Cloudflare | Agent Tunnel (hermes.ducatillon.net) | €0 | Free tier |
| Cloudflare Access | Cloudflare | Email OTP auth for dashboard + docs | €0 | Free for ≤50 users |
| Aegis | Open-source | Identity Guard (2FA/TOTP) — target | €0 | Free, open-source |
| Markor | Open-source | Mobile .md editor (Pixel 9A) | €0 | Free, open-source |
| Google Workspace API | Drive Bridge on Agent Host (read-only, free quotas) | €0 | Included with Google account | |
| GitHub | GitHub | Private repos (code + Architecture Wiki source) | €0 | Free for private repos |
| Google Photos | Family photos (outside Hermes scope) | included | Part of Google Drive plan | |
| External HD | — | Backup Target (weekly) | €0 | Already owned |
| Fixed subtotal | ~€13 |
Variable Costs (scales with motivation)
Section titled “Variable Costs (scales with motivation)”| Component | Provider | Purpose | Monthly Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LLM (premium) | OpenRouter | Premium models for complex reasoning, articles, research | €0-25 | Pay-per-token. Budget cap: start at €15, increase manually when needed |
| LLM (free) | OpenRouter | Free models for simple Hermes tasks | €0 | Gemma, Llama, etc. |
Monthly Projection by Energy Level
Section titled “Monthly Projection by Energy Level”| Month type | Fixed | AI (OpenRouter) | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| 😴 Lazy month (no projects) | €13 | €0 | €13 |
| 🚶 Normal month (some work) | €13 | €5-10 | €18-23 |
| 🔥 On fire month (full output) | €13 | €15-25 | €28-38 |
Yearly estimate: ~€220-300 (less than Netflix + Spotify combined)
OpenRouter budget cap: Start at €15/month. Increase manually when actively shipping. This prevents surprise bills while allowing full-throttle months when motivated.