Stack
This is what your system runs on
No black box. Every layer, every tool, and whether it's open source or not.
Everything open. Code and data yours. Everything exportable.
Why this page exists
We first ran this with the usual providers and paid €325 a month for it. The same functions now cost us €59: €266 a month less, €3,193 a year.
That isn't down to hard bargaining. It's down to choosing open source where we can, putting that software on our own servers, and keeping all of those servers in the EU.
On 15 September 2026 we looked at thirteen agencies in our field: their public site, against three questions. None of them shows what their own site runs on, or what that costs. That is why it is here.
Interface
€0
- Hermes Agentactiverunning since 24 June on our own Anthropic key
- Hermes Desktopplanneddecided 29 July, not deployed
- Hermexplanneddecided 29 July, not deployed
- Groq Whisperplanneddecided 29 July, free tier
Applications
€0
- Twenty CRMin progressthe CRM, self-hosted
- Ghostactivethe blog
- Discourseactivethe community
- Documensoin progresssigning, on ddd-sign
- Chatwootplanneddecided, deploy blocked on memory
- Cal.diydiscontinuedbooking page, no longer running
Orchestration and AI
€180
- n8n self-hostedactivede automatisering, self-hosted
- Claude APIactivethe models behind the production flows
- n8n Clouddiscontinuedcarries all nine production flows today
- Claude Max-abonnementactiveontwikkeltooling
Security
€0
- Vaultwardenplanneddecided 29 July, not deployed
- Infisicalplanneddecided 29 July, not deployed
- Bitwardenphasing outcarries the credentials today
Infrastructure
€63
- Coolifyactivecarries Twenty, Ghost and n8n
- CPX32 · 8 GBactiveddd-core, 4 vCPU / 8 GB, Nuremberg
- CX23 · 4 GBactiveddd-ghost, the blog, Nuremberg
- CX23 · 4 GBactiveddd-discourse, the community, Helsinki
- CX23 · 4 GBin progressddd-sign, signing, Falkenstein
Web and DNS
€7
- Astroactivethis site
- Cloudflare Pagesactivehosting van deze site, gratis tier
- Cloudflare DNSactivezone active since 30 July, 18 records
- Cloudflare Registrarplannedsuccessor to Squarespace, transfer blocked on the .nl question
- Squarespacephasing outregistrar, still running
External services
€414
- Google Workspaceactivemail and calendar, three users
- Moneybirdactiveaccounting, Start plan
- Mollieactivepayments, cost per transaction
- Rinkelactivetelephony, Expert plan
- PDFShiftactivepdf rendering, Starter, 500 a month
- Instantlyactiveoutbound email, Growth plan
- ClickUpactiveproject management, free tier
- Firecrawlactivereading pages, free tier
- Supabaseactivedatabases, free tier
- Mauticactiveemail marketing, hosted outside DDD infrastructure
- GoHighLevelphasing outthe CRM the client sees today
- GHL WhatsAppphasing outWhatsApp Business channel, no longer running
- Jorttdiscontinuedaccounting, replaced by Moneybird
For comparison: for the functions we moved across we paid €325 a month to hosted services. Those same functions now sit on our own servers for €59 a month. Amounts as at 3 September 2026; the full breakdown is in what is yours if you stop.
The servers these tools run on cost €49.08 a month: €43.09 for the box carrying client management and automation, and a smaller one beside it for signing. The three tools that need no server of their own cost nothing.
This is not a diagram. It runs.
The six it runs on
What sits under the bonnet
Six of these tools do the work you would notice day to day. Below is what each one does, what it costs, and what it means for you.
Client management
Our clients, conversations and quotes are going into Twenty CRM. It is up; filled it is not. The software is free and we run it on our own server, so you don't pay per employee the way you do with the common alternative. There the bill climbs with every colleague who joins. For you that means this: grow from three people to thirty and your monthly figure doesn't change, and move to another party tomorrow and the whole client list simply comes with you.
Digital signatures
Quotes and contracts are signed digitally with Documenso, on our own server; at our end it is standing ready and goes into use shortly. The most widely used option charges per document or per user; this one costs us nothing per signature. For you that means you can have a contract signed without stopping to think what that one extra signature costs, and that the signed document stays on a server in the EU rather than with an American provider.
Website
This site is built with Astro. That isn't a kit you pay a monthly fee for, but a tool that produces ordinary files: the page you are reading now was finished before you asked for it. That makes it load fast, and fast loading is exactly what Google and AI systems reward. For you that means your site is yours, as files you can take with you, rather than a rental from a website builder.
Automation
The work between your systems runs through n8n. Think of a request that becomes a task, or an invoice that goes out on its own. This runs on our own server; the hosted version we used for it cost €20 a month and has been cancelled. For you that means an extra automation isn't an extra subscription, and that nobody sends your business data past a server outside the EU to turn it into a task.
Database
The data behind the systems sits in Supabase. A database is no more than the place where everything is kept: names, appointments, amounts. This one is open source, which means anyone can check how it works and that we can put it on our own server the moment that is needed. For you that means your data is exportable and stays that way, even if we aren't here tomorrow.
Hosting
The site itself sits with Cloudflare Pages, and that costs nothing. Hosting is where your website physically lives; this one also makes sure visitors from the Netherlands get it from a nearby data centre rather than from the other side of the world. For you that means a site that is fast everywhere, with no monthly fee, and without being tied to one supplier: the files are with you as well.
Four of these six are running, two are under construction. The badge by each heading says which. The software costs us €0 a month in total: four of them are open source, two run on their provider's free tier. What we do pay for is the server underneath, and that sits in the cost bar above.
And the €484 in the bar above? That is the whole stack as it stands today, including the subscriptions these six are in the process of replacing, plus mail, telephony and outbound mail. As the migration progresses that figure comes down.
Curious what your own stack costs?
We'll look at it together: what you run, what it costs per month, and where two tools do the same job. Or read first why we chose this, with the same question for your own business.