--- title: "You are paying ~$3-7 per deployment for your AI Apps. How do you do it in <$10 per month?" slug: hetzner-coolify-self-hosting-ai-apps-under-10-dollars date_published: 2026-01-24T10:00:00.000Z original_url: https://www.tigzig.com/post/hetzner-coolify-self-hosting-ai-apps-under-10-dollars source: fresh processed_at: 2026-01-24T10:00:00.000Z feature_image: /images/blog/coolify.png --- # You are paying ~$3-7 per deployment for your AI Apps. How do you do it in <$10 per month? You are paying ~$3-7 per deployment for your AI Apps. For 40 tools that is $100-200 PM. How do you do it in <$10 per month? That's what happened around two years back, when I started deploying my open source tools on tigzig.com and doing client app projects. Coming from analytics, this was new to me. Started with Render - very easy. Then I had 10 apps on free service and 2-3 on paid plans, paying $7 per service for persistent disk. Free tier ones go to sleep after inactivity. Plus, you only get 512MB RAM and half a CPU. Good for small tools, but larger tools tank. I realized I needed full flexibility. Adding GBs of data, file hosting, higher RAM etc - without worrying about pay-as-you-go surprises, multiple providers or complex pricing. Finally decided to self-host everything. There was the fear of the unknown, but over time, and with AI help, turned out to be easier than I had thought. ## Two Major Elements 1. A shared server - basically a machine 2. A deployment tool - to manage multiple apps ## Hetzner for the Server Decided on Hetzner for pricing, reliability, and simplicity. For Euro 7.69 you get 8GB RAM, 80GB disk, 4 vCPUs, dedicated IP, full SSH access. It seemed like an ocean at that time. Now filling up fast. Have a big app? 32GB RAM, 640GB disk, 16 vCPUs - Euro 39 p.m. Not bad, right? All NVMe disks, by the way. Very clean interface vs some cloud providers that feel like an aeroplane cockpit. ## Coolify for Deployment For deployment using [Coolify](https://coolify.io) (Free, Open Source). Provides a Render-like interface. Deploy via GitHub repo or Docker. Everything in its own container. You can customize RAM and swap file sizes. I used this playlist from RJ Reynolds to set up Coolify: [YouTube Playlist](https://youtu.be/Q1Y_g0wMwww?si=p_jMuIO8786ELGMl) When I set it up nearly two years back, I did it one command at a time with ChatGPT. Now with Claude Code, you can share SSH keys and have it do most of the setup. But still do it in small steps, checking every step. ## More Resources More on Infra Setup for AI Tool Builders in my [2026 Guide - Part 2](/post/2026-infra-guide-part-2-deployment-hosting) ## Related Tools: [TREMOR - Macro Stress Signals](https://www.tigzig.com/tremor), [Quants Agent](https://www.tigzig.com/n8n-tech-analysis) Explore: [Browse all apps](https://www.tigzig.com/browse-apps), [APIs and MCP](https://www.tigzig.com/apis), [Market tools hub](https://www.tigzig.com/markets) More posts: [2026 Infra Guide for AI Tool Builders - Part 2: Deployment & Hosting](https://www.tigzig.com/post/2026-infra-guide-part-2-deployment-hosting), [2026 Infra Guide for AI Tool Builders - Part 1: AI Coder](https://www.tigzig.com/post/self-hosting-infrastructure-ai-tool-builders-2026-part-1-ai-coder), [How to Get Oracle's Always Free ARM VPS (24GB RAM, 4 CPUs). Auto-Retry Script to Beat 'Out of Capacity'.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/oracle-always-free-arm-vps-retry-script), [Server Meltdown: How Bots Crashed My AI Tools and What I Did About It](https://www.tigzig.com/post/fail2ban-server-security-bots-ai-tools) --- Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar Source: https://www.tigzig.com/post/hetzner-coolify-self-hosting-ai-apps-under-10-dollars Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar. License: https://www.tigzig.com/terms