The Umami Post is designed to run as cheaply as possible without compromising quality, privacy, or independence. We chose every tool in our stack with cost in mind, not because we are cheap, but because every dollar not spent on infrastructure is a dollar available for journalism.
This page is updated whenever our costs change.
Monthly costs
| Service | What it does | Cost/month |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Pages | Hosting, CDN, DDoS protection, SSL | $0 |
| GitHub | Source code hosting, version control | $0 |
| Decap CMS | Browser-based content management | $0 |
| Umami | Primary analytics (cookieless, aggregate) | $0 |
| Cloudflare Web Analytics | Secondary analytics (cookieless, server-side) | $0 |
| Buttondown | Newsletter (no open/click tracking) | $0 |
| Cusdis | Comments (moderated, no accounts required) | $0 |
| Web3Forms | Form submissions (18 forms) | $0 |
| hCaptcha | Spam protection on forms | $0 |
| GTranslate | Machine translation (9 languages) | $0 |
| Bunny Fonts | Privacy-friendly web fonts | $0 |
| Pagefind | Client-side full-text search | $0 |
| Eleventy | Static site generator | $0 |
| Monthly infrastructure total | $0 | |
Annual costs
| Service | What it does | Cost/year |
|---|---|---|
| Domain registration | theumamipost.com, registered via Porkbun |
~$12 |
| Annual total | ~$12 | |
The real cost
The dollar cost of running this site is negligible. The real cost is time.
Recipe testing, writing, editing, photography, code development, design, and accessibility testing are done by a small team plus contributors. The infrastructure is intentionally free so that every dollar of reader support goes directly to the work -- testing recipes, paying contributors, and (occasionally) buying the cookbook or equipment we are reviewing -- not to a hosting bill, a CMS subscription, or a platform fee.
This is a deliberate architectural choice. By building on open-source tools and free-tier services, we ensure that this publication can survive on reader support alone, without ever needing to introduce advertising, brand partnerships, paywalls, or sponsored recipes.
What could change
If the site grows significantly, some free tiers may need to be upgraded:
- Buttondown, free up to 100 subscribers; $9/month after that
- Umami, free tier covers most needs; $9/month for higher traffic
- Web3Forms, free up to 250 submissions/month; $8/month after that
- Cloudflare Pages, free tier is generous (500 builds/month, unlimited bandwidth); paid plans start at $5/month for teams
Even at full paid tiers for every service, the total monthly cost would be approximately $31/month, less than a single month of most CMS platforms.
If and when we upgrade any service, this page will be updated to reflect the new costs.
How this compares
For context, here is what comparable publications typically pay:
- Ghost Pro, $9 to $199/month depending on subscribers
- WordPress hosting, $10 to $50/month plus plugin costs
- Substack, free, but takes 10% of paid subscription revenue
- Squarespace, $16 to $49/month
We pay $12/year. The difference is that we built the platform ourselves, using tools that cost nothing because they are open source or supported by free tiers designed for exactly this kind of use.
Last updated: April 20, 2026