Hosting is the one figure taken straight from the live account. Everything else on the current side is a licence we know exists but cannot see the invoice for, so it is listed as unknown rather than estimated. The proposed side is fully costed — those are our own numbers.
| What | Provider | Per month | Per year | At renewal /yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ServerKVM 8 — 8 vCPU, 32 GB, 400 GB NVMe, 32 TB transfer | Hostinger | $25.99 | $311.88 | $599.88 |
| Email sending~40,000 messages/month at $0.10 per 1,000 | Amazon SES | $4.00 | $48.00 | $48.00 |
| Off-server backupsdaily, retained 30 days — non-negotiable on a site taking payments | S3 / Backblaze | $0.04 | $0.48 | $0.48 |
| CDN, DNS, WAFfree tier is genuinely sufficient at this traffic | Cloudflare | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Uptime & cron monitoringalerts if a renewal job stops running | free tier | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Membership & billingthe custom plugin — replaces four paid extensions | ours | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Email automation & campaignsbuilder, segments, automations | ours | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Member console & retentionthe whole back office | ours | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Total to run | $30.03 | $360.36 | $648.36 |
Stripe takes its percentage on each transaction whichever system processes it. That cost does not change, so putting it on either side of the comparison would only make the numbers look bigger without changing the decision.
This is the cost to run the system, not to build it. The build is a separate one-off, and so is the ongoing maintenance arrangement. Both should be quoted separately so the client can see what is a recurring bill and what is a project.
Only one line here can be stated as fact. The rest are licences that are definitely installed and definitely paid for, but the invoices have not been seen — so they stay marked unknown.
| What | Status | Per year | Comes off the bill? |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP Engine Premium 1$606.00/month invoiced, confirmed from the account | Known | $7,272.00 | Yes — replaced by the $311.88 server |
| WooCommerce Subscriptions | Unknown | ? | Yes — the plugin replaces it |
| WooCommerce Memberships | Unknown | ? | Yes — the access grid replaces it |
| AutomateWoo | Unknown | ? | Yes — the automation engine replaces it |
| WooCommerce Checkout Field Editor | Unknown | ? | Yes — our checkout is custom |
| WooCommerce Order Status Control | Unknown | ? | Yes |
| WooCommerce Social Login | Unknown | ? | Yes |
| Diviunclear whether the licence is monthly, yearly or lifetime | Unknown | ? | Yes — the new theme is Bootstrap, no Divi |
| Gravity FormsElite — the top tier — plus the User Registration add-on | Unknown | ? | Probably — registration moves into the plugin. Keep only if the contact forms are still wanted. |
| Genesis Blocks / Genesis Custom Blocksmay be the free versions | Unknown | ? | Possibly — worth checking whether these are paid at all |
| Others installed and active ACF Pro, WP Smush Pro, PushEngage, Wordfence, Enterprise 2FA, perfmatters, WP All Export Pro, SearchWP, ThumbPress, WPMU DEV | Unknown | ? | Case by case — several are redundant on a VPS with Cloudflare |
| Confirmed today | $7,272.00 | plus every unknown above |
Taken from each vendor's own pricing page on 9 August 2026. These are current list prices; what he actually pays may differ if he is on legacy or multi-year renewal rates.
| Licence | Source | Per year | Comes off the bill? |
|---|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce Subscriptionswoocommerce.com | Confirmed | $279.00 | Yes — the plugin replaces it |
| WooCommerce Membershipswoocommerce.com | Confirmed | 99.00 | Yes — the access grid replaces it |
| AutomateWoowoocommerce.com | Confirmed | 59.00 | Yes — the automation engine replaces it |
| Social Login for WooCommercewoocommerce.com | Confirmed | $99.00 | Yes |
| Checkout Field Editorwoocommerce.com | Confirmed | $49.00 | Yes — our checkout is custom |
| Order Status Managerwoocommerce.com | Confirmed | $49.00 | Yes |
| Gravity Forms Elitegravityforms.com | Confirmed | $259.00 | Probably — registration moves into the plugin |
| Divielegantthemes.com | Confirmed | $89.00 | Yes — new theme is Bootstrap ($249 lifetime alt.) |
| ACF Pro (Personal)advancedcustomfields.com | Confirmed | $49.00 | Likely keep — cheap and useful |
| Confirmed licence spend | ,231.00 | of which ,123 is directly replaced |
Wordfence, perfmatters, SearchWP, PushEngage, WPMU DEV / Smush Pro, WP All Export Pro, Enterprise 2FA and ThumbPress are all installed and active but not yet priced. Several are redundant on a VPS behind Cloudflare, so they are savings too. Add them and the figure rises further.
| Per month | Per year | Over three years | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Todayhosting $7,272 + confirmed licences $1,231 | $708.58 | $8,503.00 | $25,509.00 |
| Proposedeverything: server, sending, backups, all software | $30.03 | $360.36 | $1,369.08 |
| Saved | $678.55 | $8,142.64 | $24,139.92 |
$1,369 against $25,509. And every unknown licence above is additional saving on top, because all of them come off the bill. The figure only moves in one direction once the invoices arrive.
This is the cost to run, self-managed. Patching, tuning and uptime become our responsibility, and 845 live Stripe subscriptions sit on that box. The monitoring and daily backups in the table above are what make that acceptable, and they are why the total is $30.03 rather than $26. Do not cut those two lines to make the number rounder.
One thing: the WooCommerce.com and plugin renewal invoices. Every "?" above fills in from those, and the saving figure grows. Nothing else is outstanding.
Email platform costs have been deliberately left out of this document entirely. Until there is an invoice, there is no number, and a guess in a client document is worse than a blank.