What a Private Cloud Is, and What It Costs
A private cloud is a server only your business uses, running software you own, reachable from anywhere. It can replace several subscriptions at once. How soon it saves you money depends on one thing: whether you need to buy hardware.
- Open-source software, no licence fees
- No per-seat charges from software vendors
- A private server or hardware in your building
- We set it up and keep it running
- Recommended, never required
Subscription Bills Grow on Their Own
Monthly software made sense when the team was small. Then you added tools, and every new hire added a seat on each of them. Prices rise at renewal and you get no say. When you stop paying, access stops too.
A typical ten-person business pays about $1,200 a month for email, files, meetings, customer records, passwords and backup. Your own stack may cost more once every tool is counted. The Rent vs Own calculator starts from that stack, and you can change every line to match your invoices.
A Private Server or On-Site Hardware
Both run the same software. They differ in where the machine sits, what you pay up front, and when you come out ahead. Treat them as two separate decisions, because the money works differently on each.
No Equipment to Buy
Your software runs on a virtual private server in a data center. You hold the data and everything on the server, and we run the technical side. The setup is configuration and migration work, with no hardware purchase. Because several paid services fold onto one or two servers, savings can start soon after setup. Most small businesses start here.
Everything Under Your Own Roof
The same software on equipment installed at your location and owned outright. It suits businesses that want their data on the premises and no third-party data center. The equipment is a real purchase, roughly five to eight months of your current subscription spend, so this path earns itself back over the longer run rather than straight away.
Your monthly cost after setup is lower on either path.
For a ten-person business on a typical stack, our all-in monthly fee is $1,000 or less, against the $1,200 or more it pays in subscriptions. When the total comes out ahead depends on the path and on your own figures, so we don't quote one number for both.
Don't I Just End Up Paying for Licences Instead?
No. The tools we deploy, such as Nextcloud, Mailcow, Odoo Community, Jitsi and Vaultwarden, are open source. They cost nothing to download, run or change. What you pay us for is setting them up, securing them, keeping them running and supporting your team.
Add ten new staff and no licence invoice arrives. Our own fee steps in bands as the environment grows, and it is never charged per head.
The Subscriptions It Usually Replaces
One deployment often takes the place of five to eight separate tools. These are the common swaps. Some subscriptions are worth keeping, and the assessment is where we work out which.
Email, Calendar and Documents
Email on your own domain, shared calendars and an office suite that opens Microsoft Office files.
Shared Files
A shared drive with desktop sync, mobile apps, version history and per-folder permissions.
Customer Records
Contacts, pipeline, email tracking and reports, with no extra cost for each person who uses it.
Video and Chat
Meetings and team messages on your own server, with no meeting time limits and no per-host charges.
Passwords
A shared password manager whose vault stays on your server, with browser extensions and mobile apps.
Backups
Daily snapshots, a copy kept off site, and restores we test. Monitoring, patches and updates are part of the same service.
Is This Going to Be Complicated for My Staff?
Files, email, calendar and calls work the way they do now, behind a new login screen. We train your team before the switch so day one holds no surprises.
Updates, security patches, backups and monitoring are our job. If something needs attention, we deal with it.
Office, home or a client's site, your team signs in securely from any device. Everyday staff don't need to manage a VPN.
The data, the admin access and the documentation are yours. If you move to another provider or run it yourself, you have what you need to do it cleanly.
When Ownership Pays, and When Renting Is Fine
We recommend ownership because it usually costs less over time and keeps your data in your hands. It is not a condition of working with us. If your subscriptions are modest, we can run managed IT on the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace setup you have today.
- Subscription bills keep growing
- Five or more people use the same tools
- You hold client records you want kept private
- You want IT costs you can plan around
- You plan in years, not months
Rent vs Own Calculator
Put in what you pay now and compare both ownership paths over five years.
Run your numbers →Own Your Stack
How we move your services onto a machine you control.
The service →Zero-Downtime Migration
How we build the new setup alongside the old one before anyone switches.
Read the article →Find Out What Your Number Looks Like
Thirty minutes on a call. We'll list what you pay for now, what could move, and send you a written plan with the monthly fee. If staying where you are makes more sense, we'll say so.