202
domains owned
420
sites incl. subdomains
72
services running
2
droplets
How to read the confidence tags.
VERIFIED means somebody can point at a receipt, an invoice or an API
response. INFERRED means it is derived from something checkable, like
reading the droplet's specs and taking the list price for that size.
UNKNOWN means we genuinely do not know, and the row is left blank
rather than filled with a plausible guess. The totals below only add the first two.
Spent so far
One-off costs specific to this build, as opposed to the standing cost of running the network.
| Item | Amount | Cadence | Confidence | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apify | $30.00 | one-off, already paid | VERIFIED | Paul, 15 Aug 2026. Account confirmed live on the STARTER plan via Apify's own API. |
| Total we can stand behind | $30.00 | excludes the Claude subscription, which Paul knows and this machine cannot see | ||
Ongoing, to keep the lights on
This is the part that runs whether or not anybody touches it. 4 of these lines are unknown from here, and one of them — domain renewals across 202 registrable domains — is very likely the biggest number on the whole page.
| Item | Amount | Cadence | Confidence | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude subscription | $200.00 | per month | VERIFIED | Paul, 15 Aug 2026. This is the single largest known line and it is what the whole build runs on. |
| Claude API charges | — | per month | UNKNOWN | Paul confirms there are API charges on top of the flat plan. Variable with usage and not visible from this machine. Worth pinning down, because it is the one ongoing cost that rises with how hard we work rather than staying flat. |
| DigitalOcean — main droplet | $24.00 | per month | INFERRED | 2 vCPU, ~4 GB RAM, ~60 GB disk read from the machine itself. That is DigitalOcean's $24 tier at list price. Confirm against the actual invoice. |
| DigitalOcean — Postiz droplet | — | per month | UNKNOWN | A second droplet at 64.227.29.192 runs the publishing hub. Its size is not visible from here. |
| Apify | $0.00 | per month | VERIFIED | STARTER plan carries monthly usage credits. Nothing further is owed unless usage exceeds the included credit. |
| GoDaddy domain renewals | $310.00 | per month | INFERRED | 186 active domains on the GoDaddy account, 173 of them .com, read live from GoDaddy's API. At a typical .com renewal of roughly $20-22 a year including the ICANN fee, that is about $3,700-4,100 a year, or ~$310 a month. The COUNT is verified; the RATE is not - Paul's actual renewal prices vary with promotions and multi-year terms, so confirm against a GoDaddy invoice. |
| Backblaze B2 backups | — | per month | UNKNOWN | Nightly backups run to B2. Usage-priced, so it depends on stored volume. |
| Cloudflare | — | per month | UNKNOWN | In use across the estate. May be entirely on the free tier. |
| Known monthly | $534.00 | with 4 lines still unpriced — the real figure is higher | ||
The domain portfolio
Read live from GoDaddy at build time. This is the largest ongoing cost and it was sitting on the page as an unknown until now.
186
active domains
173
of them .com
6
NOT auto-renewing
Six domains will simply lapse. Auto-renew is switched off on:
autoseoengine.com, codedmag.com, lowerthirdmaker.com, maxelmag.com, royallswindmill.com, wholereach.com. wholereach.com is among them — the domain carrying this page, the
huddle, the scorecard and the site worksheet. All six expire in 2027, so nothing is on fire,
but turning auto-renew back on is a two-minute job with a very bad failure mode.
What still needs buying
In priority order. Only the first three are arguable as necessary, and the third is the cheapest way to make the number Tim actually asks about measurable.
| Item | Cost | Cadence | Priority | What it unblocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An AI model account | $20–50 | per month | high | The one purchase that moves Tim's third question. Unlocks 12 of the 45 items currently waiting on a human — nine content briefs that need turning into real articles, cold-email wording, and customer research. Takes that answer from about 55% to its honest ceiling of 77%. |
| Million Verifier | $37.00 | per month | high, but only once we send | Checks an address is real before we mail it. Not optional if outreach happens: enrichment output is dirty, and sending to dead addresses damages deliverability for every domain we own. Insurance on a 202-domain estate. |
| A tracked phone number | $30.00 | per month | high | Worth 40 of the 99 points in Tim's second question on its own. A phone call is completely invisible to us without one, so this is the cheapest way to make the number that matters measurable. |
| First paid ad test | $250.00 | per one-off | optional | Tim's own interaction model — spend a fixed sum, report back what a lead cost. Can wait: outreach could move the same number for less. |
| Origami | $0.00 | per on use | deferred | Costs nothing until used. No decision needed yet. |
| New monthly commitment | $87–117 | plus a one-off $250 if the ad test is approved | ||
The figure that has been quoted wrongly. This has been described as
“three purchases, about $145 a month.” That was too high and it bundled the tracked
phone number in with the three. Apify is now bought and confirmed live, so it is
two purchases, and with the tracked number the real new commitment is
$87–117 a month.
What is worth knowing before spending anything else
Not a cost, but it belongs on a finance page.
The network has produced zero demonstrable customers so far. That is not
a failure of the build — nothing has been spent on reaching anyone and no outreach has been
sent. But it does mean every figure in the right-hand column above is a cost with no revenue
beside it yet, and the honest way to read this page is as an investment that has not been tested
in the market. The cheapest test on the list is the tracked phone number at $30 a month.