93
How many and how much are your subscriptions?
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
93 points (100.0% liked)
Selfhosted
59543 readers
657 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
-
No spam posting.
-
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
No trolling.
-
No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, same. Though at 3-5W ... it really is just a very rough guess. Lemme ShitGPT it. Oh, I was way off
A realistic Pi 4B-only estimate is about A$8–A$12 per year in electricity, assuming it is on 24/7 and used for Jellyfin streaming around 10–12 hours per week.
Pi 4B measurements are typically around 2.7–2.85 W at idle, about 5.1 W under moderate server load, and around 6.4 W under full CPU stress. Using Perth/WA’s Synergy Home Plan A1 energy charge of 32.3719 c/kWh, excluding the daily supply charge, that works out very cheaply because the device uses only about 25–36 kWh/year.
Scenario Assumed usage Annual energy Approx. annual cost
Mostly idle 3 W 24/7 26.3 kWh A$8.51/year Idle + 12h/wk Jellyfin 2.7 W idle, 5.1 W streaming 25.1 kWh A$8.14/year Heavier Jellyfin/server use 2.7 W idle, 6.4 W streaming 26.0 kWh A$8.40/year Conservative wall-power estimate 4 W idle, 6.4 W streaming 36.5 kWh A$11.83/year
The bigger swing factor is storage, not the Pi. A USB SSD adds very little; a USB-powered 2.5" hard drive might add a few dollars per year; a powered 3.5" external drive left spinning 24/7 could push the total more into the A$15–A$30/year range.
So, for the Raspberry Pi 4B itself as a Jellyfin box: roughly A$10/year is a good mental estimate.
I went off the power supply maximum output. 5.1 volts, 3 amps, so 15 watts per hour. 24hrs per day, 365 days a year, so 131,400 watt-hours, or 131kilowatt-hours. My electricity is about $0.25/kwh (advertised at 0.09/kwh, but when you add on bullshit fees, the final rate is much higher), so I came up with $32.85 as the maximum amount any device connected to that power supply could cost.
Yep. But that would be 100% CPU, 100% of the time? Real life, it's probably closer to 2w idle and maybe 5-7W under typical load.
More interesting...I think that technically means you could make a "UPS" for it using what...4xAA batteries?
Oh man...that would be cool. Stupid but cool.
That's about what I calculated for my locale. Roughly $0.30–$0.85 per month, around $0.48/month at 4 W. Which is remarkable especially given what you can run on one.
Agree. I know the Pi's are out of favour these days...but they are a cool little machine. I got mine running DietPi and a bunch o crap (the usuals - JF, arr stack, pi hole, syncthing, yadda yadda) and running headless the footprint (power and memory wise) is tiny.
I joked about the 4xAA batteries thing but iirc, there is actually a Pi-HAT that creates a micro UPS that'll run the pi for maybe three to five hours just on double A batteries.
Edit: yep
https://pimodules.com/product/ups-pico-hv4-0-advanced
or more sensibly
https://littlebirdelectronics.com.au/collections/raspberry-pi-power-hats/products/raspberry-pi-ups-hat
I've got a drawer full of various models I've picked up here and there, mostly used that people were selling. I stumbled across a yard sale once where a guy and his son were selling a lot of computer equipment to raise money for his son to get some newer stuff for college. There was a whole box of them, maybe 10+ and I paid $100 for all of them. I use them from time to time for different projects. Good little learning boards.