People considering a community server usually ask about the software first. That is the wrong end to start from: the software is the settled part. What decides whether the idea survives is the running cost — and most of it is not money.
What costs money
A virtual server. This is the real recurring expense. What you pay depends entirely on your provider and on how much traffic and content you carry, so any figure quoted here would be made up. A small community fits on a modest machine; a busy store with images does not. Ask a provider, not us.
Domains. One per site that wants its own name, renewed yearly. Sites can also live on subdomains of the server, which costs nothing extra — a perfectly normal arrangement for members who do not need their own brand.
What costs nothing
Certificates. HTTPS is free and automatic; every site on this platform runs on certificates that renew themselves.
The Start edition. Free personal pages for your members are not a promotion that expires — it is how the platform works, on every server, and no server owner can change that.
The features. Search optimization, design variants, the reader cabinet, the AI assistant in the panel — all part of the engine. There is no upsell where the useful parts live behind a second payment.
What costs time — and this is the part people underestimate
A server with nothing on it is not a community. Someone has to invite the first people, answer them, settle arguments, and keep publishing when nobody is watching yet. That work does not scale down: it is roughly the same whether you have ten members or a hundred, and it is the reason most communities stop.
Technical upkeep is smaller than people fear — updates and backups, occasionally a domain to point somewhere — but it is not zero, and it lands on whoever owns the server.
What you get back
Advertising on your server is sold by you, and the revenue stays with you. The platform takes no share of what your community earns; the foundation is not an investor and does not sit between you and your members. Whether that adds up to a business or stays a hobby depends on the community, not on the software.
If you would rather not carry the technical side
Partner studios set up and maintain servers for a fee, negotiated per project since it depends on how many sites you run — see the partner page. Paying them removes the maintenance, not the community work: nobody can outsource being the person others came for.
A working example
qwetru.ru is a community server in production — dozens of sites on one installation, including demo variants and a template showcase. The practical mechanics of running one are described in How a Community Server Works, and the first steps in Start a Community.