First legal issues, then dollars… If you are in the US at least, your contract you entered into with your ISP probably forbids you from running a home server.

First legal issues, then dollars… If you are in the US at least, your contract you entered into with your ISP probably forbids you from running a home server. Now dollars. Figure out how many watts your server uses. This is not the wattage of the power supply or the amperage on the power connector times 110. I measure mine with a Kill-a-watt. For a desktop PC of unassuming power it is probably something like 90 to 150 watts. As a quick rule of thumb, you are paying $1/year for each of those watts. You would have to have a 60 watt PC to compete with Hostgator on dollars. The only PC I have ever had that falls under that is an Atom based machine.