Deployment — cost & integration study
Running costs and integrations to take ALTESSA live: infrastructure, payments, hosting, domains, and email.
Website deployment — a cost & integration study for ALTESSA. Estimated monthly and annual running costs for taking the store live, plus the payment, maps, and marketing integrations, with hosting, domain, and email options.
~$24/mo~$224/yrin paid services (hosting + email + domain). Everything else below runs on a free tier.
1 · Website deployment & infrastructure
What it costs to serve the site, store the data, and measure traffic.
| Item | Provider | $ / mo | $ / yr | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Hosting & Deployment Serves the live website 24/7 | Hostinger VPS | $14 | $120 | Free Hobby tier covers a low-traffic launch; Pro adds team & analytics |
Domain Name The address customers type to reach the store | Namecheap / Cloudflare | — | $20 | Billed annually (~$10–15/yr) |
Business Email Branded inboxes for customer & team | Google Workspace | $10 | $83.88 | Business Starter, per mailbox |
Database Stores products, orders & accounts | Included in VPS | $0 | $0 | Runs on the VPS — no separate DB service |
Database Backups Protects data against loss | Hostinger VPS | $0 | $0 | Free up to 10 GB; $6.95 / TB / mo beyond |
Google Analytics 4 Visitors, traffic sources & conversions | $0 | $0 | Free | |
Google Search Console Search ranking & indexing | $0 | $0 | Free | |
SSL Certificate Encrypts the site (https) | Let's Encrypt | $0 | $0 | Free — auto-provisioned & renewed |
CDN / Edge Network Speeds up global page loads | Vercel | $0 | $0 | Free — global edge caching |
| TOTAL — paid services | $24 | $223.88 | Free tools add $0; cost driven by hosting, email & database |
2 · Payment & API integrations
Four operations cover taking money and connecting maps & marketing.
| Integration | Provider | $ / mo | Pricing model & notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Online Payments Pay for orders online securely | Stripe | $0 | 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge (US). Cards, Apple Pay & Google Pay |
Maps & Location Store location & in-page locator | Google Maps Platform | $0 | $200/mo free credit (~28k loads); then ~$7 / 1,000 loads. Card required |
Marketing / Social Ads & Instagram / WhatsApp | Meta Business (Graph) API | $0 | Free to use · ad spend & WhatsApp billed separately on usage |
Recommendation — which payment integration?
Stripe is the best fit for ALTESSA: zero fixed monthly cost, so it scales with sales — you only pay 2.9% + $0.30 when you actually get paid. It supports cards, Apple Pay & Google Pay out of the box, integrates cleanly with the same hosting/database stack, and needs no separate merchant account. Google Maps and Meta APIs are complementary (store locator + marketing), not payment processors — keep them on their free tiers until traffic grows.3 · Hosting plan options — Hostinger VPS
Longer commitments drop the effective monthly rate and include a free domain.
| Plan | Commitment | Billed total | Eff. $ / mo | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KVM2 | Monthly | $13.99 | $13.99 | No long-term commitment |
| KVM2 | 1 Year | $119.88 | $9.99 | Free .cloud domain included |
| KVM2 | 2 Years | $215.79 | $8.99 | ★ Recommended · free .cloud domain · best value |
| KVM4 | Monthly | $28.99 | $28.99 | No long-term commitment |
| KVM4 | 1 Year | — | — | 1-year price — to confirm |
| KVM4 | 2 Years | $359.76 | $14.99 | Free .cloud domain · best value |
KVM4 = 2 × KVM2 — double the vCPU & RAM.
4 · Domain options
★ marks the recommended pick(s).
| Domain | Status | 1st year | Renewal / yr | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| altessa.com | Taken | — | — | Not available |
| altessa.online | Available | $0.99 | $35.99 | Renewal jumps to $35.99/yr after year 1 |
| altessa.org | Available | $8.99 | $17.99 | |
| altessa.store | Available | $0.99 | $54.99 | High renewal cost |
| altessa.cloud | Available | $1.99 | $25.99 | Free with KVM 1-/2-yr hosting plans — may not need to buy |
| altessaskincare.com★ #2 | Available | $0.01 | $19.99 | Exact brand match |
| altessaskincare .com + .org + .online★ #1 | Available | $19.97 | $73.97 | Bundle of 3 TLDs — best brand protection |
| altessaskin.care | Available | $17.99 | $50.99 | Creative “.care” domain hack |
| altessaskincare.shop | Available | $0.99 | $34.99 | |
| altessaskincare.org | Available | $8.99 | $17.99 | |
| altessaskincare.online | Available | $0.99 | $35.99 | |
| altessaskincare.store | Available | $0.99 | $54.99 | High renewal cost |
| altessaskincare.net | Available | $11.99 | $17.99 | Fees change after 2 years |
5 · Email options — Google Workspace
Per-mailbox pricing; the annual plan is ~30% cheaper.
| Plan | Commitment | Billed total | Eff. $ / mo | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Starter | Monthly | $9.99 | $9.99 | Per mailbox · cancel anytime |
| Business Starter | Annual | $83.88 | $6.99 | ★ Recommended · per mailbox · ~30% cheaper |
Prices are per mailbox (e.g. info@, hello@). Both tiers are Google Workspace Business Starter.