Will do! For now, the cost isn't an issue but if the instance gains traction, and I have to start upgrading the server/add more storage, I'll start looking into donations. I think the main thing for now is promoting to gain some users!
I went with Vultr for hosting and it's running on one of their servers in Dallas (closest I could get). It's their AMD high performance cloud compute, 1vCPU, 1 GB Memory, 2 TB bandwidth, 25 GB NVMe storage. Plus auto backups it costs $7.20 a month. Upgrading performance within their cloud compute is super quick an easy so I can bump up performance as needed. The .social TLD ended up being $30 for the year. I also had tons of issue with email so I also set up email through Zoho, which is another $12 a year. All said and done just over $10 a month.
On my to-do list is a post in the support community to keep track of all this in an effort to be as transparent as possible.
@freeskier
@centennialstate.social