My Raspberry Pi's cost $5 each. Should easily have a lifespan of 10 years. Show me a VPS that can beat a one-time cost of $5?

My internet cost is sunk, so I don't count that.

I'm running Tailscale so roaming devices always have encrypted connectivity to home that isn't through an exposed port (working on self-hosting a mesh, will likely need a VPS then).

I have Backups of systems via a combo of Crashplan (individual machines) and Backblaze for file server data and things like Docker. Backblaze and Crashplan are also sunk costs, because I used them long before self-hosting was an idea for me. I'd still have Backblaze costs even with a VPS.

Long term I expect to drop Crashplan and to setup Rpi's for friends and family so they get the benefit of things like PiHole and centralized Syncthing to replicate their mobile device data, I get a Tailscale into their networks for support, and we can backup our file servers to each other.