Zammad · Helpdesk and support inbox
Self-hosting Zammad for 250 people: the cost
At 250 users, Zammad needs 15.7 GB of memory and 105 GB of disk. That fits the Starter 16 GB at VPSServer for $84.00 a month. Add backups and the time it takes to look after and the real figure is $326 a month.
- Server
- $84.00Starter 16 GB, 4 vCPU
- Backups
- $16.80provider snapshots
- Your time
- $2253 h a month at $75
- All in
- $326per month
- First-time setup
- $1,200about 16 hours, once
How 15.7 GB was arrived at
4 GB covers the stack at rest, every container the project ships included. 250 users at 35 MB each adds 8.5 GB, giving 12.5 GB. Adding 25% headroom so the machine is not run at its ceiling gives 15.7 GB, and the smallest plan at or above that is the Starter 16 GB with 16 GB.
Disk works the same way: 30 GB to begin with, plus 0.3 GB per user, so 105 GB against the 300 GB the plan includes.
Rails with PostgreSQL, Redis and Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch is what makes this the heaviest helpdesk here, and it is effectively required for usable search.
Over three years
| Period | Server and backups | Your time | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup, once | — | $1,200 | $1,200 |
| Per month | $101 | $225 | $326 |
| First year | $1,210 | $3,900 | $5,110 |
| 36 months | $3,629 | $9,300 | $12,929 |
If you do not price your own time, the 36-month figure is $3,629 instead. Both numbers are real; which one applies depends on whether the hours would otherwise have been billable.
What you would be paying instead at this size
| Commercial product | Tier | Per month | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk | Suite Team | $15,939 | $15,613 | breakdown |
| Freshdesk | Growth | $4,750 | $4,424 | breakdown |
A positive difference means self-hosting is cheaper at this size, with your time already counted.
Where to put Zammad
15.7 GB of memory and 105 GB of disk is what this needs at 250 people. The cheapest plan that fits, among the providers whose prices we have read ourselves, is the Starter 16 GB at VPSServer for $84.00 a month.
We are not claiming this is the cheapest server on the internet. It is the cheapest one we can honestly quote. Hetzner Cloud, Vultr and PikaPods publish prices we could not read programmatically, and Hetzner in particular is usually cheaper per gigabyte of memory than anything quoted above. Price them yourself before you commit.
The VPSServer link above is an affiliate link, run through the same programme as our Kamatera link; VPSServer and Kamatera belong to the same group. If you sign up through it we may earn a commission, but the programme does not state an amount for VPSServer. That never changes the computed costs, which server is chosen, or the conclusion of this page. The sizing model and every price source are published in full.
Get the migration checklist for this tool
A one-page pre-flight list: data export path, sizing, backup plan, and the rollback step most people skip.