The Hidden TCO of Self-Hosting Your EC Revenue Dashboard in 2026

"If we self-host Matomo or Umami, the revenue dashboard is free, right?" That's one of the most common questions I hear from SMB EC operators in Japan. The short answer: license-fee-free is not TCO-free . After laying four options side-by-side at Japanese freelance rates, self-hosted dashboards land at ¥460K-880K per year — 4-7x the cost of a focused SaaS like the one I'm building. I've been building RevenueScope for the Japan SMB EC market, so I have a stake in this comparison. But the math her