A real comparison: time, money, and the things you'll forget.
Get Your Assessment →| Category | DIY | You Save |
|---|---|---|
| Password system 1Password $60/yr + 40 hrs migration | Included | 40 hrs |
| Family devices Eero Pro $700 + Bark $99/yr + 12 hrs/yr maintenance | Included | 12+ hrs/yr |
| Crypto security Ledger $150 + seed steel $80 + zero recovery plan | Included | Risk avoided |
| Smart home UniFi setup $1,400 hardware + 25 hrs config | Included | 25 hrs |
| Photo backup Backblaze $99/yr + NAS $800 + 15 hrs setup | Included | 15 hrs |
| Digital estate Lawyer $2,500 retainer, no tech translation | Included | $2,500 |
| AI subscriptions $1,200/yr + no governance | Included | Governance |
| Annual maintenance Nobody — that's the problem | Included | Accountability |
| TOTALS | ~$6,000 in tools + 90+ hours your first year + zero accountability | $399–$1,599/mo, zero hours, one phone number |
If you're traveling and the router dies, your spouse can't fix it. There's no one to call. The password is on your laptop. The recovery codes are in your email. The backup is on a drive you left in the office. Single point of failure — and it's you.
Nobody quarterly-reviews their own setup. Gaps compound silently. The password you rotated in January has been in a breach since March. The device you added in March got added with the default router credentials. Nobody catches it until something breaks.
When you die or get incapacitated, your family inherits chaos — not a system. They don't know the vault, the broker, the backup arrangement, the accounts in three different names, or the recovery path for the crypto. Your executor has no protocol. This is not a security problem. It's a succession problem.
Most of our clients have none of those things.
Not a tool. Not a subscription. Not a vendor with a ticket queue. A relationship with someone who has context on your entire stack — the accounts, the devices, the recovery paths, the family access rules. When something breaks, they already know the setup. They don't need to read the runbook.
Sentinel handles everything in this table — and the hundred things not on it.