It started with 9€, is 49€ now, and will be 58€ starting 2025.
You can buy for a single month when booking through the right company. "mo.pal" is a good one, for example. However, I agree that it is a bit predatory.
For me, integrate an init system that allows for proper dependency management between services. Also, one that keeps track of all processes spawned by a service, allowing me to shut down a service, even if it isn't a well-behaved one with a single daemon process.
That's more or less the only thing stopping me from using FreeBSD (on servers).
You can buy for a single month when booking through the right company. "mo.pal" is a good one, for example. However, I agree that it is a bit predatory.