Yep it's quite true. If you are just going to host one or two things, you could get away with a Raspberry Pi, but I have about 40+ containers running, and I realise I'm on my 3rd or 4th iteration of hardware. I don't have anything fancy as my small form-factor server cannot even mount...
In theory, a SaaS offering should have economies of scale and should be cheaper than self-hosting, especially if you put a monetary value on the time you spend maintaining your own server(s). However, number must go up, so this may not be the case.
There are a few other factors that may come into play that make self-hosting the more economically favorable option:
Repurposing old hardware you already own instead of buying new
In theory, a SaaS offering should have economies of scale and should be cheaper than self-hosting, especially if you put a monetary value on the time you spend maintaining your own server(s). However, number must go up, so this may not be the case.
There are a few other factors that may come into play that make self-hosting the more economically favorable option: