Most virtual servers offer a minimum of about 256 MB or RAM and maybe 10 GB of space. What about something a lot thinner than that, with just enough memory for the absolutely necessary components of an OS with "hardware" dedication to a script or two. There are tasks that I want to break up into little chunks, and run cron, say, once a minute, but not on a "production" server. The requirements would be:
a dedicated IP address
bare bones Linux or BSD install
console terminal access (maybe not even sshd since that would take up resources!)
root user
$5/month or so
which means a thin margin?
maybe you have to buy a minimum of 4? Same margin as a $20 VPS, since everything is automated anyway?
Really cheap cloud instances:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/concepts_micro_instances.html