i pay like 10ksat per month to rent a LN node from alby, so about $3-4

there are channel peers you can use that allow you to make channels as low as 100,000 sats, which is like $70

you can run this on your own VPS, also, but you are probably going to end up paying the same and they are experts in deploying to their own rented VPS infrastructure 

 Well I already have the machines, my node is finally up, and it doesn't cost me any more to run than the rest of my services :/

I'm thinking a good single 500k sat channel would be enough for a little while and maybe 1m sat in the near future? 

 you really need two channels, one you fully pay, the other you pay a fee (typically about 20ksat) one will receive, the other you can send with, and as they progress they balance

and as i said, you can open 100k channels, there are channel peers that allow this, i'd suggest doing a 200 and 300k out and in for your case 

 So I should try to find someone willing to open channels that size? I think that's going to be plenty for now