5 ms·

They do a rolling average over three months before they ask you to upgrade. So hitting top spot on reddit or HN once or twice shouldn't be an issue.

by halfdan 10y ago

iends 10y ago
So you're saying I can hit 300k uniques per month for three months before being asked to upgrade to the team plan? Even so, 300k uniques would price you around $80/mo, which seems extremely high to me for a casual blog that can be self hosted on a $5 DO instance and an hours worth of work.
- pesfandiar 10y ago
  In my opinion, a little bit of it is because of the "hipster premium". The same phenomenon that makes the same food/drink more expensive when served on a cutting board or in a jam jar.
  - jameskegel 10y ago
    I wish the suits from Ghost would weigh in on this, rather than all this conjecture. Can someone from Ghost team give us insight on why there is this disparity other than the obvious "humans must eat"
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Did you not read the article? It spells out the reasoning very clearly. "One key lesson we learned early on was not to charge too little. $5/month customers are just terrible. They have the highest rate of failed payments, the highest rate of credit card fraud, the highest amount of support tickets submitted, and are the least friendly people. We've doubled our prices 3x since then, and each time we do, we get nicer people who value the product more and create fewer problems. At this point I would never create a business ever again which charges less than $10/month."
      - EduardoBautista 10y ago
        I wonder if this is why linode avoided the $5 market for so long.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- jhchen 10y ago
  To me setting up a server/installation and maintenance is in the chore category of work so 1hr setup and say 15/min/month maintenance ~= 3 hrs/yr. Good programmer contracts can command $500/hr and the work might actually be fulfilling. 4hrs*$500 = $2000 pays for years of hosting. Also you are not going to hit the top of HN on a regular basis as a casual blogger. Look at real data like your blog's historical traffic in the last year to get an accurate picture of the costs.
  - codingvelocity 10y ago
    $500/hr for a programming contract? Where in the world can you get that kind of contract?
    - maskz 10y ago
      In Monaco only
  - eblanshey 10y ago
    > Good programmer contracts can command $500/hr Ok I know this is possible, but how common is this really? I guess this might be a little bit more typical for very short contracts, like one-off work, but still.
  - iends 10y ago
    This logic breaks down when you realize you can't bill out for 100% of your time, nor do you want to try to because mental health is important.
  - 746F7475 10y ago
    Is that $500/h freelancer/contractor fee? Because that seems absurdly high for someone on a payroll no matter how much of a rockstar they are. If so, then you have to factor in all the non-billable hours you spend getting clients/contracts, advertising, and general housekeeping required to run a company. Then stuff like health care, car, phone, computer, electricity, office and other expenses. Just saying that you can't just say: "my time is worth $500/hr" if that's what you bill for 4 hours a day for a client for few weeks.

They do a rolling average over three months before they ask you to upgrade. So hitting top spot on reddit or HN once or twice shouldn't be an issue.

by halfdan 10y ago

They do a rolling average over three months before they ask you to upgrade. So hitting top spot on reddit or HN once or twice shouldn't be an issue.

iends 10y ago

So you're saying I can hit 300k uniques per month for three months before being asked to upgrade to the team plan? Even so, 300k uniques would price you around $80/mo, which seems extremely high to me for a casual blog that can be self hosted on a $5 DO instance and an hours worth of work.

pesfandiar 10y ago
In my opinion, a little bit of it is because of the "hipster premium". The same phenomenon that makes the same food/drink more expensive when served on a cutting board or in a jam jar.
- jameskegel 10y ago
  I wish the suits from Ghost would weigh in on this, rather than all this conjecture. Can someone from Ghost team give us insight on why there is this disparity other than the obvious "humans must eat"
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    Did you not read the article? It spells out the reasoning very clearly. "One key lesson we learned early on was not to charge too little. $5/month customers are just terrible. They have the highest rate of failed payments, the highest rate of credit card fraud, the highest amount of support tickets submitted, and are the least friendly people. We've doubled our prices 3x since then, and each time we do, we get nicer people who value the product more and create fewer problems. At this point I would never create a business ever again which charges less than $10/month."
    - EduardoBautista 10y ago
      I wonder if this is why linode avoided the $5 market for so long.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
jhchen 10y ago
To me setting up a server/installation and maintenance is in the chore category of work so 1hr setup and say 15/min/month maintenance ~= 3 hrs/yr. Good programmer contracts can command $500/hr and the work might actually be fulfilling. 4hrs*$500 = $2000 pays for years of hosting. Also you are not going to hit the top of HN on a regular basis as a casual blogger. Look at real data like your blog's historical traffic in the last year to get an accurate picture of the costs.
- codingvelocity 10y ago
  $500/hr for a programming contract? Where in the world can you get that kind of contract?
  - maskz 10y ago
    In Monaco only
- eblanshey 10y ago
  > Good programmer contracts can command $500/hr Ok I know this is possible, but how common is this really? I guess this might be a little bit more typical for very short contracts, like one-off work, but still.
- iends 10y ago
  This logic breaks down when you realize you can't bill out for 100% of your time, nor do you want to try to because mental health is important.
- 746F7475 10y ago
  Is that $500/h freelancer/contractor fee? Because that seems absurdly high for someone on a payroll no matter how much of a rockstar they are. If so, then you have to factor in all the non-billable hours you spend getting clients/contracts, advertising, and general housekeeping required to run a company. Then stuff like health care, car, phone, computer, electricity, office and other expenses. Just saying that you can't just say: "my time is worth $500/hr" if that's what you bill for 4 hours a day for a client for few weeks.