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For services like this, I'm always suspicious about pricing. I see an hourly rate, but it's hard for me to figure out how much it's costing me to have you manag

by ccleve 5y ago

For services like this, I'm always suspicious about pricing. I see an hourly rate, but it's hard for me to figure out how much it's costing me to have you manage this instead of me. As a result, I rarely buy software at an hourly rate even though it might make economic sense to do so. Here's a suggestion: instead of quoting your own rate, instead say "we charge X% over and above our hourly cost for AWS, Digital Ocean, etc." That kind of price transparency would go a long way for me. I also wouldn't have to spend hours trying to figure out what instances you use, the hourly rate, what you're charging, am I getting ripped off, and redo the whole process every six months.

js4ever 5y ago
Hey ccleve We do have the all-inclusive pricing, but we also offer a BringYourOwnVM plan where you pay yourself for the VM with your cloud provider and you pay to us only management fees. Management fees are based on the VM size you connect, we charge $5 per CPU + $2.5 per GB RAM + 0.25 per 10GB/disk. This is a monthly estimation but this is also billed per hour without any commitment. Let's take an example, if you have a VM with 1 CPU/1GB RAM/20GB disk, total per month for the management fees are 5+2.5+0.5 = $8 per month. And for that price you get automated OS & Software updates, alerts & monitoring, global private networking, automated remote backups with versioning in another DC, Migration capabilities and few other things.
- vasco 5y ago
  It would be good to split out the base costs from the elest.io cost in the pricing page. There's no point in forcing the user to calculate this. For example for the micro option in digital ocean, the barebones droplet is $6/month. Your price is $16/month. If you showed this, I'd know I'm paying you $10 for the ease of use. If you don't show this, I have to calculate it. Unless your plans would be to offer your own hosting down the line - where it would make sense to have only a lump total cost, I don't see the advantage in keeping it hidden (specially since you're clearly open about showing how you're charging per CPU/RAM/disk here in the comments). Cool product!
  - ctvo 5y ago
    > It would be good to split out the base costs from the elest.io cost in the pricing page. There's no point in forcing the user to calculate this. What makes you think these folks pay full price for a VM with their partners? What value do you get out of it now knowing that? It's similar to asking any business to disclose to you their costs. I would disregard this and keep your pricing as is. If users find value in the CPU / RAM + service at price point X, great.

by ccleve 5y ago

js4ever 5y ago

Hey ccleve We do have the all-inclusive pricing, but we also offer a BringYourOwnVM plan where you pay yourself for the VM with your cloud provider and you pay to us only management fees. Management fees are based on the VM size you connect, we charge $5 per CPU + $2.5 per GB RAM + 0.25 per 10GB/disk. This is a monthly estimation but this is also billed per hour without any commitment. Let's take an example, if you have a VM with 1 CPU/1GB RAM/20GB disk, total per month for the management fees are 5+2.5+0.5 = $8 per month. And for that price you get automated OS & Software updates, alerts & monitoring, global private networking, automated remote backups with versioning in another DC, Migration capabilities and few other things.

vasco 5y ago
It would be good to split out the base costs from the elest.io cost in the pricing page. There's no point in forcing the user to calculate this. For example for the micro option in digital ocean, the barebones droplet is $6/month. Your price is $16/month. If you showed this, I'd know I'm paying you $10 for the ease of use. If you don't show this, I have to calculate it. Unless your plans would be to offer your own hosting down the line - where it would make sense to have only a lump total cost, I don't see the advantage in keeping it hidden (specially since you're clearly open about showing how you're charging per CPU/RAM/disk here in the comments). Cool product!
- ctvo 5y ago
  > It would be good to split out the base costs from the elest.io cost in the pricing page. There's no point in forcing the user to calculate this. What makes you think these folks pay full price for a VM with their partners? What value do you get out of it now knowing that? It's similar to asking any business to disclose to you their costs. I would disregard this and keep your pricing as is. If users find value in the CPU / RAM + service at price point X, great.