Resource Pool Pricing Guidelines - Feedback Wanted

HostDoc

@uptime said:
What parameters might make offering resource pools here work better for you - even if just as an occasional special promotional price?

I think the current parameters ($7) are perfect.
We have offered pools since day1. The fact it is hard to promote because of the price restriction is what has made it easy to manage all these years because it only attracts users who know what it is, what they intend to use it for and is a relatively unabused service in relation to the exposure of abuse the plan actually presents.
The lack of knowledge about what a pool offers means that most offers are overlooked by 70% of users which then makes it relatively easy to run the odd promotion where every location is offered for a fixed price which we have bundled together a few times on LET.
For me, I am quite happy with the old rules and see no need for a specific pricing guideline.

@willie said:
Typically you have to assign an ipv4 to each vm. That said it still seems to me like a gimmick product that is rarely offered.

With our pools, you can create an ipv4 only instance, an ipv6 only instance or if preferred, a private IP only instance. The flexibility is amazing which makes it perfect for building a personal infrastructure.
It is no gimmick at all and is very powerful when utilized correctly. I think it is rarely offered because of the price restriction which this thread seems to be trying to address.

InceptionHosting

So given the huge amounts of points, wants, opinions and variation and provider insight and just common sense I am coming to the conclusion that a complex rule set would work against the idea of being able to sell resource pools and applying the same rules as a VPS would probably do the same.

So I am leaning towards a simple rule set as resource pool pricing needs to be fluid because it is essentially unlimited, i.e. you say $7 or $14 that could mean 2 servers either way but it could never allow 50 even at a GREAT price

My thinking currently

RESOURCE POOLS

• Disk allocation per VPS must be end user managed and fluid.
• RAM allocation per VPS must be end user managed and fluid.
• Bandwidth allocation per VPS must be end user managed and fluid per location
• Each VPS must have the ability to assign at least 1 unique IPv4
• Initial deployment must not be fixed.
• Must be able to create at least 1 VPS per $7 spent (monthly or equivalent)

Example KVM offer:

Locations:

• Osaka, Japan.
• New York City, NY, USA
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Phoenix, AZ, USA
• Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
• Moscow, Russia.
• London, England.
• Bucharest, Romania.

Resource pool:

8 vCPU's (Max 2 per VPS, none dedicated)
8 GB RAM (Max 4GB per VPS)
500 GB Disk space (Max 150GB per VPS)
12 x IPv4 (Max 4 per VPS)
/64 IPv6 per VPS
2 TB Bandwidth (Max 1TB per physical location, 500GB in Asia region)

Price: $28 p/month

Obviously that is just an example but breaking it down that would essentially allow:

3 x

• 2 vCPU
• 2 GB RAM
• 125 GB Disk
• 2 IPv4
• /64 IPv6
• 500 GB BW

1 x Osaka
1 x Romania
1 x Sri Lanka

2 x

• 1 vCPU
• 1 GB RAM
• 75 GB Disk
• 2 IPv4
• /64 IPv6
• 500 GB BW (Pooled)

1 x Amsterdam
1 x London

2 IP's left over.

All with a high degree of fluidity at the equivalent of $5.60 each which I think is an excellent deal without putting to many limitations on hosts as that scales up massively.

Thoughts?

I appreciate that there are some possible exceptions and areas for bad deals/abuse like this but I would rather deal with them on an as and when basis rather than let the exceptions dictate the rules as it is not like anyone is being forced to buy?

This was allows great deals for users and allows sensible limits for hosts so that someone cant put all their dice in the most expensive location without some limits. i.e. providers can set maximums and also minimums per VPS or locations.

willie

Too complicated. If the $28 allows creating 4 vps, then just list the 4 vps at $7 each and say that if you buy more than one, then rejiggering the resources between them is allowed. That's what the product is anyway, I thought.

InceptionHosting

@willie said:
Too complicated. If the $28 allows creating 4 vps, then just list the 4 vps at $7 each and say that if you buy more than one, then rejiggering the resources between them is allowed. That's what the product is anyway, I thought.

Well that's fine but consider it actually allows 12 VPS of which you could get 2TB in asia so by just saying "price and user decides all" the offer would never be made, because Asia

dahartigan

@willie said:
Too complicated. If the $28 allows creating 4 vps, then just list the 4 vps at $7 each and say that if you buy more than one, then rejiggering the resources between them is allowed. That's what the product is anyway, I thought.

I think Anthony nailed it.

Pricing it per vps allowed isn't the answer either, it's the big picture of total resources plus the number of locations - extras like number of cpu per instance and the premiumness of locations are extra/overs.

dahartigan

"Must be able to create at least 1 VPS per $7 spent (monthly or equivalent)"

I think that is a very solid basis for the rules. Pretty much covers all the cases I can think of..

poisson

@dahartigan said:
"Must be able to create at least 1 VPS per $7 spent (monthly or equivalent)"

I think that is a very solid basis for the rules. Pretty much covers all the cases I can think of..

second this

willie

Seems gameable but if that happens, I guess we can react.

InceptionHosting

willie said: Seems gameable but if that happens, I guess we can react.

This is my favorite attitude towards everything, so often these days things just never happen because of a 1 in 100 chance of what could happen.

dahartigan

@willie said:
Seems gameable but if that happens, I guess we can react.

If it gets gamed, the rules will get updated. The host will be publicly humiliated and banished to LEB :-)

poisson

As an applied statistician, I will say that most things in life are probabilities. As long as the probability is low enough, we can deal with the exceptions on a case by case basis.

vimalware

I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

IMO $14 is too steep for just two instances.
I'd be expecting 3-5 at that price point (single DC admittedly).
It's been done by drserver in the past around 4 5 yrs ago.

What do you think about two different price limits for single-location offers vs Multi-location (enabling expensive APAC DCs)

seriesn

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

uptime

@vimalware said:
What do you think about two different price limits for single-location offers vs Multi-location (enabling expensive APAC DCs)

I think it makes sense but hopefully might not be necessary to micromanage?

And if we do start seeing offers for $14 resource pools with just 2 instances then would certainly expect some pretty serious resources in those pools.

I guess what I like about the $7 per instance idea here is that it does set some limit fairly consistent with the magic number we're already attached to for VPS offers. It allows a decent amount of wiggle room for providers to handle their business as they see fit.

I think it's still close enough to what we're used to as "lowend" even at the limit so ... what's the worst thing that could possibly happen? (I guess we'll find out!)

poisson

@seriesn said:

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

So if you pay annual, it's a one-time $0.40 or $0.50?

InceptionHosting

For me it is £0.35 + 2.8%, it varies a little company to company, location to location.

InceptionHosting

@vimalware I agree $14 is strap for 2 instances in many cases, but not on an 8GB resource pool.

We have $7 now per “instance” essentially but you don’t see people trying to sell 256mb for $7 p.month any more so hopefully it is a self regulated issue.

vimalware

@AnthonySmith said:
@vimalware I agree $14 is strap for 2 instances in many cases, but not on an 8GB resource pool.

Hmm, yes, I suppose it does us no good to stipulate the number of VMs, vCpu, IPv4, in the Rules clauses.
Comments like my first one in this thread probably need to be spun off into a Resource Pool Market Research thread.

Let providers compete inside a $14/mo limit (I think that works out to about $13.10 in the Provider's account after PP's cut.)

Do we want to make a pool price limit for Annual? $120 or $140 ?
I suppose only semi-established resellers would be buying these.

uptime

@vimalware said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@vimalware said:
Do we want to make a pool price limit for Annual? $120 or $140 ?
I suppose only semi-established resellers would be buying these.

thinkihg maybe for now might just see what providers do on their own to offer incentives for annual payment? (Possibly could see extra resources instead of discount.)

Currently for regular VPS offers there is only one stipulation for annual payment deals, that is:

Hosts that have been trading less than 2 years may only post monthly or quarterly offers, exceptions can be made on application and review

if possible to keep rules for resource pools somewhat consistent with those for VPS - then hopefully will also be easier to check (and to follow) ... and could be interesting to see what happens (assuming no obvious recipe for disaster with just a little extra bit of breathing room for these offers?)

InceptionHosting

We could just make it super simple and stick with $14 minimum 3 instances.

seriesn

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

So if you pay annual, it's a one-time $0.40 or $0.50?

It is a % of each transaction.

poisson

@seriesn said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

So if you pay annual, it's a one-time $0.40 or $0.50?

It is a % of each transaction.

Paying annual is definitely more cost effective for providers in terms of fees to PayPal right?

InceptionHosting

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

So if you pay annual, it's a one-time $0.40 or $0.50?

It is a % of each transaction.

Paying annual is definitely more cost effective for providers in terms of fees to PayPal right?

yes.

poisson

@AnthonySmith said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

So if you pay annual, it's a one-time $0.40 or $0.50?

It is a % of each transaction.

Paying annual is definitely more cost effective for providers in terms of fees to PayPal right?

yes.

Ok I am glad I didn't make the wrong choice. I want less money to go to PayPal and more to my providers. Maybe when we have FatPal @FAT32 then we can do monthly.

seriesn

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

vimalware said: I'm curious: What part of a $7/mo payment goes to PayPal typically?

0.40 with micropayment
0.50 with standard payment.

So if you pay annual, it's a one-time $0.40 or $0.50?

It is a % of each transaction.

Paying annual is definitely more cost effective for providers in terms of fees to PayPal right?

Yeap!