RimuHosting is proud to introduce the Launchtime tailored pricing algorithm.  This algorithm is an alternative to ‘fixed’ pricing plans.  And it will be a key tool for us to provide more affordable, fairer and more flexible pricing.

Traditional hosting ‘fixed’ pricing plans offer a set of plans to choose from.  Sometimes (but not always) with some options for various memory or disk sizes.  These plans are easy for simple ordering systems to price up.  But they often fail to let customers have exactly the resources they need.  And can end up with unfair pricing for smaller or larger server sizes.  Plus they struggle to work for the customer or the hosting company when the hosting company has host servers of various sizes.

RimuHosting’s Launchtime tailored pricing algorithm is a unique innovation in the VPS hosting marketplace.  For the first time in our industry customers can choose exactly the right combination of resources for their needs.  It helps ensure customers only pay for what they are using.  It scales for both small servers as well as bigger-than-dedicated-server sized VPSs.  And as technology advances and more powerful servers become available for less then it adjusts the available pricing and resources automatically adjust.

At the heart of the new Launchtime tailored pricing is a RimuHosting-created algorithm that determines pricing based on factors including:

• the capacity of the host server (disk space, memory and CPU power)
• the ‘fit’ for the resources and the host server (so big servers don’t get overloaded with little VPSs and smaller host servers don’t get swamped with big VPSs).
• the cost of the host server (e.g. server cost and and co-location fees).

The biggest different of the Launchtime tailored pricing over regular variable for fixed pricing is that the VPS cost is directly related to its size and the capabilities and cost of its host server.  This flexibility means we can provide a fair price for any VPS size at any of the data centers we use.

Creating pricing plans that are fair to customers and make that also make sense for us can therefore be a tricky business.  We think the new Launchtime tailored pricing is a great improvement over traditional fixed-sized plans.

• More flexibility.  You can configure your VPS with exactly the resources (memory, disk space and data transfer allowance) you need.
• Pay for what you use.  Most of our customers need and use 6GB of disk space or less (its plenty for most servers running simple websites and databases).  They really need lots of memory.  So why pay for a plan with lots of memory and disk, when they only need the memory?
• Fairer.  We are attempting to create pricing that is affordable for a small server.  But also supports customers that need to affordably scale up to 4-, 8- 16-GB or more of memory.
• More memory for existing customers.  Some of our newer 72GB host servers end up with (gasp) memory that is not used.  So on these newer 72GB behemoths you can now get more (probably lots more, 20-50% more in some cases) memory for the price you are currently paying.
• Simple upgrade path.  Just go to http://rimuhosting.com/cp/vps/upgrade.jsp.  We will figure out if we can offer you more memory for the price you are currently paying.  Then hit the upgrade button, and after a quick VPS restart you will have more memory.  If you have a VPS with lots of memory on an older host then to get the best pricing you may need to move to a newer host.  The upgrade page will offer a move link if that is the case.

The algorithm is not yet perfect.  We will continue to tweak it and the pricing parameters.  So you may notice that pricing and resources change around a bit over the next few months.

For existing customers pricing will depend on your host server (factoring in its memory, disk space, cost, colocation fees, etc).  If there is better pricing or resources available on a different host server then the upgrade page will offer a move link (these VPS moves are very easy, just requires a push of a button and (sometimes) a DNS change – which we will do for you if you are using our DNS servers.

So bye-bye fixed pricing plans.  Hello flexible market pricing plans.