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Hetzner switches to new billing model

docs.hetzner.com

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Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#51

Post by janus24 »

severino wrote: post #43

It would be nice if cloud offerings like Hetzner would allow one to set the contract duration and pay in advance, for example, one year. And once that year passes, you could tell them to extend it for another year, or do nothing and get your server deleted. This way you have a control over your spending and avoid surprises. I guess some providers (OVH?) allow you to do that, but of course it requires that all costs b…

Scalingo (a European PaaS) allows you to do this by buying credit, a simple solution. I wonder why other providers don't offer this.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#52

Post by Radim »

Citizen_Lame wrote: post #44
stefs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that said, while digital ocean is great, as far as i know hetzner is somewhat cheaper. compare! at digital ocean, 12$: 2GB RAM, 1vCPU, 20GB SSD, 2TB transfer at hetzner, 10,50$: 8GB RAM, 2vCPU, 80GB SSD, 20TB transfer

Yes, but Hetzner costumer service is from another planet. So in case of issues they won't be able to help, and you will have issues.

Care to share why?

I've been a Hetzner customer for nearly 10 years now. I just checked – first invoice in June 2014. And during that period, Hetzner's support – which I needed maybe 3 times since things generally just work – has always been stellar.

I've used Linode too, and their support was comparable (=also great). But Hetzner wins on pricing, hands down.

I actually appreciate Hetzner hasn't join the BS enshittification gimmick train (yet). If that's your complaint.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#53

Post by dmw_ng »

boredpudding wrote: post #20
mikkom wrote: post #17

I have a dedicated server in Hetzner and I don't understand what this means. How do they decide when the server is "used"? Based on CPU allocation? SSH sessions? HTTP traffic? Power? It's easy to shut down virtual servers and continue from the same position. It's not that easy to do the same for servers. The linked page is very unclear about this.

If you have a dedicated server, you'll just be paying the monthly price. It's always in use. If you decide to stop completely with the server halfway through the month, you'll pay for the hours. Of course, a shut down server that's yours is still yours and you'll be billed for it.

I'm not so sure about this, their description specifically calls out one-time-only costs like domain registrations as being the only things excluded. Cautiously optimistic in addition to the recent reappearance of new GPU models being offered to existing customers, Hetzner may be prepping an hourly-billed bare metal GPU product at a great price

Hetzner bare metal already deploys in a couple of minutes when renting existing hardware, and there is plenty of precedent for hourly-billed bare metal services around. I think they're intending to move all their bare metal over to hourly billing.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#54

Post by V__ »

severino wrote: post #43

It would be nice if cloud offerings like Hetzner would allow one to set the contract duration and pay in advance, for example, one year. And once that year passes, you could tell them to extend it for another year, or do nothing and get your server deleted. This way you have a control over your spending and avoid surprises. I guess some providers (OVH?) allow you to do that, but of course it requires that all costs b…

You can buy credits using a bank transfer [1]. You can also set E-Mail alerts in case your monthly invoice is higher then expected (more traffic etc.) [2]. However, there is no auto-delete as far as I can tell.

[1] https://docs.hetzner.com/accounts-panel/accounts/payment-faq... [2] https://docs.hetzner.com/cloud/billing/faq/#how-do-i-keep-my...

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#55

Post by groestl »

severino wrote: post #43

It would be nice if cloud offerings like Hetzner would allow one to set the contract duration and pay in advance, for example, one year. And once that year passes, you could tell them to extend it for another year, or do nothing and get your server deleted. This way you have a control over your spending and avoid surprises. I guess some providers (OVH?) allow you to do that, but of course it requires that all costs b…

> and avoid surprises

I think for most people and organizations, auto-deletion of a server _is_ the surprise ;)

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#56

Post by sixhobbits »

This overall sounds like it makes sense and brings their billing into line with other providers.

But it's super confusingly written and presented. Why is this an essay with CAPITAL LETTERS to try to simplify things. It looks like they put in a ton of effort to make sure people aren't confused, but this doesn't seem like the thing to give people to ensure that they aren't confused.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#57

Post by MikusR »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #50
dakiol wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be ready to handover a copy of your national ID/passport

Can you elaborate? I have a VPS and a storage box on Hetzner and I'm so far satisfied with it, minus the sometimes confusing interface between their different products.

Because they are so cheap, they are often used by spammers or other shady entities. So occasionally they may ask for ID. For example, if you connect from one country, use an address from another country and use prepaid card from yet another country.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#58

Post by heffer »

manishsharan wrote: post #35
shortlived wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendation for a provider with dedicated servers in the US? I’m with a provider now who is phasing them out.

There are several dedicated server providers in US but not much is known about their track review. OVH has a datacenter in Toronto which may close enough to the US for many people. They provide dedicated servers.

OVH's Toronto datacentre is not operational yet. But you can pre-order. It's going to be interesting to see what this does to pricing for the Toronto hosting and compute market, as that location has always been more expensive compared to other North American locations. Right now it looks like OVH will not be offering their lower tier offers out of the Toronto DC.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#59

Post by iforgotpassword »

sixhobbits wrote: post #56

This overall sounds like it makes sense and brings their billing into line with other providers. But it's super confusingly written and presented. Why is this an essay with CAPITAL LETTERS to try to simplify things. It looks like they put in a ton of effort to make sure people aren't confused, but this doesn't seem like the thing to give people to ensure that they aren't confused.

Huh, to me it feels they just tried to emphasize the most important things, like your bill never being higher than the monthly price would be. Like, the opposite of what tech companies usually do.

Re: Hetzner switches to new billing model

#60

Post by joeig »

MathiasPius wrote: post #34

This is actually great. I maintain a library[1] for interacting with the Robot interface using Rust, but testing is heavily gated because of the potential costs it might incur, which is why a lot of the purchasing/cancellation APIs haven't been thoroughly tested. With this billing, I'll be able to do thorough integration testing without breaking the bank. And of course with hourly billing, horizontal scaling becomes…

At the moment there is still a one-time order fee for dedicated servers and the docs don’t clarify if it will remain.
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