Pool regarding new service offer

c1vhosting

Dear LES members!
I’m Luca from C1V.

I’m here to get a feedback from you about a new service we could provide.
I’m talking about a lifetime VPS plan and a lifetime Web Hosting plan.

deank

Nigh is the end.

Erisa

Lifetime webhosting is enough of a red flag unless it's a scarce deal and has reasoning behind it.

A lifetime VPS is just asking for problems. There is no way to do it in a way that doesn't guarantee the provider loses money over time without setting a price nobody will buy. Stick to cheap annual deals.

AlwaysSkint

"Pool regarding new service offer": Swimming with the sharks

james50a

Might be interesting but would want to see an insurance option. Ie pay 2$more and if plan disappears in 2y or whatever get a guaranteed payout.

Mason

Lifetime web hosting, maybe... but you really need to have some established, recurring revenue from other products or your costs will slowly take over your profits.

Don't think I've ever seen a lifetime vps offering work out. CloudAtCost comes to mind, but has been a complete clusterfuck from what I can tell (discontinued product lines, intro of yearly "maintenance fees", etc).

c1vhosting

Thank you, I'm just getting some feedback about how could it sound for you.
Obviously it wouldn't be a cheap option, but something where you can be sure you'll have that service for a long term.

chris

Avoid it like the plague, as both provider and client 🤣

vyas

Pool = Deadpool ??

deank

Even a marriage that is supposed to be for lifetime doesn't ducking work out.

So, nothing else will. Tax sure follows you until the end though.

chris

@deank said:
Even a marriage that is supposed to be for lifetime doesn't ducking work out.

So, nothing else will. Tax sure follows you until the end though.

At least you have LES

deank

We are all les here.

jtk

Seems gimmicky and unnecessary for you to try to live up to. Plus, for many low-end customer who's been around awhile, any lifetime VPS plan is going to conjure up only negative associations with one notorious at cost "provider" .

coo

Web hosting and VPS has lot of recurring expenses, I am not sure how lifetime plans works.
Unless you plan to have one VPS in a node set aside for lifetime, that could work provided you are actually making profit from that node to cover free service.

Other option could be you charge them 10-12 years of service upfront, so that way it can cover costs for years to come. You can put that money to good use so that you will be able to continue providing free service after 10 years may be? Invest some place good ? But still not sure it will be profitable given the inflation and price hikes.

vyas

@coo said:
Web hosting and VPS has lot of recurring expenses, I am not sure how lifetime plans works.
Unless you plan to have one VPS in a node set aside for lifetime, that could work provided you are actually making profit from that node to cover free service.

Other option could be you charge them 10-12 years of service upfront, so that way it can cover costs for years to come. You can put that money to good use so that you will be able to continue providing free service after 10 years may be? Invest some place good ? But still not sure it will be profitable given the inflation and price hikes.

@MikePT has run offers for shared hosting for @ 3 years now, a couple of other providers I know have similar offers. They might have worked out their numbers well before the launch. With increasing energy prices, maybe LT unit economics might differ. Maybe fixed term (3 years/ 5 years??) might make more sense. But heaved forbid not the Siteground / Host mantis way- increasing renewal rates by > 300%

Note: Since this is not an offer thread by OP but a discussion on Lifetime deals, taking the liberty to mention likely competitors.

ralf

Your company has only been here and on OGF since July. How old is the company? How do we even know the company will last the year, let alone 5 or 10 years?

The only way this could sustainable operate is if your operating costs AND profit were less than the interest of the principal you got from each customer and invested it. Even assuming a very generous 7% interest rate, you'd need to be charging more than 20 times an annual cost to break even assuming your costs stay the same and that there's no inflation. That'd be a hard sell even if your company was well known and had a good history given the current economic uncertainty.

There's a reason even governments usually only issue 1 year, 5 year and 10 year bonds, and in theory they're much more stable than any company.

Janevski

I don't plan on dying that soon.

c1vhosting

I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

xaoc

No, I would like one for free.

deank

Push, do not listen to the naysayers.

Go for it. They are just ducking jealous. Such a negative world we live in.

stromonic

You're Selecting The Way to Bankruptcy, BTW.

Francisco

@c1vhosting said:
I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

You have a few problems here.

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.
• Your hosting division doesn't have enough age on it to try to back that.
• This all smells bad given you're doing 50% off discounts on things too. It just comes off as desperation.

To add to #3 some more, you aren't giving any backing to the idea that the brand is financially stable. Any time I see a company pushing such a large discount so early into their life, it tells me they're either violating most advertising laws (offer the public at an insane price so you can put an even more insane discount to make it look "better"), or you're hurting and need the sales.

Neither look great.

Francisco

Nekki

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said:
I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

You have a few problems here.

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.
• Your hosting division doesn't have enough age on it to try to back that.
• This all smells bad given you're doing 50% off discounts on things too. It just comes off as desperation.

To add to #3 some more, you aren't giving any backing to the idea that the brand is financially stable. Any time I see a company pushing such a large discount so early into their life, it tells me they're either violating most advertising laws (offer the public at an insane price so you can put an even more insane discount to make it look "better"), or you're hurting and need the sales.

Neither look great.

Francisco

In a hypothetical world where you sell lifetime plans, how much do you sell them for, Fran?

c1vhosting

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said:
I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

You have a few problems here.

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.
• Your hosting division doesn't have enough age on it to try to back that.
• This all smells bad given you're doing 50% off discounts on things too. It just comes off as desperation.

To add to #3 some more, you aren't giving any backing to the idea that the brand is financially stable. Any time I see a company pushing such a large discount so early into their life, it tells me they're either violating most advertising laws (offer the public at an insane price so you can put an even more insane discount to make it look "better"), or you're hurting and need the sales.

Neither look great.

Francisco

Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

cold

what if u die in 1 year.. will my VPS still be running ?

ralf

@Francisco said:

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.

Even worse...

https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/2000

$450 in the S&P in 2000 would be worth $1832.94 today. You wouldn't quite get that if you took out $1.90 a month, but it's clear putting the money in the stock money seems like a good move.

Besides, think what the VPS specs you could get for 2 bucks 5 years ago. That 1 core of an unspecific CPU with 1GB RAM isn't going be that useful in 5 or years time, and if your money was still your money you could change deals any point you like.

Francisco

@c1vhosting said: Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

You've offered hosting since 2008? Can you show that? I see your parents website made mention of (printed?) media and things like that, but the hosting was showing much later dates.

@Nekki said:
In a hypothetical world where you sell lifetime plans, how much do you sell them for, Fran?

I legit don't know. There's a lot of costs that are in the process of going parabolic on us. Power & IP addresses are both climbing, and I don't think either will come back down to earth, there's just no reason to.

You also make your company toxic to any suitor. The #1 question I've always asked companies, and many others do too, is "how heavy is a brand on yearly offers?", nevermind lifetime offers. I think if a potential suitor finds out you have even a few lifetime deals, they'll walk away.

Francisco

vyas

@Francisco said:
You also make your company toxic to any suitor. The #1 question I've always asked companies, and many others do too, is "how heavy is a brand on yearly offers?", nevermind lifetime offers. I think if a potential suitor finds out you have even a few lifetime deals, they'll walk away.

Francisco

One of the ongoing debates in the "Lifetime SaaS" space (Appsumo, Dealify, etc...)
Why do so many companies shaft their early customers/ buyers of LIfetime plans?

Investment for further rounds and/ or acquisition by other companies brings forth the point you mention.

In a nutshell,
Increasing Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is a sign of growth. Large base of Lifetime customers is sign of stagnation.

nishantk

Last lifetime offer i grabbed lasted for year.
In my experience "Lifetime = Company's lifetime"
It could be a month , 6mo or the year.

vyas

@nishantk said:
Last lifetime offer i grabbed lasted for year.
In my experience "Lifetime = Company's lifetime"
It could be a month , 6mo or the year.

Lifetime can be least of
-Product or service (eg deal is for Datacenter X in city Y, if DC or city change - deal ends)
-Company (can get closed, acquired, rebranded)
-Customer’s life

ralf

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said: Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

You've offered hosting since 2008? Can you show that? I see your parents website made mention of (printed?) media and things like that, but the hosting was showing much later dates.

From whois.it:

Domain:             c1vhosting.it
Status:             clientDeleteProhibited
Signed:             no
Created:            2020-09-17 16:52:37
Last Update:        2022-04-23 18:06:28
Expire Date:        2023-04-23

Looks like registered in September 2020, allowed to lapse, restored in April 2022.

You also make your company toxic to any suitor. The #1 question I've always asked companies, and many others do too, is "how heavy is a brand on yearly offers?", nevermind lifetime offers. I think if a potential suitor finds out you have even a few lifetime deals, they'll walk away.

Really good point.

Lifetime deals make a bit more sense for aggregated resources like VPNs because you can cut back on your expenditure as people stop using the service, and in any case the ongoing cost per customer isn't that high, but even then it's still a long term liability.