Thrustvps rasing prices

[Deleted User]

I haven't been a customer since summer 2010 but today I recieved the following:

`Hi,

Happy New Year and all the best for 2012 from the Thrust team.

As a result of increasing costs from our suppliers and continued exposure to foreign exchange rates, we will be changing the pricing structure of our accounts from 1st February 2012 onwards.

This change will see a $1 increase to all US-based and EU-based VPS services but NO CHANGE to our UK-based services. Windows based accounts will have a 50cent increase applied in all areas.

You are able to lock in another 12 months at the current rate by paying annually in advance on your services before 1st February.

We look forward to providing your web services in 2012!

Best regards

ThrustVPS Team`

MrAndroid

I received it too, it may be due to the exchange rate between the pound and dollar

Aldryic

This isn't really that uncommon in public market. The standard for my 'day job' is a 3% increase in product cost, 1% decrease in commission rate per year on the customer contracts. Virtual hosts have some push-and-pull, since there are more options available for cost-cutting, but sooner or later companies have to adjust for inflation is some form or another.

miTgiB

@Aldryic said: Virtual hosts have some push-and-pull, since there are more options available for cost-cutting, but sooner or later companies have to adjust for inflation is some form or another.

I disagree with providers needing to raise prices. With the exception of temporary blips in things like memory was disrupted a while back, and recently hard drives, our costs to provide hosting services only gets lower as time passes.

Now exchange rate I can see if the dollar and euro get far out of tilt with sterling. But wasn't the whole Eurozone delusion supposed to steady that more?

Rendus

I've always been a bit surprised by responses like miTgiB's. Eventually, if you don't keep up with inflation and react to economic fluctuations, the return on time and effort dwindles to nothing.

Labor certainly doesn't get cheaper as time goes on.

drmike

@Rendus said: Labor certainly doesn't get cheaper as time goes on.

No, but bandwidth is a lot cheaper than what it used to be.

We get clients who assume that once they start with us, they're locked into that price for the life of the account. We've bumped prices up twice and lost some folks when we did so. I think as long as you're honest, give them a reason why prices are increasing, and give folks advanced warning, it'll usually go fine with only a few bumps.

Surprise folks with an increase and you'll get a revolt. heh Or flat out lie about it like a certain provider who's name escapes me comes to mind.

miTgiB

@Randus How can it be surprising? I look at the equipment I used 6 years ago as VPS nodes, and what I use today, and capacity is up 4-6 fold while costs have doubled. So while I've enjoyed higher net profits I should raise prices?

[Deleted User]

This is obviously a management error. Being a uk individual I have always dealt with pounds from a buisness point of view as that is the currency here. I reckon its they're greedy parent company wanting extra £.

Joel

@net, where are their servers located? In the UK or are they a UK based company leasing out of the US ?

[Deleted User]

@Joel just realised that they have east central and west coast us servers but they charge $ for their US based servers and £ for uk. I realise UK exchange rate is aweful at the moment as our goverement are quite incompetent(Maybe we need a welsh priminister like Australia). Britian did kick start the manafacturing in china and basically created hong kong(Silly Thatcher).

Francisco

They rent in their US locations, they only own the servers in their UK locations which likely explains why they're after more cash.

One of their staff members wrote on WHT that Rus left things in shambles when he left, backing the belief that the guy was asked to reach a certain 'total sold VMs' count and didn't give a crap about the rest.

It has taken them countless months but they're still cleaning up after the mess, likely having to bring more equipment online to offload some of the gear.

Francisco

[Deleted User]

I actually have spoken with Russell on the phone on quite a few occasions. Back in 2010 we reached a stage where we had 25~~ windows servers with them however we re coded our system onto linux. The servers were O.K I guess.

Joel

@net said: @Joel just realised that they have east central and west coast us servers but they charge $ for their US based servers and £ for uk.

@Francisco said: They rent in their US locations, they only own the servers in their UK locations which likely explains why they're after more cash.

I quoted both your guys to reply to both, if they're using US servers and charging in US currency then it would make absolute sense that they are using a US dollars bank account. The money shouldn't enter the UK, therefor there is no risk in exchange rate losses, and no conversion fees back and forth. I have a UK based currency account with my bank, money in and out never gets transferred to AUD unless I need it to. I get invoices paid in to that account, and I pay costs incurred out of that account.

@net said: at the moment as our goverement are quite incompetent(Maybe we need a welsh priminister like Australia)

At the moment? Eternally. You can take the ranga back any day of the week, I heard a joke about our prime minister Juliar....

John Howard, Queen Elizabeth, and Vladimir Putin all die and go to hell.

While there, they spy a red phone and ask what the phone is for. The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth.

Putin asks to call Russia and talks for 5 minutes. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a cheque.

Next Queen Elizabeth calls England and talks for 30 minutes. When she is finished the devil informs her that the cost is 6 million dollars, so she writes him a cheque.

Finally John Howard gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is $5.00.

When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Howard got to call Australia so cheaply.

The devil smiles and replies: "Since Julia Gillard took over, the country has gone to hell, so it's a local call."

Nobody likes price rises, but if they need to do this to keep solvent, opposed to just opportunism then that's what they need to do. Better a slight price rise and they're in business tomorrow, than they cop it on the chin for a few months and all of a sudden everyone is bitching they lost their data and they're in deadpool.

Regards,

.Joel

MrAndroid

From what I know, IOMart hired Rus to make a VPS company, and after it reached a certain threshold, he would leave.

They lease their servers in the US, but in the UK they own them, and their parent company owns the datacenter.

Compared to the Pound, the value of the Dollar has dropped, and the Euro has dropped too.

Im paying nearly double for something if paying in dollars, compared to 3 years ago.

Francisco

@Daniel said: From what I know, IOMart hired Rus to make a VPS company, and after it reached a certain threshold, he would leave.

They lease their servers in the US, but in the UK they own them, and their parent company owns the datacenter.

Compared to the Pound, the value of the Dollar has dropped, and the Euro has dropped too.

Im paying nearly double for something if paying in dollars, compared to 3 years ago.

Is IOMart the same one that bought his old stuff? or was that bluesquare?

Francisco

jh

@Daniel said: From what I know, IOMart hired Rus to make a VPS company, and after it reached a certain threshold, he would leave.

They lease their servers in the US, but in the UK they own them, and their parent company owns the datacenter.

Compared to the Pound, the value of the Dollar has dropped, and the Euro has dropped too.

Im paying nearly double for something if paying in dollars, compared to 3 years ago.

Correct

@Francisco said: Is IOMart the same one that bought his old stuff? or was that bluesquare?

That was BlueSquare

[Deleted User]

I have actually found buying things from europe cheaper.. but USA has definately increased.

cr08

@net said: @Joel just realised that they have east central and west coast us servers but they charge $ for their US based servers and £ for uk. I realise UK exchange rate is aweful at the moment as our goverement are quite incompetent(Maybe we need a welsh priminister like Australia). Britian did kick start the manafacturing in china and basically created hong kong(Silly Thatcher).

Funny part about this is even though they charge by USD on their pages for US based servers, I was still charged in pounds directly to my bank account (through Google Checkout to Debit Card). Cost each month always varied and neither their invoice or Google Checkout's invoice were the same. And considering my bank charges an extra fee on currency conversion (albeit tiny), added to the cost.

Not that I am bashing the company or anything. Service was 'Ok', support was 'Ok'. The currency thing was just a funny anecdote.

VMVPS

It seems that Directspace also raise its price (Again!). But not a bad thing for former customers;-P

Ash_Hawkridge

Love how many VM[Name-here] companys are appearing as of late :P

You do realize your name translates to Virtual Machine Virtual Private Servers

Francisco

@VMVPS said: It seems that Directspace also raise its price (Again!). But not a bad thing for former customers;-P

Where was this? Any email?

Francisco

prometeus

Several years ago (before the introduction of the euro) we used to make our price lists in us dollars and this worked well. But then we got a bad time when the eur/usd exchange went so bad that each sell/renew was almost a loss :-(
Anyway even so we decided to honor our commitments, but at the time we were in business and profitable since several years, I do not know if we could do the same thing in the startup phase of our business...