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Netcup prepayment on VPS servers
When you order a Netcup VPS Server (i.e. not the root server) and you switch it off and you don't use the credit till then end of the billing period is the remaining credit deducted at the end of the period?
e.g. Say I order the 16Gb version and which is billed monthly and use if for a few hours and destroy it, at the end of the month will the credit still be present allowing me to activate some of the cheaper VPSs, or will it all be taken whether I use it or not.
Another scenario will be to order the minimum 2Gb version which has a six month billing period coming to about 15 euro, but destroy it and use the higher end versions for a few days at a time, so long as you don't exhaust the credit within 6 months.
In short can you activate nodes even multiple ones so long as you have unused credit, just like with any other cloud provider?
Comments
I haven't used that hourly VPS stuff so far, because the billing system is annoying if you intend to more often create and destroy VMs.
however, you are billed hourly on these VPS but have to prepay for the mentioned billing term. as in: buy a 16G VPS; prepay for a month and after destroying it you'll get a partial refund on the unused time period.
afaik they don't have a credit system, so if you want to create/spin up another box you again need to prepay for the according billing term on that and eventually get refunded for whatever you don't use.
most likely they do this to exactly avoid people spinning instances up and down every other hour, maybe that's just not their targeted customers ;-)
So this means that even if I use it for just a day and destroy it I can't create a new one without a new invoice which has to be billed at the monthly price? I thought it should be possible to spin up a new VM with the remaining credit so long as you are within the billing period.
This sounds weird.
I suspect that few of us on LET have used netcup's non-promotional vServers. (Their promotional vServers are not based on hourly billing.)
That said, yes, I think that every time you create a new vServer, it's treated as a new service and (not one month but) six months would have to be paid in advance.
netcup is a good choice in a number of respects, but if you really want a more intuitive/natural hourly billing approach to vServers, Hetzner (e.g.) would be IMO a better choice.
Edit: See also https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/159036/benchmark-comparison-netcup-vps-200-g8-vs-hetzner-cx-11
Hourly billing with 6 months terms is pure marketing nonsense ...
Just to clarify, although you have to pay for six months in advance (i.e., the billing period is six months), you may cancel your vServer at any time (i.e., the contract period is zero months).
I confirm the above. Besides trusting @Falzo experience, I took all my courage in and contacted them with my funny German.
For any VPS you acquire, you pay 6 months of it. The moment you cancel, you get reimbursed of the remaining time.
My thoughts: they wanted to enter Hetzner/Scaleway market but have not (yet) an adequate dynamic system to create and destroy instances on the fly and get billed in hours.
...and then you get back the rest of your prepaid money.
Even if you get refunded it seems like a hassle though, compared to the comfort the likes of Vultr, Hetzner Cloud, DO.. offer. Easily spinning up another VM seems just not to be possible without always pre-paying.
Tl;dr: If you plan to rent netcup vps for several months by all means go for it. If you wanna spin up and destroy VMs rather go with the other big players.
I destroyed my test instance and went through the process. It definitely is ridiculous if they try to sell it as "hourly billing".
I had to go and cancel the service in the way you would cancel a "normal" VPS or a dedicated server. They ask you why you want to cancel it (you can opt to not reply). Then, the issue you a credit and..ask for an IBAN to bank transfer the credit..Not even a PayPal/Credit Card partial refund from what I understand..they really need to improve on this.
I think I created and destroyed more than 20 instances on Hetzner in the last 5 months or so. It would be painful to do the same with netcup.
Yeah I think it would be best to describe this product as regular VPS that you can cancel anytime and get charged by hours used. What I normally think of as hourly instances can be created and deleted through an API. AWS and DO actually charge by the second now rather than by the hour, but other providers like Hetzner charge by full hour. That can make a significant difference with the bigger VM's.