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IOPS and DD write tests are the new e-penises for providers, bro. It doesn't matter if it works or if it's decent, it has to beat the others!
Would you say there's a problem with the system at large, then? It's not like I'm the only one using coupons as a marketing tool. Are you suggesting every provider who uses coupons is losing business to those who don't? I'm trying to understand how far you're taking that logic.
Most people don't know these coupons exist, so they'll go with the provider with the lower price. DO's sticker price is lower so they'll get more business.
Providers who use coupons to bring their price down to another provider's price will lose business to that other provider because they don't need coupons to justify the price point.
Inconsistency can be also funny
As example -30% off LET deal just to see only week later -35% off LEB deal for same package :P Sounds familar? 
Luckily we're talking about small money so people who buy same package with higher price only day or two before don't feel so bad about it.
At some point with many LEB host regular price means nothing - it's there to reflect bigger value to their product and to catch some "fool" who don't read forums but nothing more than that as those host run PERMANENT "special offer".
Theres no information about this in ramnode site. Any confirmation?
At some point with many LEB host regular price means nothing - it's there to reflect bigger value to their product and to catch some "fool" who don't read forums but nothing more than that as those host run PERMANENT "special offer".
With coupons you can lower the price without existing clients demanding the same price lowering. With coupons you can also fall back to higher prices (future offers). The regular price, for example $25 for chicagovps should represent the quality and support. Any WHT'er will call ChicagoVPS horrible quality before trying if it said $7/mo on the front page. But indeed, with solid prices people will more likely find your LEB-like prices but not others as they don't know LEB.
So to sum it up:
It just depends on audience and marketing.
You guys are comparing apples to oranges I think as well.
With Ramnode the 512meg KVM plan is $12 a month and only has 10GB of disk space vs the 20GB with DO.
Either way it does not matter. Some folks like NY instead of Atlanta, Some folks prefer a small company like Ramnode etcetc
Competition is healthy anyways, Use what works for you and be on your way.
Is that the finding of a statistical study you've done or are you just guessing? I'm not trying to be provocative, but this is all guesswork otherwise. If I need to change my business model, I will. I'm not loyal to the coupon method for the heck of it. However, most of my marketing is on forums where people are looking for coupons and deals. I even have a coupon posted at the top of my website for those who don't want to type "ramnode coupon" into Google: http://gyazo.com/ce6a154b855f85f0080a56bbf5900fcd (oh look, there's the LEB35 deal at #1)
So I don't think anyone is painting the full picture here with the price comparisons. Yes, for those who don't know that you can use a coupon at a web host, it can be a problem. But I'm not sure that's "most people" or a large part of this particular market. If it IS a problem, then someone please show me the evidence and I will change my entire scheme today.
It's not guesswork, it's logic:
Let's say 100 people are looking at buying your service. 100% of those 100 people are aware of the price of your service, but a certain percentage less than that are aware of a coupon for your service. That leftover percentage will defect to DO because of their cheaper prices compared to your sticker price. No matter what you do, there will be people not aware of these coupons, but all your customers know your sticker prices. So there will always be a percentage of lost business and I bet that's larger than you would like it to be.
If you lower your sticker price and eliminate coupons, 100% of people who are looking at your service will see this. This means there is no lost business from customers not knowing that these coupons exist.
This is an example of how simple can be better.
P.S. I'm a happy customer and love your service. Please take these suggestions with an open mind, I have nothing but good intent.
You forget, that DO also uses coupons, even though they use a different strategy. If it wasn't for their coupons a lot of users won't even look at them.
The thing that sucks about DO, is that they advertise SSD, but the disk speed is what you get with most decent VPS providers with non-SSD. Also, even though DO uses KVM, the value for money you get from providers like RamNode is much higher. And don't forget DO gets expensive when you look past their $5 deal.
If you only need a on demand Cloud server for a limited time period, then DO is much better, but if you want a continuous service throughout a month, then a decent VPS provider can be cheaper and better value for money.
Coupons is clearly a marketing gimmick, but as you can see it works for DO, so why not for other providers.
@Centaur,
Everything is these days, just look at how they removed 50 cent from Norway just so they could charge 1.49 instead of 1.99 and still make it go up to 2.00.
But then again, I'm actually really happy with ramnode's service and price I used the leb coupon on a 256 MB OpenVZ SSD-Cached VPS and got it for $15.75 USD p/6 months
It's more about what the user is looking for, most people have a eye for cheap things with high specs and that is what coupons do, they kinda trick you with downing the price with about $3 making it seem more reasonable.
Could you tell me more about this offer? KVM or OVZ based?
I have 9 nodes with DigitalOcean now. If I knew that your offer beats DO, I definitely went with you.
I have 9 nodes with DigitalOcean now. If I knew that your offer beats DO, I definitely went with you.
512MB OVZ with the coupon 'LEB35'.
That is all what I found. Even after apply LEB35, the monthly price is $7.8.
And their KVM vps are out of stock now.
Thanks for the info.
I think I will ignore OVZ.
LOL, seriosly, comparing OpenVZ to KVM?
Also @Nick_A can you please do less of blatant self-advertising in other provider's thread.
This is not a thread by or for DO. It was just a thread the point out the new sales. That it became the "chest pit" about DO is another story.
@taronyu If I will create a thread that I noticed a new sale at Ramnode, and a DigitalOcean employee will butt in going on with "Oh look at me, I have better plans/sales/whatever", would you also see that as perfectly fine and normal?
This is LET
I'm not saying that it would we perfectly fine. I'm just saying this isn't a thread where other providers can't say what they think.
If Ramnode decided to start hosting in the EU I will be their first customer with atleast 10 boxes
I'm not comparing OpenVZ to KVM, I was answering @webflier's question about the $4.88 monthly deal from RamNode. I'm well aware of the differences between OpenVZ and KVM.
@Wunderbar
I'm referring to this:
And not mentioning this was OpenVZ while DO is KVM.
Ramnode 512mb kvm come with 2 core rather than digital ocean 512mb with only 1 core.
But ramnode 512 kvm comes with only 10G ssd. DO comes with 20G.
@Nick_A 's statement of $4.88 is misleading. cost me 20 minutes to find out the truth.
@Nick_A 's statement of $4.88 is misleading. cost me 20 minutes to find out the truth.
I'm sorry you were misled. I was correcting the statement that "for those specs" DO is cheaper. I did not take virtualization into account since I don't consider it a "spec" (in the sense of "resources"). But of course depending on your application, it can factor heavily in your decision.
Also, I was under the impression that with their KVM, you are locked into a particular OS? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
To clarify, I am not comparing the services, but rather resource allocation. They are a cloud provider, whereas we are a classic VPS provider.
Except, that's not what I've done whatsoever. Someone said definitively that DO is the cheapest option out of a group of providers for certain specs, and I corrected that. Let's try to be a little less caustic and a little more accurate here.
This thread is not about Ramnode. And I think, its high time @Nick_A stops comparing his company with DO here.
They are less expensive. For the same plan you charge $12 vs $5 and they provide more disk space.
You can choose your OS like other VPS providers. They have all the normal ones plus some pre-built templates.
You're right; it's not. But certainly if I misrepresented you or your company, you'd want to correct that. That's my only point in posting here at this time. I'll refrain from any other comments beyond that goal.
It's just my application can't work with OVZ. mongodb crashes under OVZ. don't know when they will fix it.
I just explained above what I was comparing were resources. Yes, if you compare the KVM plans by their RAM amount, they have a cheaper 512MB KVM.
Thanks, noted.