[heise]

If you would read the Kimsufi forum, you would have read about someone who has a /24 Ripe block and is now supposed to pay an extra 130 €uro. It's cheaper for him to upgrade his Kimsufi server to an OVH server and pay 0 €uro for the /24 Ripe block.

We are all aware of that paradoxy.

[AnKli]

Maybe the point I was trying to make wasn't obvious enough: I compared two servers that all in all should perform about same, and pointed out how the different approach regarding the additional IPv4s' costs seems to make no sense whatsoever, and how a customer who bought even only a little number of them (not an unusual circumstance from my experience) would benefit enormously from switching servers, even though that seems to go against all OVH's recent policies.
I just can't make sense of this and why would OVH want to penalize a segment of its customers this way.

[AnKli]

The main point in your calculation is IPv4. OVH server gives you 256 IPs for free. Truth to be told, it's time to switch to IPv6, then your comparison looks different.

Yes, that is the main point, so there's really no point in saying that if that weren't the case the comparison would look different, don't you think?

You need to take into consideration that the SYS-32-2 is newer hardware in terms of processor, most would prefer to purchase new hardware over old hardware which is EOL.

If you're talking about the CPU that may be the case for the SYS-IP-2, yeah, but not really for the SYS-IP-4. Yes, the former is still newer, but the latter would certainly perform better. Also the older ones consume more power, so "logically" they should be the more expensive ones.
Also let's not forget that the SYS-IP series comes with ECC RAM, which I'd say most would prefer over a slightly more powerful CPU.

[Criot]

You need to take into consideration that the SYS-32-2 is newer hardware in terms of processor, most would prefer to purchase new hardware over old hardware which is EOL.

[heise]

The main point in your calculation is IPv4. OVH server gives you 256 IPs for free. Truth to be told, it's time to switch to IPv6, then your comparison looks different.

[AnKli]

I know you introduced the setup fees to prevent the server turnover issue, and then more recently added the "loyalty price" for 6 and 12 months renewals, possibly for the same reason.
But then you added the Essential+ range and made everything pointless.

Let's take in consideration the SYS-32-2 and the SYS-IP-2. Both come with two 2 TB hard drives and 32 GB of RAM. The first one has a better CPU, but then again the latter's RAM is ECC.

Now let's say one of your customers is paying for a SYS-32-2 and 10 IPv4 addresses, and they have been doing so for a year so. Now they choose to renew the contract for another year. That makes:

50 € setup fee + (21 * 40 € server monthly cost for 2 years) + (24 * 10 * 2 € IPv4 cost for 2 years) = 1370 € (and 600 € for subsequent years)

Now let's do the same for the SYS-IP-2:

50 € setup fee + (21 * 40 € server monthly cost for 2 years) + (10 * 2 € IPv4 cost, one-time fee) = 910 € (and 360 € for subsequent years)

That's a 460 € difference. ~40%. In two years. At this point a mere 50 € setup fee (70 € if you include the cost of re-buying all the IPv4s) to switch servers is utterly influential. And of course that's not the end of it, since it continues growing: in three years it'll be ~43%; in five, ~46%; and so on until it finally settles around 50% on the long term. Should I graph it for you? Here:




Now, let's say this customer has been with you for less than a year but they intend to stay. Obviously the most convenient course of action for said customer (or for anyone in a similar situation, really) would be to switch to the SYS-IP-2. Heck, even a SYS-IP-4 would be more convenient at that point (1330 € for the first 2 years and 540 € for subsequent years), and that comes with 3 times the RAM and 2 CPUs!
Lastly, let's not forget that all these figures don't include taxes.

So was the fact that the setup fee was introduced to prevent turnover untrue, are you making old customers pay for the new customers' resources, do all your old customers only use one IPv4 address, or is there some mysterious hidden variable that no one but your marketing experts can see?