FlexiScale Pricing Model
FlexiScale has created a very simple, but flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model.
The FlexiScale platform uses a currency called units to calculate the monthly and hourly prices for each required resource. There is no minimum term commitment or monthly subscription fee. Simply credit your account with FlexiScale units and use them on the computing resources you need, as you need them.
Simply charge up your account with FlexiScale units, and use them on whatever computing resource you need, as you need them. Recharge your account only when necessary.
Buying Units
FlexiScale services are priced in units. Before you deploy any FlexiScale service, you will need to buy a package of units. Units are non-refundable, and can only be spent on FlexiScale services. You can buy from a thousand units to many millions, but the more you buy at once, the cheaper they are. You pay for your units using a credit card. For large customers, we may also support credit accounts, subject to credit checks; please contact our sales team for details.
When you deploy FlexiScale services, the balance of units you have will be reduced, depending on the services you have started. The higher power services you have, the faster your units will deplete. You can select when you purchase units whether you want FlexiScale to automatically purchase more units for you when your unit balance gets low; if you select this option, when your balance reaches around a quarter of the amount you purchased, the system will automatically purchase the same amount of units again, at the same price.
Units cost around one UK penny each, but the exact price depends on the quantity you buy. Current prices (as of Jan 2012) are set out below for illustration; the exact prices are shown on the control panel when you purchase the units.
| Units |
Price in £ (ex VAT) |
Price in € (ex VAT) * |
Price in $ (ex VAT) * |
| 1,000 |
£11.00 |
€13.00 |
$17.00 |
| 2,000 |
£22.00 |
€26.00 |
$34.00 |
| 5,000 |
£50.00 |
€60.00 |
$80.00 |
| 10,000 |
£99.00 |
€120.00 |
$159.00 |
| 20,000 |
£196.00 |
€234.00 |
$307.00 |
| 50,000 |
£485.00 |
€580.00 |
$761.00 |
| 100,000 |
£960.00 |
€1150.00 |
$1505.00 |
| 200,000 |
£1900.00 |
€2274.00 |
$2980.00 |
| 500,000 |
£4700.00 |
€5625.00 |
$7373.00 |
| 1,000,000 |
£9300.00 |
€11,135.00 |
$14,590.00 |
| 2,000,000 |
£18400.00 |
€22,030.00 |
$28,866.00 |
* All FlexiScale unit pricing is in UK Pounds. Prices shown here are indicative prices based on prevailing exchange rates. If your credit card is billed in a currency other than UK pounds, the actual amount charged will depend upon the rate given by your credit card company and any commission charged.
Units do not expire, unless you buy a special package of units which specifies an expiry date. However, If your account is idle for three months or more, we may close it, in which case your unused units will be forfeit.
Units can be spent on four main types of service: servers, disk, network and software images. Each of these is priced in units per time period. Your unit use is calculated per hour (or part thereof) that you use the resource, so if you use a service for part of an hour, you will be charged for a whole hour. Some of the services described below have charge rates listed as units per month; this is to make the numbers easier to understand. In fact, they are charged per hour just like all our other charges, and the monthly rate assumes that there are 730 hours in each month.
You can use the control panel to see how your units have been used. When you purchase a new package of units, an invoice will be produced; this is available for you to download from the control panel too.
Servers
The amount charged for each server depends on the number of virtual CPU cores and the RAM available to it. The following table shows the number of units per hour for each configuration:
|
CPU cores |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
| RAM0.5Gb2 |
|
1 Gb |
3 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 Gb |
5 |
6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 Gb |
|
10 |
11 |
12 |
|
|
|
|
|
6 Gb |
|
|
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
|
|
|
8 Gb |
|
|
|
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
Disk
Disk is charged for in two ways: firstly, the disk space you use, and secondly, the I/O that you make to the disk.
Disk space is charged at 5 units per month per GB of storage space allocated to you (that’s around 7 units per TB per hour). Disk space is allocated to you when it is available for you to use; so if you create a 300GB disk, you will be charged for 300GB of disk space, whether or not you fill the disk with your own files. Note that you will be charged for disk space whether or not the disk is attached to a server which is running, as we are still storing your data.
I/O operations to and from disk are charged at 2 units per GB transferred (either for read, or for write). We measure read and write I/O separately.
If you create a snapshot, clone or image, you will be charged for the disk space allocated to that snapshot clone or image, plus one additional unit for the making the snapshot clone or image. You will not be charged for any I/O operations involved in making the snapshot, clone or image.
Network
We charge 5 units per GB (that’s gigabyte, not gigabit) transferred through your server’s network interface on a public VLAN; there is no traffic charge for data on private VLANs. Note that if you upload or download an image, you will also be charged for the network bandwidth this uses, even though the upload or download will not use your server’s network interface.
Your first VLAN (the public VLAN) is free. Additional VLANs will be charged at 1,000 units per additional VLAN per month (that’s about 1.37 units per hour per additional VLAN).
When you first subscribe, you will be allocated a “/29”, which is a block of 8 IP addresses, 5 of which are usable by you. If you allocate a block of additional IP addresses (public or private), we will charge 100 units per additional IP per month (that’s about 0.137 units per hour per additional IP addresses). Only usable IP addresses are counted.
Firewall services are charged at one unit per hour per firewalled IP address.
Software Images
We do not charge for open-source operating system images (for instance Linux). A licence to use Microsoft Windows on your server costs 3 units per hour. Other prices are detailed alongside the images.
Notes
We reserve the right to change our prices at any time. Definitive pricing is available through the control panel at the time of purchase, and supersedes any information given here. Special offers may be subject to additional conditions. All prices are exclusive of VAT which will be added at the applicable rate. E&OE. All services are offered subject to our terms and conditions, which are available here.
Number of vCPUs [1 Unit/Hour/vCPU]
Amount of RAM [2 Units/Hour/GB]
Amount of Storage [7 Units/Hour/TB]
Amount of Storage I/O [2 Units/Hour/GB]
Amount of Network Traffic [5 Units/Hour/GB]
Additional VLAN’s [1.37 Units/Hour/VLAN]
Additional IP Addresses [0.137 Units/Hour/IP]
Number of Firewalls [1 Unit/Hour/FW]
Snapshot images [7 Units/Hour/TB]
Microsoft Windows Licenses [3 Units/Hour/Server]