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Today, let's have some happier news! If you saw yesterday's post about our pricing changes, you'll know that, thanks in part to AI companies gobbling up all the RAM, we've had to increase our prices.
Before I dive into today's post, however, I want to say thank you.
Yesterday's announcement was genuinely a tough one for everyone here at Kinetic. We never like having to increase prices, especially when our goal has always been to make game server hosting as affordable as possible. So it was incredible to see the outpouring of support from everyone in our tickets and Discord after we announced the changes. It really meant a lot to us.
So, thank you.
Anyway, onto today's post!
More Grandma Sherman Deals!
Around a year ago, we launched our Grandma Sherman Deals. The idea was simple. Older hardware that was still perfectly capable of running game servers would be rolled into these deals and offered at crazy low prices. These deals have always been limited, with stock often running out quickly.
Today, we're making Grandma Sherman Deals a permanent part of Kinetic, with stock available in most of our locations! We're doing this by changing how we select hardware for these packages. Rather than having a fixed CPU for each package, we'll use whatever capable hardware we can get our hands on at a low cost.
Some servers might have Ryzen 5900-series CPUs, others might have Ryzen 7800-series processors, and some might have Intel chips like the E-2388G.
Basically, whatever we can find at a good price! Of course, we'll also continue rolling older hardware into these deals as we upgrade our main packages. This change means you'll be able to grab a Grandma Sherman Deal much more consistently, rather than having to wait for limited stock to appear.
We're also changing how you order these packages.
Rather than having fixed RAM options, such as 8 GB, 16 GB or 18 GB, you'll be able to choose exactly how much RAM you need, just like with our main packages.
Trader Sherman Is Supporting Grandma!
The Trader Sherman Deal will also be coming to all Grandma Sherman packages.
It's about time he showed his grandma some support!
What Locations Will Be Available?
Our new Grandma Sherman Deals will be available across all our regions, apart from Brazil and India. Unfortunately, these locations are more expensive for us to operate in, particularly when it comes to networking costs, so we're unable to offer the same low prices there.
How Much Will These Packages Cost?
This is another area where we're changing things up. Rather than having fixed prices, we'll adjust them based on the hardware we're able to source.
Our target is to keep prices between $0.50 and $0.90 per GB of RAM, plus a $2 service fee.
That means a package could be cheaper or slightly more expensive depending on the hardware available at the time. To help keep costs down even further, Grandma Sherman Deals will only be available in USD. This allows us to avoid some of the currency conversion costs associated with offering multiple currencies. (This doesn't stop you ordering them in other currencies, just means it will always show as USD)
Overall, this should keep Grandma Sherman Deals around the same price they are today, while making them much more widely available. We want these packages to remain a genuinely affordable option for anyone looking to host a game server.
How Will You Choose the CPUs?
Just because these packages are cheaper doesn't mean we're going to throw any old hardware into them!
We'll benchmark CPUs before adding them to Grandma Sherman Deals to make sure they're capable of running our supported games, including larger modpacks where appropriate. If you look at what some of the larger hosting companies are still offering, you'll find plenty of older Xeons and lower-end Ryzen processors.
Our goal is to keep Grandma Sherman hardware competitive with those offerings, while maintaining the low prices these deals are known for.
Older hardware, yes. Unusable hardware, absolutely not!
Can I Move From My Current Package to a Sherman Deal?
As things stand, you'll be able to upgrade from a Grandma Sherman Deal to one of our main packages, but not the other way around.
This is the same policy we have today, although it's something we might revisit in the future.
What About Add-ons?
All our usual add-ons will also be available for Grandma Sherman Deals!
That includes additional backups, dedicated ports, extra databases, and more.
When Will These New Deals Be Available?
We'll begin rolling out the new Grandma Sherman Deals later this week.
We'll let everyone know as soon as they're available!
A Final Note
Once again, thank you, everyone. Kinetic is getting incredibly close to 100,000 server orders, and it's been an amazing year for us. The support we received following yesterday's announcement reminded us just how amazing our community is. We genuinely wouldn't be where we are today without you.
I hope these changes to Grandma Sherman Deals help soften the impact of our recent price increases, particularly for those of you who just want an affordable place to host a server with your friends.
Kinetic is still cheaper than many other hosting providers, and we'll continue working to add more and more value to our services.
And keep an eye out later this month, because our biggest game panel update yet is coming!
As always, if you have any questions, please let us know!
Chris
CEO @ Kinetic Hosting
