Every month a bill goes out. We think customers should understand what sits behind it, because understanding what you pay for is the first step to feeling fairly treated.
Hardware
A big chunk of the bill covers servers, storage, networking kit, UPS systems, generators, and the datacentre space that all of it lives in. We pay for that hardware outright rather than leasing it by the hour from a cloud provider. That gives us stable costs, predictable performance, and an actual say in how it is configured.
Bandwidth And Connectivity
Transit is cheaper than it used to be, but it still costs money. We buy connectivity from multiple upstream carriers, which is why a single fibre cut on the motorway does not take us offline. That redundancy is not free, but it is the reason you can send mail at lunchtime on a Wednesday without thinking.
Licences And Software
We pay for antivirus libraries, for commercial spam feeds, for the underlying database engines on some of our infrastructure, and for third party monitoring. Free software powers a lot of what we run, and we contribute back where it is practical. The paid pieces are the ones where a commercial product genuinely outperforms the open alternative.
People
The biggest line item is salaries. A hosting business that does not pay its people fairly cannot keep the people it needs. We pay UK market rates, to UK based engineers, because that is the team we want answering your tickets. No overseas outsourcing.
Compliance And Insurance
Regulatory work, data protection audits, penetration testing, and business insurance all come out of the same invoice. Most customers never see this work, but it is what lets us tell a regulated client, in writing, that we meet their obligations.
A Small Margin For The Future
We take a modest margin above costs. That margin does two things. It pays for the next upgrade cycle of hardware before it fails, and it gives us a cushion so we can absorb a bad month without panicking. That is how a small business stays a going concern instead of a cautionary tale.
What You Are Not Paying For
Marketing stunts. Sponsored tech conferences. Big agency rebrands. Free coffee for an office we do not have. Sales commission stacks on plans you did not ask for. Our costs are spent on the thing you pay for, which is a service that stays up, stays private, and stays answered.
