Every November the hosting industry discounts heavily. We do not, and it is worth explaining why rather than leaving it looking like an oversight.
What The Discount Implies
If a plan can be sold at 75% off in November and remain viable, one of two things is true. Either the normal price contains a great deal of headroom, or the discounted customers are being subsidised by everyone paying full price.
Both are uncomfortable if you signed up in September.
The Structure Underneath
Deep hosting discounts are almost always attached to long terms and steep renewals. The 75% applies to three years up front. year four is full price. The offer is not really a discount, it is a customer acquisition cost paid out of the renewal.
Which is fine as a business model, and works well for people who diligently move every three years. It works less well for the majority who do not.
What We Do Instead
One price, published, the same whether you arrive in November or March. When we raise it, as we did this year, existing customers keep the rate they signed up on rather than the new one.
That means we miss the November spike. It also means we never have to explain to a customer of two years why the person who joined last week is paying a third of what they are.
The Trade We Are Making
We grow more slowly this way. A sale is genuinely an effective way to acquire customers, and we are choosing not to use it.
What we get in exchange is not having to run the business on two different sets of prices, and not having a renewal cliff that our own customers dread. For a small company where most growth comes from people recommending us, that seems the better trade.
If you want the cheapest possible first year, we will lose that comparison every time. We are trying to win the fifth.
