Nobody enjoys reading about a price increase – and we enjoy writing one even less. So instead of the usual one-liner about "rising costs," here's the whole reasoning: what exactly happened, why now, why some plans are affected more than others, and quite deliberately also what did not get more expensive and therefore isn't landing on your bill. Concretely, on 1 August 2026 we're adjusting the prices of some older root server promo plans – mainly the larger ones with a lot of RAM. The change applies to renewals only, your already-paid period stays completely untouched, no plan rises by more than 35 %, and the smaller 16 GB plans we recently adjusted stay unchanged. If you think we're exaggerating after reading this, open a ticket – we mean it when we say transparency.
The real reason: everything we need became scarce at the same time
This adjustment doesn't have one single cause but an uncomfortable simultaneity: almost everything we need to run and maintain your server has, since autumn 2025, become scarce, hard to source or drastically more expensive – RAM, NVMe storage and IPv4 all at once. On RAM it hits us directly, because our platform runs on DDR4: the memory makers are winding down DDR4 production in favour of HBM and newer memory for the AI sector, right up to end-of-life. So our exact memory type isn't just getting more expensive, it's increasingly no longer regularly available at all, while demand from the huge installed base keeps going unabated. Module prices have, depending on type and timing, more than tripled, at peaks several times over – the scene has long called it the "RAMpocalypse." For us as a host that's the sore point, because RAM isn't a minor line item but the central, most expensive resource of every server, and a plan with 26 or 48 GB physically ties up exactly what has become scarce. That's why our adjustment isn't a blanket increase but follows the resource: it lands on the large, RAM-heavy promo servers, and barely at all on a small 4 GB plan.
On NVMe storage it's the same story in even more drastic numbers. High-capacity enterprise NVMe has become scarce and its price has flat-out exploded: a 15 TB enterprise NVMe we sourced for roughly €1.4–1.8k in 2025 now costs €6–7k to replace – three to four times as much, and with markedly worse availability at that. And because NVMe SSDs wear out in continuous operation and have to be swapped regularly, that price jump doesn't hit us once but continuously, month after month.
The third and often underestimated block is IPv4 – and by now it's a topic of its own. IPv4 is globally exhausted: the RIRs have no free blocks left, anyone who needs addresses rents or buys them on the secondary market at prices that have risen sharply over the years, and large providers now pass this on as a separate line item – from €0.50 to over €1.70 per address per month, one very large US hyperscaler the equivalent of more than €3. Every single IPv4 in your server is therefore a real, scarce and growing cost block. We continue to carry that cost ourselves and still bundle your IPv4 at no extra charge – but it's part of the picture that makes the maths tight.
The obvious objection is: "you already own the RAM, NVMe and IPs." For what's in the nodes today, that's true – it's just not the point. It gets scarce and expensive on resupply: failures have to be replaced at today's prices (see the NVMe above), RAM and storage utilisation keeps climbing even as machines expire over time, so we have to add capacity – into a market where there's no cheap capacity left to buy. And normally we'd absorb that pressure by floating new promos on fresh hardware and letting the old deals age out; but with no affordable, available hardware to build on right now, that pressure valve is gone too. In short, it's a question of replacement, scarcity and cash flow – not "the parts in your VM appreciated in value."
What we deliberately do not pass on – and where the market stands
Honesty also means naming what did not get more expensive, because that doesn't land on your bill either: the industrial electricity price in Germany was, on average in 2024, well below the crisis level of 2022 and in part even below the pre-crisis level, and IP transit costs have been falling steadily for years. We could easily have justified the increase with a blanket "everything's getting more expensive" – it just wouldn't have been honest. What became expensive and scarce is RAM, NVMe and IPv4, and that's exactly what the adjustment follows, targeted at the plans that contain a lot of it.
For a sense of scale, it's worth looking at the market, because nearly every major provider is raising prices in 2026, usually more than we are and often with no regard for existing customers: one very large German provider is raising its cloud and server prices by roughly 30 to 37 % as of April 2026, explicitly including running, existing products with no grandfathering, another well-known German provider is raising existing contracts by a good 18 % and new orders by over 24 %, and a large European cloud provider is adding 9 to 11 % on average. We could have reacted earlier and deliberately didn't, absorbing the higher costs ourselves for a while in the hope of relief – but the scarcity persists, and hardware has to be continuously replaced at the new prices. At some point "just swallowing it" would only continue at the expense of service quality, and that's exactly what we want to avoid. Our adjustment stays well below what the market is currently doing, applies to renewals only, and leaves you contract-free, prepaid and, as a rule, cheaper than the providers above even afterwards – a 26 GB root server for €13.49 a month with no contract of any kind is a very fair price even after the change.
What exactly changes – and what doesn't
Affected are older root server promo plans, above all the larger ones from 26 GB RAM up, plus a few older promotions with 20 to 24 GB. The change takes effect on 1 August 2026 and only at your next renewal, your already-paid period runs on unchanged, and no plan rises by more than 35 %:
- 26 GB / 6 vCores / 300 GB NVMe: from €8.99 to €11.99 (or from €9.99 to €13.49)
- 20–24 GB: from €9.49 to €12.49
- 36 GB / 8 vCores: from €14.99 to €18.49
- 48 GB / 10–12 vCores: from €19.99 to €23.49
The smaller 16 GB promo plans we recently adjusted stay unchanged. Nothing else changes for you: the performance, specifications and location of your server stay exactly the same, payment continues via PayPal, paysafecard and the usual methods, and prepaid stays prepaid – no contract term, no notice period, no hidden costs, you only pay for as long as you want.
What you can do now
The easiest thing: nothing. Your server keeps running as usual, and the new price takes effect from your first renewal on or after 1 August, so just make sure your balance covers it. Alternatively you can switch to annual prepayment, save in the process and lock in your price for the prepaid period – just reach out via a ticket. And if you don't agree with the change, that's completely fine too: as a prepaid customer you're tied to nothing, you can simply let your server expire before 1 August or not renew it, without incurring any further costs. We know a price increase is never a pleasant occasion – thank you for taking the time to read the background, and thank you for your trust. If you have any questions, we're here for you anytime: just open a ticket in your customer area.
Your Prepaid-Host team
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