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Discussion/Poll on Lifetime deals (Shared/ Resellers/ VPNs/ Control panels and VPS)
Good day to you all,
So I have been wondering about the definition of the lifetime deals that we see being offered by some providers.
Does lifetime means: Lifetime of the customer, company or a predefined period like 15 - 25 years (Based on Life Sentence) ?
Maybe we as a community can come to an agreed on the concept or definition on lifetime deals and offers !
I myself have seen several lifetime VPN, resellers and shared hosting deals but have never seen a lifetime VPS deal ? Most control panels stopped offering lifetime with the exception of ApisCP.
What is the reason for not offering a lifetime VPS ( I would have thought it's cheaper to sustain for the provider since there are no control panel charges/costs ) ?
Let's see what the providers and community think about this concept.
- Are lifetime deals sustainable ?69 votes
- Yes10.14%
- Hell No !66.67%
- Defined Lifetime !23.19%
- I have previously bought a lifetime deal (Shared/VPN/VPS/Control Panel) ?69 votes
- Yes !55.07%
- Never !44.93%
- I want to see a Lifetime deals on VPS ?69 votes
- Yes39.13%
- Nah60.87%
Comments
There have been lifetime VPS deals: CloudAtCost (still "running") and TheForeverCloud. The latter isn't available for sign up anymore, but I guess they are still honouring services. It was run by @terrahost iirc.
Thanks to all voters, to those who have previously bought a lifetime deal.
Could you share with us, it would be interesting to know.
I have a lifetime reseller from @MikePT and another one from @WebHorizon.
Also I have a lifetime VPN from KeepSolid ( Very stable ) thanks for @Ympker for sharing the awesome deals here.
Planning to get the lifetime email deal from @jar when I can afford it
Old customer still charge monthly for "maintenance cost" a few years later, and i i left it , so i think nothing real for lifetime, they are bs
To be added , they terminate all my service because did not pay for "maintenance cost" each month that they asked
There are a lot of different ways to offer Lifetime services. Services that have little to no overhead per customer perhaps have the most sustainable offering, but even still they need regularly paying customers to keep their brand alive. Many will be rightfully identified as simply operating a pump and dump scam with lifetime offerings, and it's no oddity that people are sensitive to that and suspect it at every turn.
I keep raising the price on mine so it can continue to be what it is: An investment in my growth for a small leftover corner of a server which is already generating between $15k and $20k yearly revenue on top of it's overhead.
My VPS got suspended for not paying those "maintenance cost", few months later they decide to remove those "maintenance cost" but keep my previous VPS suspended.
I would interpret lifetime deals always as lasting as long as the company lifetime. If the client lives for another 100 years but the company goes bankrupt or dissolves after 7 years, of course, the service offered will also end. Downloaded files/software can (probably) be used without further updates ofc. The Ivacy VPN lifetime deal is a bullshit definition of lifetime ("in tech world lifetime means 5 years, so you get it for 5 years only, then contact support and good luck"), although the product is fine. Lifetime plan is probably best translated to one-time charge with continous service for the lifetime of the company.
I have many lifetime deals and licenses and ofc those with less costs on the provider's end (e.g. Software products) are more likely to last longer than lifetime deals for SaaS products or servers/vpn as these definitely have on-going bills to pay to keep servers alive. Affinity Designer, for example, is a good one-time/lifetime deal with lifetime updates and little cost to keep alive (even if no further updates were published).
Like @jar said: It depends on the deal and company. I suggest you make your due research before buying and ask yourself not if you are going to have this product for the next 50 years, but whether it will last long enough to make the purchase worth it
Also: beware of scams!
CloudAtCost is charging service fees to keep the Lifetime VPS.
Lifetime=scam.
I wouldnt buy such offer even from the oldest providers on the market.
It's a sign that the boat is sinking. :d
Lifetime deals just means someone wants a lump of money in a very short time.
Got a cool lifetime deal from a local company and they are still keeping it. That product line is no more yet they keep the server alive I guess.
I have bought a lifetime VPN but it was even cheaper then 1 year NordVPN... So I am happy if it lasts longer... But a Lifetime could also mean a company needs quick money to pay of some debts and go bankrupt... Quite risky..
WHMCS is a good example of why lifetime offers are just terrible (in most cases).
WHMCS took away updates to owned licenses rendering them useless was a complete scam.
I know it's not really that the service is gone because it can be "used" just not securely.
Thus making my WHMCS license useless to me.
I agree the 9$ maintenance fee was a dick move but imo it wasn't a big deal if you had a decent amount of resources and they removed it afterwards if you bought another package.
Don't get me wrong, their practices are shady at best, but it is still decent for the price and nice to have whenever you want to try something new.
I bought €1 lifetime 200GB Nextcloud storage.
Provider canceled the service and stole my dolla.
The only thing that can be sold as lifetime is software without updates.
Any cloud service has recurring costs and cannot sustain lifetime.
Hardware with cloud service: lifetime of the hardware.
Well even they don't suspend it, still it's not really usable, their network are barely connected and their disk io are not much faster than my raspi sdcard. But that's not surprising to me since i've heard many bad things before so whatever i bought that thing at just $8 to feed my curiousness whether it will useful for my future iot.
a lifetime deal can be seen like a startup investment: for providing cash upfront, instead of a share of the earnings you get a share of the service - which is way cheaper for the company, and probably more valueable for you as well.
of course all startup investments carry a risk of failure and even fraud.
I think there are limits.
I have 10 EUR lifetime from @MikePT - it's been 1 or 2 years now.
If they closed down tomorrow, I would be happy with the value received.
A hundred or a couple hundred $$ is a different story. Not something I would be interested in.
Shit! Thanks for the heads up @Ympker ... I guess I need to start using it sometime. What a scam.
Oh we're alive and kicking. We won't offer VPS / Dedicated Servers but we'll offer a lot more!
On stacksocial details it says to only ticket Ivacy support after 5 years to renew, however Ivacy live chat once told me you have to do it X days before but not too early either. Also they said that lifetime in tech industry is 5 years and bla bla. I wouldn't rely on that. Even more because you need to get active yourself to keep the lifetime deal you bought lol.
I think a provider could realistically offer "lifetime of the hardware" if they self-hosted or had a lot of spare capacity. Ongoing costs for "one more server" are not that much.