Premium Worlds and costs -- the facts

[Dadiella Nightwing]

As a builder, I can never have too much land. LOL. I love my advanced world, but I also like that I can have that and another private place to build for less than it costs for my small, cluttered, laggy, annoying plot of land in SL.

[Carlos Loff]

So I believe after these charts the conclusion can be - If we plan to launch enough events with enough people that they can become quite expensive it is time to change the world to a fixed-price and after that decision we are free to increase events and visits as much as Kitely servers allow with no extra costs

We really can use the charts as a good reference to see how close to that line we are, thanks for that work

[Dot Matrix]

The charts are a tool, yes.

I suspect when people do the sums with realistic numbers they will be surprised at just how good a deal the Premium Accounts and Premium Worlds are for those focusing on building worlds for exploration, for the occasional event or even simply to express their own creativity.


Premium Account vs Starter World
Maria Korolov touched on this back in April 2014: Why Kitely’s $20 plan is the better deal. She rounds up the monthly costs; her "$20 plan" is the Premium Account at $19.95 per month, the "$15 plan" is the fixed-cost Starter World at $14.95 per month, and the "$50 plan" is the Standard World at $49.95.

If you’re going to be a Kitely customer, then go for the $20 plan. Most people don’t get enough traffic on their regions to worry about. At 20 cents an hour, billed by the minute, it’s not going to add up fast, especially since Kitely automatically boots people off if they’re inactive.

If it turns out that a particular region is very busy, move it to the $15 a month plan, or the $50 plan if the region is both busy and very crowded.

Let's estimate the cross-over price points in terms of Regular/HG visitor hours.

For the cost of a Starter World ($14.95) and using the maximum KC discount rate, a Premium Account holder can pay for 4485 Regular/HG visitor inworld minutes, or 74.75 hours. The other KC/$ rates yield 62.29 and 49.83 Regular/HG visitor inworld hours per month.

For the cost of a Standard World ($49.95), a Premium Account holder can pay for 14,985 Regular/HG visitor inworld minutes, or 249.75 hours. The other KC/$ rates give 208.125 and 166.50 Regular/HG visitor inworld hours per month.


Premium Account vs Standard World
In the above I haven't factored in the monthly cost of the Premium Account. So let's do a comparison between a Premium Account holder running a 2x2 Premium World ($19.95 per month plus Regular/HG visitor inworld time) and a Regular Account holder with a 2x2 Standard World ($49.95 per month).

The price difference is $30 per month, or 9000 Regular/HG visitor minutes, or 150 hours when buying KC at the maximum discount rate (it's 125 hours or 100 hours at the other KC/$ rates).


Premium Account vs Advanced World
Now let's compare a Premium Account holder running a 4x4 Premium World ($19.95 plus world cost of 11x30x10 KC = $11, totalling $30.95 per month, plus Regular/HG visitor inworld time) and a Regular Account holder with a 4x4 Advanced World ($99.95 per month). (Note: In this comparison I'm ignoring the fact that Advanced Worlds get more computing power than the other types.)

The price difference is $69 per month, or 20,700 Regular/HG visitor minutes, or 345 hours when buying KC at the maximum discount rate (it's 287.5 hours or 230 hours at the other KC/$ rates).

[Carlos Loff]

Nice resume

What I plan to do with my 16 world is to keep it premium wile I build and develop small events and bring residents in and later on change it to fixed-cost, so I guess certain worlds can benefit from this plan-changes possibilities and keep costs lower along with the evolution

What bothers me is just one thing, when I change the 16 world to fixed-price and end up paying 100$/month I will still be tempted to keep my premium membership because of other 2 small worlds and than I will start having +20$ to add to the 100$

Maybe than one person that chooses my phylosophy can charge a small fee to other premiums that want to make their massive regular events at the big fixed-price world so they spend very little and being fixed the Owner doesn't have more costs, will just be able to cover his/her premium extra-costs

Maybe renting lands work on Kitely after all if the objective is regular massive events

All these considerations can be taken in account when thinking of developing events, I hope to have launched some more ideas and possibilities to make this post more effective

Anyway, being able to change plans and being billed only for the exact plan monthly days makes Kitely the best option

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Dot convinced me a while ago to go Premium and I must say it suits me very well. Its a shame the whole meter concept seems to confuse/scare people.

I use 1 of the 5 premium regions I get as my store/showroom and the others as part of a larger project I am working on. If I only wanted 1 region, I think I would still go with a "starter world" but if you want anything beyond that, premium really makes sense. My store is open to regular users and hypergrid and I hardly notice the KC that I pay for visitors, and I do get quite a few people spending 10-15 mins wandering round.

The larger project I am working on is a Roleplay region I have posted about elsewhere on the forum. Just to complicate the picture, the 4 remaining "premium" regions I have are added to 5 other metered regions which I pay 10KC per day for. I don't really see the point of spreading the charge out per day like that. I think it should just be added to your monthly bill, but whatever. That is just a minor point. I think it works out about 1USD per region per month.

If my other project became popular, I might start charging a flat-rate for renting a house there. But it would have to get busy before my store couldn't offset most of the cost.

So I get 10 "unlimited" regions for about 25 USD plus whatever time people spend in my regions (an extra 0.5-2USD a month....ish.) I think that's an amazing deal.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Roxy,

The Premium Account ($19.95/month) provides you with 5 free regions in Premium Worlds and you don't get charged for the time you or other Premium Account users spend inside your Premium World(s). To get a 16 region Premium World you'll need to pay 10 KC per day per region in excess of those 5 regions includes with the Premium Account (about $11/month extra for those 11 regions if you buy KC at the maximum discount rate). This comes to a total of about $19.95 + $11 = $31/month for a Premium Account and a 16-region Premium World.

[Constance Peregrine]

fyi there is also no fee for uploads

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Hello Roxy and welcome to Kitely

Not to be a killjoy, but may I suggest only going for a full 16 region setup if you think you can fill it and/or will actually use the space.

It is amazing how much land you can get in Kitely for such a low price, but amazing quickly turns into daunting as heck once you realize you have to fill that land with stuff.

Dont get me wrong, if you want a super huge sandbox, or have some real use for all that space then great! But if your just venturing out of SL and want a home-base and a bit of space to build, it might be overkill. It is very easy to add regions later, and the Premium package comes with 5 regions, which means you could have 5 single regions or 1 singe region and a 2x2. The latter was my previous setup.

I just upgraded a region from 2x2 to 3x3 (so from 4 to 9 full regions) and while I love it and its the "right" size for what I want to do, I often find myself staring blankly at the screen or wandering round aimlessly thinking what on earth I should possibly do next.

Also, if you are interested in making your own items, make sure you check out the builders forum, as I recently posted a tutorial covering the basics of using blender. I didn't write that one, but I think it is a great primer for total beginners. Right now I am putting the finishing touches to my first guide, which will cover making mesh prims for basic building purposes and "hybrid building" which is a mix of Blender and Inworld building. So everything you need to get started making mesh is on the way!

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

If you set your region to "advanced mega region" (which it is by default) then the entire 16 regions is treated as 1 huge region, so no sim crossings to worry about

I know there are sailing enthusiasts here in Kitely, but I am not really one of them. Anyone else answer that one?

[Constance Peregrine]

Roxy [and anyone else in HG enabled grids/places] feel free to snag any or all of these as you wish.

http://minethere.blogspot.com/2014/02/f ... rains.html