Premium Worlds and costs -- the facts

[Dot Matrix]

At the Community Meeting on 30 July 2014, some expressed concern about the cost to Kitely world managers of holding events on their Premium Worlds -- that the events will cost a lot to them because the world managers pay 1 KC per minute for Regular account holders and hypergrid visitors.

This seems to be a commonly held worry, and sadly it might be holding people back from making Kitely a home base.

Those of us who have held events on Premium Worlds open to the hypergrid or whose Premium Worlds have featured in hypergrid safaris know what those costs are in reality. So this thread is to look at those actual costs, in the hope that it will help to allay fears and encourage others to take the plunge!

First, remember that other Premium Account holders do not cost the Premium World manager anything when they visit. According to the Kitely Services page under "Which Option is Right For You?" the Premium Account is the most popular option:

Most of our paying customers opt for a Premium Account. The second most popular choice is a fixed-price Starter World. Many users also choose to combine these options, having both a Premium Account and a Starter World.

Buying Kitely Credits at the maximum discount gets 300 KC for 1 US dollar.

Costs of keeping Premium Worlds open for Regular/Hypergrid exploration
The particular focus of my own Premium Worlds is to encourage exploration. They are part of the Devokan group of storybuild worlds, so get a fair bit of exposure. On average, single explorers (Premium, Regular and HG) spend about 15 minutes inworld, with some repeated visits. I've been in Kitely for about two years (with various avatars). The highest monthly total came to about 10 Regular/HG visitor hours, or about 600 KC, or just 2 US dollars total for the month.

Since I have a Premium (Silver) Account (the grandfathered variety with 10 Premium Regions), this means I can sponsor a single Premium World (Ener's Hax Nuit) with 37,000+ prims, and develop a 3x3 Advanced Megaregion Premium World (Evensong, which melds the old single regions of Retreat, Skysong, Touchstone, Deepwater, Waysmeet, Tao Lia/Rivages) for the terribly affordable total cost of around 22 dollars a month for two worlds with far greater capacities and capabilities than available from other grids or vendors at a similar price point, and enjoy the benefit of all Kitely's enhancements over vanilla OpenSim.

Costs of well-attended one-off events
What about well-attended one-off events, such as the recent extended visit of the Hypergrid Safari to Imladris? Paislee has checked her account history for this event: 22 avatars attended, including Premium, Regular and HG visitors; each were inworld around 30-45 minutes. Yikes! That sounds like it is going to be expensive! And yet the actual total cost to Paislee for this event was 535 KC, around 1.79 US dollars for this one-off event.

Costs of weekly events regularly attended by a handful of people
Here I have in mind a group of four friends who meet up each week to play a game of cards. The game lasts 90 to 120 minutes, so would cost the Premium World manager between 360 and 480 KC per week, say on average 420 KC x 4 weeks = 1680 KC per month. That is 5.60 US dollars per month.

Now compare that with the current (actual) real cost of 9 US dollars per month to rent a titchy 450 prim plot specially for our card games, on a grandfathered full region in SL where the sim owner passes on the tier discount to renters. As soon as we get a version of the card game working in OpenSim (and it's getting close, a matter of weeks), we'll be moving the regular meeting over to Kitely. Then, bye bye SL!

[Carlos Loff]

I think that is a false issue

If people wants to have events with many visitors for many time they just need to turn their worlds into fixed price and still save money compared with other grids


People just got to much used to pay ALMOST NOTHING for non visited premium worlds

Either way Kitely is always cheaper, specially for Worlds made of more than 1 region

[Freda Frostbite]

On Poesy, it costs about 1.98 cents per event. In addition, there are world storage fees of 30 KC per day. That's roughly $3.00 per month. Poesy hosts roughly twelve events per month and has writers and artists in residence, none of whom are premium members. Cost of running poesy (not counting the KC paid for writers in residence because that is a situation unusual to Poesy, I think, or the basic cost of premium membership) -- about $27 per month. When I add the basic cost of my premium membership and the cost of running Rhapsody, Spirit Paths, and The U, it starts to look like real money-- roughly $75 per month.


Not a horribly high expense, far less than it would cost in Inworldz and Second Life, less than it would cost for me to upgrade to Kitely unlimited worlds, as Carlos suggests, but far more than it could cost elsewhere in open sim. So, no, this is not a "false issue." There are, however some advantages to being in Kitely that may outweigh the expense.

I would also like to add that writing off people's concerns as "false issues" is not helpful with retention. That sort of attitude can make people feel like they might be more appreciated elsewhere.

[Dot Matrix]

Thank you for writing about the costs in your own experience, Freda.

This sort of information is exactly what is needed, so that people can see how costs for Premium Worlds work out in practice for different types of use.

[Alexina Proctor]

Thank you, Dot, for starting this topic. We really needed to see calculations from people who have had non-premium account visitors on premium worlds. In my case, hosting the 29 people from the HG Safari -- 1st stop was Calchester and then Paislee -- depends on how you buy Kitely credits. I was billed for 850KC for the tour group and HG Safari people who returned to look a little more. I purchase money at 20% off right now, so that cost is .004 per KC. If I purchase KC at 33% off, it would have been .0033 per KC. It cost me US$3.40.

That is very affordable and still makes it so much less than purchasing a fix-price world at US$49.95/month - Starter world allows only 10 concurrent visitors and the standard world allows 40. If we had events like we do at our Community Library / Theatre on IW, we would have to have to pay US$99.95/month for a world because live plays at the Theatre and exhibit opening parties are generally attended by 49 to 60 concurrent visitors.

[Constance Peregrine]

Thank you, Dot, for starting this topic. We really needed to see calculations from people who have had non-premium account visitors on premium worlds. In my case, hosting the 29 people from the HG Safari -- 1st stop was Calchester and then Paislee -- depends on how you buy Kitely credits. I was billed for 850KC for the tour group and HG Safari people who returned to look a little more. I purchase money at 20% off right now, so that cost is .004 per KC. If I purchase KC at 33% off, it would have been .0033 per KC. It cost me US$3.40.

That is very affordable and still makes it so much less than purchasing a fix-price world at US$49.95/month - Starter world allows only 10 concurrent visitors and the standard world allows 40. If we had events like we do at our Community Library / Theatre on IW, we would have to have to pay US$99.95/month for a world because live plays at the Theatre and exhibit opening parties are generally attended by 49 to 60 concurrent visitors.

I, also, like seeing these real breakdowns [and not just my own breakdowns, happening more and more often!! gosh darnit!!].

If I might interject specifically on the 2nd paragraph, and with the caveat I don't really follow the costs things much here as they don't pertain to me personally, but more as a way to spread the news in other places sometimes.

So these comments are very useful, and I want them to stay as real as possible in case I decide to share this entire thread link [which seems to be likely].

But if I may, and anyone feel free to correct me, it won't hurt my feelings as I am, in reality, an Alien from dimension 673.291 and we have no feelings.

This is also not a sublime or even not so sublime derogatory statement about inwz. [to the watchers...]

It seems to be upon again reading the services page that the 50 bucks plan, which also allows up to 4 regions [with of course the 60k prims spread out among them as wished] and the 40 concurrent avatars would be excellent for you Alex.

However, I am unsure what you already have. I am unsure of your future plans.

Most especially in getting started and getting the word out, 40 people are unlikely to come, at least all at once. With the 4 regions you can make them mostly like the inwz scenics are used for, or add some nice little getaway nooks and such. I don't know how many prims you need, but personally I have never even used 60k on anything I have done [tho I did once rez 381k on a well endowed computer in the metro testgrid, for grins]...[and no, gentlemen, I don't mean "that" kind of endowed!!].

So, also not knowing if you rent enough regions in inwz to qualify for the discounts [which started at #4 if I recall correctly, for a 5 buck reduction], but for an example...1 region @ 75, and let's say 1 scenic at 20...for 95 bucks, a likely real concurrent avie amount of, say, that 60 number, before issues get out of hand [and also them reducing scripted items and such], 50k prims [unless things have changed]. Then the 50 buck deal here seems rather amazing.

Not saying you are saying such a thing is not, just kinda doing my own comparison...they are, of course, different in several regards, not to mention the time you put into them.

This thread is pointing out real costs, so I assume that comparisons of costs only are useful. If not, someone tell me privately and I will put a bomb under this comment.

Not sure how this correlates to what you all are trying to say here, so please excuse this dunderhead if I spoke out of turn.

Since you both know I love you, I have no issue saying such a thing as I know you will both take it as intended, and not in a negative light.

phew, this wore me out!!

[Alexina Proctor]

All is cool, Minethere. I don't wish to talk about what Prax and I pay in IW. There are reasons we both have premium accounts here. One is that I love to terraform and I have that freedom here. Another is that we can upload OARs that other people created -- just uploaded the Stormhaven OAR v2 to my single region on Kitely. I love being able to do backups of my worlds. In IW we own only two Elf Clan regions, so having 10 regions here allows us both to be creative in our own way. We do not intend to leave IW. We run the library (books and information center), provide the venue for live theatre and have a ton of friends there.

Prax and I have learned so much by being on Kitely -- things we would not have had the opportunity or the need to learn on IW. It is very hard to have very large communities on Kitely. I cannot think of any way we can have over 50 regions with oceans created with scenic sims all bunched together. Caledon in SL would not work here either -- another huge community that we were members of for years.

Hugs, Minethere. Get some rest.

[Constance Peregrine]

Totally fine, I should have just kept reading anyway...lol

I, also, would like to see some way Kitely could do larger continent type connected regions. I understand the problem but also think there could be a workable way to accomplish this, tho I have no clue how so. Others have mentioned it too.

In any case, the thread is a good one to share as it gets more input. huggssss

eta fyi, I do know the pricing deal with Elf Clan as I once considered doing one [but being poor as sin made me reconsider...lol].

[Carlos Loff]

On Poesy, it costs about 1.98 cents per event. In addition, there are world storage fees of 30 KC per day. That's roughly $3.00 per month. Poesy hosts roughly twelve events per month and has writers and artists in residence, none of whom are premium members. Cost of running poesy (not counting the KC paid for writers in residence because that is a situation unusual to Poesy, I think, or the basic cost of premium membership) -- about $27 per month. When I add the basic cost of my premium membership and the cost of running Rhapsody, Spirit Paths, and The U, it starts to look like real money-- roughly $75 per month.


Not a horribly high expense, far less than it would cost in Inworldz and Second Life, less than it would cost for me to upgrade to Kitely unlimited worlds, as Carlos suggests, but far more than it could cost elsewhere in open sim. So, no, this is not a "false issue." There are, however some advantages to being in Kitely that may outweigh the expense.

I would also like to add that writing off people's concerns as "false issues" is not helpful with retention. That sort of attitude can make people feel like they might be more appreciated elsewhere.

Maybe I was to generalist and I missed out the point - Checking how Kitely prices translate into practice, sorry for that

When I said False Issue I did not mean is not important, what I wanted to say is that, as you said yourself, there are no cheaper ways on other grids, Kitely is the cheapest one so how can we be worried with expenses ?

But I get it, what expenses is what we need to discover and surely this post helps with many examples

I mean each World Manager must notice his/her expenses and act only according to the possibilities and returns (material or not) but is a bit pointless to think about Kitely costs PER SE cause they are the best ones

For what I saw in many Kitely Worlds visits - Fixed Priced single region worlds are so much low on server resources and OVERLAGED in such a manner I feel like punching my mouse and keyboard just trying to look around, moving is completely IMPOSSIBLE and I have a well equipped Mac that flows nice on bigger or premium sims filled with prims

So maybe 2X2 or only 3X3 will be a medium expense option without extra visitors expenses worries - Premium Worlds, even Single Regions are much more powerful, be all aware of that

[Alexina Proctor]

Hi Carlos,

Starter Worlds and Standard Worlds get the same amount of server resources as Premium Worlds, while Advanced Worlds actually get more server resources than any other world type. We place between 1 and 4 worlds per server, depending on world load, and the cheaper fixed-price world types simply have defined max prims counts and avatar concurrencies that are lower than those of Premium Worlds and Advanced Worlds. Regardless, performance for a Start World should be the same as for a similarly-sized Premium World with the same amount of prims, scripts and avatars.