Loyalty pricing: how hosting renewals get cheaper over time

On RE:NODE, loyalty pricing is a per-service discount ladder. Every month a service is renewed without a gap takes another 2% off the next renewal, until the discount reaches 20% at month 11 and stays there for as long as you keep paying. The first month is always full price. It stacks with the cheaper per-month price of a 3, 6 or 12-month term, but the two together never take more than 35% off. Paying up to 7 days late costs nothing; past that, a once-a-year freeze holds your place for a month, and only after that does the service step back - 3 months, not to zero. Cancelling ends the streak. Changing plan does not.

There is one condition that matters more than any of the numbers: loyalty pricing is not a box you tick at checkout. We switch it on per service. If a service of yours is enrolled, the Loyalty page under your account shows it; if it is not, you will see nothing about loyalty anywhere in the panel. The rest of this post explains the ladder in detail, the maths of stacking it with a term discount, what happens when a payment is late, and how renewal quotes show you the real figure before you pay.

How the ladder works#

The rule fits in one line: month k of an unbroken run is priced at 2% × (k - 1) off, capped at 20%. Month 1 is full price, month 2 is 2% off, month 3 is 4% off, and so on up to month 11, where the discount reaches 20% and stops growing. Month 12, month 24 and month 60 are all 20% off.

A renewal buys the month after the one you are in, so it is priced at the next stage. If your service has been paid for 4 months in a row, your next renewal pays for month 5 and is priced at month 5's rate, 8% off. That is why the Loyalty page talks about "the next renewal" rather than "your current discount": what you are paying for is always one step ahead of where you are.

Here is the full ladder on a plan that costs $10 a month at list price, renewed one month at a time:

Over the first year the service costs $102.40 rather than $120, and from then on it costs $96 a year instead of $120. The saving is real but it is back-loaded: in the first few months it is pocket change, and the point of the scheme is to reward the services that stay. That is the honest way to think about it. If you are running a server for a summer event and turning it off in September, loyalty pricing will barely touch your bill. If you are running a community server, a bot or a small production app that you expect to keep for years, it adds up.

Enrolment: why you might not see it#

Loyalty pricing exists in the panel but it is not a public, automatic offer. In the mode we run it in, staff enrol services one by one. A few consequences follow from that, and they are worth knowing before you go looking for a discount that is not there.

• It is per service, not per account. Your game server can be enrolled while your database server is not. Each one has its own streak, its own stage and its own next price.
• The streak starts at zero on enrolment. If you have been paying for a server for two years and it is enrolled today, it starts at the bottom of the ladder like a new one. There is no backfill of the months before.
• Not enrolled means invisible. A service that is not enrolled shows no loyalty fields on its card, no loyalty line in its renewal quote and no loyalty line on its invoices. If none of your services are enrolled, the Loyalty page does not appear at all.
• Un-enrolling is forward only. If a service is taken off loyalty, the change applies from the next quote. An invoice that has already been raised keeps the amount it was raised for, and the streak is kept as history.

The reason for doing it this way is simple: a discount that is guaranteed to everyone the moment they sign up is a price, not a reward, and we would rather keep list prices honest and switch the ladder on where it makes sense. If you have a long-running service and want to ask about it, a ticket from the panel is the right place. Our general billing guide covers it briefly under loyalty pricing.

What the Loyalty page shows

For an enrolled service, the Loyalty page under your account has a card per service. It shows the stage the service is at ("Stage 5 of 11"), the discount the next renewal will take, the price at the floor and how many months away the floor is, and a line such as "Renew by" a date "to move up a stage". A summary at the top gives your best discount right now and your furthest stage. Underneath sits the ladder itself and a plain-language version of the rules on late payment.

There is no badge, no tier name and no level title. Stages are numbered months. We think that is the right call: a name like "Gold" tells you nothing that "20% off from month 11" does not tell you better.

Stacking with 3, 6 and 12-month terms#

Terms of 3, 6 and 12 months are already cheaper per month than paying monthly. Loyalty does not replace that discount, it compounds with it:

price = list price × (1 - term discount) × (1 - loyalty discount)

The two are multiplied, not added. A 10% term discount and a 10% loyalty discount give 19% off, not 20%, because the loyalty discount applies to the already-reduced price.

On top of that there is a ceiling: term and loyalty together never take more than 35% off. When the two would pass it, loyalty is the part that gives way. To see how that plays out, take an illustrative term discount of 20% (an example figure for the arithmetic, not a quote of any plan - check the order dialog for the real one) on a service already at the 20% loyalty floor:

Uncapped, the two would give 36% off. The cap holds it at 35%, which means loyalty is trimmed from 20% to about 18.75% on that renewal. With a smaller term discount the cap may never bite at all. The renewal quote, covered below, shows exactly what each part contributes, so you never need to do this by hand - but it is useful to know why the loyalty line on a long term can be a little lower than the number on the ladder.

The cap exists so that the two discounts compounding cannot take a plan below what it costs us to run. That is not a marketing line; it is the reason the rule is written the way it is.

Buying several months at once#

This is the part of the scheme that rewards a little thought. When you renew for N months at once, all N months are priced at the rate of the next stage, and the streak moves up by N.

Consider a service that has just finished its first month. Its next renewal is month 2, priced at 2% off.

• Renew monthly and each renewal climbs one step: 2%, 4%, 6% and so on, reaching 20% at month 11.
• Renew for 12 months now and all 12 months are priced at month 2's rate, 2% off, plus the term discount. The streak jumps to 13, so the renewal after that is priced at the 20% floor straight away.

Neither is wrong. A long term at a low loyalty stage gets you the term discount immediately and puts you at the floor for the next renewal. Monthly renewals get the loyalty ladder month by month but miss the term discount. If you are early on the ladder, the term discount is usually the bigger number; once you are at the floor, a long term at the floor rate - subject to the 35% cap - is the cheapest way to pay. The renewal dialog quotes each option before you commit, so compare 1, 3, 6 and 12 months there rather than guessing.

The general advice for any host applies here too: do not buy a 12-month term for something you are not sure you will keep. A discount on a service you abandon in month three is not a saving. Our piece on what a game server really costs goes into sizing and term choice in more detail.

Late payments, grace and the freeze#

A loyalty scheme that throws away a year of streak because a card expired on a Sunday would be a trap, not a reward. The rules for late payment are designed around that.

1. The paid period ends. A renewal invoice is emailed 7 days before expiry and again on the day. Renew before the expiry date and the next stage applies automatically.
2. Grace: 7 days. Paying within 7 days of the expiry date counts as on time. Nothing is lost - the renewal is priced at the next stage as if you had paid early.
3. Freeze: once every 12 months. The first miss past grace in a rolling 12-month window does not drop your stage. It is held for one month instead. Pay within that month and you keep climbing as if nothing had happened. The freeze is used automatically - you do not have to ask for it - and the reminder mails say when one will be used.
4. Step back 3 months. If the service is still unpaid a month past the frozen expiry plus grace, or if the freeze has already been used in the last 12 months, the service steps back 3 months from the stage it was on. Not to zero.

The step-back is easiest to see with numbers. A service on a $30 plan at month 11 (20% off) misses its renewal and has no freeze left. It steps back 3 months, so its next renewal is priced as month 8: 14% off, $25.80. After that it climbs again normally - month 9, then 10, then back to the floor at 11. Missing once costs you three months of climb, not the whole run.

The Loyalty page shows the freeze state for each service: available, in use (with the date it started and when the next one becomes available), or used on a given date with the next available date.

What resets the streak, and what does not

The plan-change rule is worth underlining. If your Minecraft server outgrows its plan and you move up a tier, the streak lives on the subscription, not on the plan, so you keep your stage and the discount applies to the larger plan's price. Changing plan does not rebuild the server either, so there is nothing to lose by upgrading when you need to.

Renewal quotes: the price before you pay#

Renewals paid from your wallet balance or through PayPal, and the figure the renew dialog shows, all come from the same calculation. The renew dialog does not work out a figure in your browser. It asks the panel for a quote for the term you picked, and shows you:

• the base price for that term,
• the term discount,
• the loyalty percentage, the amount it takes off and which month it is priced as,
• the total,
• the stage the service will reach after this renewal,
• and how the total splits between reward credit and cash, if you have reward credit.

If the quote cannot be fetched, the dialog shows an error rather than a number of its own. That matters more than it sounds: a dialog that guesses a price and a payment that charges a different one is the kind of mismatch that erodes trust in a bill, and we would rather show nothing than show the wrong figure.

Invoices never change after they are raised

An invoice is fixed at the moment it is created. The loyalty percentage, the amount and the stage are written onto it then, and the invoice prints a "Loyalty discount" line under the subtotal with the number of months it was earned over.

The consequence is that a renewal invoice already raised for a term is the price of that renewal, even if your stage changes before you pay it. The service card says so directly - "Already invoiced at" a given amount, with loyalty applying from the next invoice. If you were enrolled after the renewal invoice was emailed, the discount starts on the one after. That is deliberate: an invoice you might forward to an accountant should not quietly change its total.

VDS orders and bundles#

Loyalty is not limited to ordinary panel subscriptions. Anything that renews as one bill can carry a streak.

• VDS orders. A VDS renews at its plan price times the number of months, less the loyalty discount, through its own renewal quote. The first term counts towards the streak when the order is accepted, so an enrolled VDS starts climbing from its first paid period. VDS is prepared by hand, within 24 hours, but that has no effect on the ladder.
• Bundles. A bundle - two or three plans, such as an app server with its database and cache, bought and renewed together - carries one streak for the whole set. The loyalty discount is worked out on the bundle's total, and the 35% cap is measured against the bundle's own discount compounded with the term's. Individual members of a bundle never carry a streak of their own, which fits the general bundle rule: one invoice, one renewal date, and a member cannot be renewed on its own.

Because a bundle already has a discount built in, the cap is more likely to come into play there than on a single plan. Again, the bundle's renewal quote shows the real split. Bundles are paid by card, PayPal or wallet balance; reward credit and crypto do not pay for them.

Judging any host's loyalty discount#

Plenty of hosts advertise renewal or loyalty discounts, and some of them are worth less than they look. Whatever host you are on, these are the questions that tell you whether a scheme is a reward or a hook.

• Is the renewal price higher than the first price? The most common pattern in hosting is a cheap first term and a much higher renewal. A "loyalty discount" off an inflated renewal price can still leave you paying more than a new customer. Compare the renewal figure with today's price for a new order, not with the advertised discount.
• What does one late payment cost? If a single missed day resets everything, the scheme is fragile. Look for a grace period and for what happens after it.
• Does it survive an upgrade? A scheme that resets when you change plan punishes you for growing.
• Does it stack, and is there a cap? Stacking rules decide whether a long term is worth it. A cap is normal; an undisclosed cap is not.
• Is the price quoted before you pay? You should be able to see the exact renewal figure, with each discount broken out, before any money moves.

Our answers to those, for the record: renewals are priced at list price less the discounts above, a late payment gets 7 days' grace and then a freeze, an upgrade keeps the streak, the stacking cap is 35% and stated, and every renewal is quoted before you pay. The longer piece on choosing a hosting provider from the inside covers the other billing questions worth asking, and paying for hosting with crypto covers that payment route on its own.

FAQ#

Do I need to do anything to start earning loyalty discounts?

No action on your side starts it. Loyalty is switched on per service by us, and the streak begins at zero from the moment a service is enrolled. If one of your services is enrolled, a Loyalty page appears under your account; if you see no such page, none of your services are enrolled.

Does the discount reset if I upgrade my plan?

No. The streak belongs to the subscription, not to the plan, so moving to a bigger or smaller plan keeps your stage. The loyalty percentage is then applied to the new plan's price from the next renewal.

I paid three days after my server expired. Did I lose my discount?

No. Anything paid within 7 days of the expiry date counts as on time for loyalty purposes, and the renewal is priced at the next stage as normal. The freeze and the 3-month step-back only come into play after those 7 days have passed.

Why is my loyalty discount lower on a 12-month renewal than on a monthly one?

Because of the 35% cap. On a long term the term discount is larger, and when term and loyalty together would pass 35%, loyalty is reduced to fit. The quote in the renew dialog shows both parts separately so you can see where the difference comes from.

Is there a loyalty badge or a named tier I can show off?

No. Loyalty is a numbered ladder per service - month 1 to month 11 and the floor after that - and the panel shows the stage, the discount and the next price, nothing more decorative than that.

What happens to my streak if I cancel and buy the same plan again?

It starts again. Cancelling a service ends its streak, and a new service begins at month 1 at full price. If you only need to pause spending for a while, downgrading to a smaller plan keeps the streak, where cancelling and re-ordering does not.