New Year, New Pricing

Announcing new pricing tiers including 500 VUHs free every month.

Happy New Year, Flooders! What better way to kick off the new year than with some shiny new pricing tiers?

As we announced last month, we've redesigned our pricing system based on your feedback. The new pricing is live right now, and here's how things are changing.

Switching to Virtual User Hours

We're moving away from charging by the node hour in favor of the virtual user hour. A virtual user hour (VUH) is a product of the number of users you're running and the duration of your test:

VUH = (number of virtual users) * (number of hours your flood will run)

1 VUH is enough to run 1 virtual user for 1 hour.

2 VUH will allow you to run either 2 virtual users for 1 hour or 1 virtual user for 2 hours.

Measuring usage in VUH is the industry standard. Our switch to VUH helps highlight the great value Flood represents when compared to our competitors. We'll round up your usage of VUH to the nearest 15 minutes (0.25 of an hour) so that you can continue to run your shakeout tests without paying for the full hour. Here's some more information about VUH.

Using your first 500 VUH

On our new plans, the first 500 VUH that you use in a month will be free.

The free VUH are an ongoing benefit for as long as you have a linked credit card, which means you'll be able to use up to 500 VUH every month at absolutely no cost. This creates a free tier that we think would be perfect for smaller projects. Offering a free introductory tier is something we've been asked about before, and we're thrilled to be able to deliver!

Taking advantage of the new pricing tiers

After your first 500 VUH, here's how much each VUH will cost:

You'll start at a base price of 4.5¢ (that's US $0.045). Then, the more you use, the more you save: as your usage of VUH increases, you'll unlock lower prices.

Are you using more than 100,000 VUH per month? That's a lot of VUH! Please reach out to us— we would love to have a chat about how we can customize a more cost-effective plan based on your needs.

Keeping track of your usage

There are a few ways you'll be able to monitor your spending so that you're never surprised by the bill at the end of the month.

The new Stream Editor

Before you launch a test, you'll see an estimate of both the VUH and the cost of that flood so that you can choose to tweak the number of threads or the duration of your flood if you prefer.

You'll notice that we've also streamlined the Stream Editor. You can read up on these changes here.

Your Usage Counter

On the upper right-hand corner of your Flood dashboard, you'll see a clock icon with the VUH you've used so far as well as the amount you can expect to pay at the end of your billing cycle.

We automatically update this counter at the end of every flood you run.

The Usage page

You can also see your historical usage by going to your Usage page, which shows you all the VUH that you've used as well as the floods you've used them on.

You can find some more detail on this page here.

Paying for your usage

At the end of your first billing period, we'll calculate your total cost for the month. We will take into account any discounts from pricing tiers you might have reached.

For example, if you used 50,000 VUH in one period, here's how we'd break that down:

first 500 VUH is free: $0
next 19,500 VUH at 4.5¢ per VUH: $877.50
next 30,000 VUH at 3.6¢ per VUH: $1,080
Total cost: $1,957.50

We'll charge you this amount using the credit card you've linked to your account, and a new billing cycle begins. You'll again receive the first 500 VUH for free.

FAQs

Are there any discounts?

Yes, we will still offer discounts! If you prepay for a year or more of Flood upfront or you're running on your own infrastructure, please contact us for some significant discounts. We'd be happy to review your usage and put together the right plan for you.

What happens to my existing subscription?

Don't worry; nothing will immediately change for you on the pricing front. You'll continue to use up your remaining node hours until the end of your current billing period, which you can find out from your Usage page. We've canceled all subscription auto-renewals. At the end of your billing period (whether monthly or yearly), your subscription will expire and you will lose any unused node hours— so use them up before then!

While you're finishing off your remaining node hours, however, you'll still be able to benefit from some other changes:

My old subscription just expired. What happens now?

You'll still be able to see the results of your tests, although we aren't able to guarantee how long we can keep your data if you don't have a subscription. To protect yourself against data loss, we suggest downloading Archived Results and taking any relevant screenshots if you don't intend to use Flood for a while.

To run more tests on Flood, your account owner can opt into the new pricing changes by going to the Billing page.  We'll need you to link a valid credit card, but we won't charge you at all at this point.

How do I switch to the new pricing before my old subscription expires?

Please ask your account owner to contact us— we'd be happy to manually switch you over and convert your node hours to VUH so that you don't miss out.

I still have a subscription. Can I continue with the old pricing model?

No, we will cancel all subscriptions on expiry. It won't be possible to sign up for another legacy node hour plan. We've removed recurring subscriptions altogether: from now on, we'll only charge you for your usage, and there is no minimum monthly payment to use Flood.

Where can I get even more information?

Check out our full pricing guide here, and feel free to contact us if you have further questions about your specific situation.

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