{"id":47977,"date":"2025-06-05T16:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T20:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=47977"},"modified":"2025-12-09T16:14:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T21:14:20","slug":"pair-networks-price-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/05\/pair-networks-price-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair Networks Price Increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been hosting ATPM<\/a> with Pair Networks<\/a> for almost 25 years now. At one point, it needed a dedicated server, and then technology improved and we were able to use a high-volume shared hosting account. The site has been in maintenance mode since 2012, and as lower level hosting plans got better and traffic gradually dropped off, eventually it could run on the least expensive shared hosting plan. This was $66\/year in 2019. Pair increased the rate to $88 in 2022, and it stayed there for a while. I’m sure there were cheaper options elsewhere, but Pair had provided many years of good service, and it seemed a small price to pay to keep the archives online without putting a lot of time into investigating an alternative host and moving the site.<\/p>\n\n

On December 2, Pair sent an e-mail:<\/p>\n\n

In recent months, we’ve experienced rising operational costs as we upgrade our hardware to improve the quality and reliability of our services. To support these improvements, we will be adjusting our rates effective January 1, 2025.<\/p>

For our valued existing customers, these new rates will only take effect upon your service renewal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

The new rate was $159\/year, a huge increase in percentage terms. Other hosts have been raising rates, too, but not by that much. It’s not really clear to me what’s going on here, as for decades the hardware\/storage\/bandwidth got better and prices went down<\/em>. My guess is that we’re currently getting a lot more than we need, but there’s no lower tier to downgrade to. In Pair’s case, the timing shortly after it was acquired is suspicious. Anyway, with our renewal in June, I made a note to investigate other options but figured that staying another year with Pair wouldn’t be that big of a deal.<\/p>\n\n

On May 1, Pair sent another e-mail:<\/p>\n

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Starting June 1st, 2025, we will launch our NEW Pair Platinum Mail services, replacing the current free email offerings. This change is driven by rising our commitment to continuously improve our products despite operational costs and technical challenges in maintaining high-quality service.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

To ease this transition, we are introducing new email service bundles, offering discounted rates as you increase the number of mailboxes in your plan. This pricing model ensures continued service quality while providing flexibility and affordability as your needs grow.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

All the hosts we’ve used have always included more than enough mailboxes for free along with the Web hosting. This change raised the expected $159 to $639<\/em>, even though we barely get any non-spam mail these days. And it’s anything but “flexible”: you can’t actually buy the number of mailboxes<\/a> you need:<\/p>\n\n

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While each mailbox is priced competitively, we also offer bundle options designed to reduce the price per mailbox as your needs grow—delivering even greater value for businesses requiring multiple accounts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

It looks<\/em> like there are bulk discounts, but when you actually go to configure it, it turns out that adding more mailboxes makes the per-mailbox price go up<\/em>. This is because you can’t buy 11 mailboxes at the 10-mailbox rate; you would have to buy 20 and leave 9 unused.<\/p>\n\n

The short notice and trying to market this rigidity as as benefit leave a bad taste, and it just doesn’t seem like the same company<\/a> anymore. So now I really am looking for alternatives, or perhaps I’ll move it onto the server for one of my other sites. Pair also got rid of their discount for yearly billing, thus incentivizing us to move sooner. I’ve kind of been dreading the move because the site uses Python 2 and MySQL, and the last time I tried compiling the dependencies on a modern version of Linux I ran into multiple blockers. But, actually, it was surprisingly easy to update all my other server code to Python 3, so I should probably just do that here, too.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n