Recently, I got a PM from a LET member asking about a lifetime reseller deal.  He said in part:

Sorry to bother you. I know you’re the one who publishes the posts on LowEndBox and that you’ve written several articles about _________.

With your extensive experience, I wanted to ask for your honest opinion on their lifetime reseller offers? Over the past six months, I’ve already invested a total of $750.50 in ________’s lifetime reseller plans – which is a significant amount of money for me. I’m considering investing even more, but would really appreciate hearing your thoughts first.

Unfortunately, I’ve had some very bad experiences in the past. You’re probably aware of the fraud incident with CloudatCost, where I invested $3,700 in a lifetime dedicated server – and less than a month later, the server was gone, and the company never responded again. The second bad experience happened just recently with the bankruptcy of MyW – I had $400 invested there.

I would truly appreciate your feedback and any insights you might have.

Out of pocket $4,100 – ouch!  Thats really horrible.

What are Lifetime Deals?

Every so often, you’ll see a web hosting provider on LowEndBox or another marketplace offering a so-called lifetime deal: one-time payment, forever hosting. Sounds great, right? Pay $40, $60, or even $100 once, and never have to worry about a monthly bill again! What could go wrong?

I personally have signed up for some lifetime deals, and am still using one at the moment.

The Pros

The advantage should be pretty self-evident: pay once and use it for decades.  Every day that goes by, your ROI increases.  There’s also the “set it and forget it” advantage of not having to pay a bill every month or year, but really, the reason you sign up is for long-term savings.

The Risks

• The provider disappears: This is the key risk.  You pay in January and in February they’re gone.  You can somewhat mitigate this risk by looking for providers who’ve been in business a long time, but there’s no guarantee.
• Overloaded servers: It’s unlikely providers are going to put you on their fastest systems, and because offers like this are popular, you may find yourself on an overloaded system.  Which brings us to…
• You have no leverage: With a normal month-to-month subscription, if you are unhappy, you can vote with your feet and leave.  The threat of taking your monthly fee away gives you some leverage with the provider. With a lifetime offer, you can still leave but perversely, that helps rather than hurts the provider.
• Aging hardware: There’s no guarantee the provider is going to keep upgrading systems as new tech comes out.  You may be on 2012 CPUs forever.
• Obsolete technology: To some extent, this is inevitable.  You bought, say, DirectAdmin hosting.  What will the tech landscape look like in 10 years?  Perhaps there will be a whole new hosting paradigm you’ll want to use.  If you’re 20, don’t expect that your 10GB of DirectAdmin space will still meet your needs when you’re 60.

How to Think About Lifetime Deals

I use a skeptical calculus when looking at these deals.  If a lifetime offer is $X, I ask myself if that’s a good price for one or two year’s service.

For example, if someone is offering lifetime DirectAdmin reseller hosting for $30 with a certain amount of disk, bandwidth, etc., think about that $30 not over your lifetime, but rather over one year ($2.50/month).  Is it still a good deal?

Then look at the provider.  Was their domain registered in 2025 or 2005?  There’s a huge difference.  If someone has been around for a decade and is offering a lifetime deal, it seems likely – but is by no means assured – that they’ll be around for at least one more year.

Of course, if they’ve never offered lifetime deals before and are suddenly flooding the marketplace with them, you have to be more cautious.  Perhaps they’re hoovering up as much cash as possible before deadpooling.

A lifetime deal always comes with risk.  Caveat emptor!

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.