Value for money

Not the same as cheap, and the dimension most sensitive to what the reviewer needed.

Value for money asks whether the price was fair for what was delivered. It is not a measure of how cheap a provider is, and the two frequently point in opposite directions.

What reviewers are asked about

• Whether the resources delivered matched the price.
• Whether the price stayed the price: setup fees, renewal increases, charges for things that were implied to be included.
• Whether the included extras (backups, bandwidth, IP addresses, panel licences) are real or nominal.
• Billing conduct: how easy it is to stop paying, and what happens at renewal.

Why cheap providers do not automatically score well

A very cheap machine that is oversubscribed, unreliable and unsupported is poor value at any price. A more expensive one that does exactly what it said and is answered by people who know the system is good value. Reviewers are consistently better at this distinction than a price comparison is, which is most of why the dimension exists.

The starting price on a listing is not this score

A listing shows a starting price, which is the cheapest plan a provider advertises. It is a fact about the price list and nothing more: it says nothing about what that plan includes, whether the resources are usable, or what the renewal costs.

The value score is the reviewers' answer to the question the starting price cannot answer.

Reading it against your own needs

This is the dimension where the reviewer's situation matters most. Somebody who needed a lot of bandwidth and somebody who needed a lot of memory can rate the same provider three points apart and both be right. The written reviews carry that context; the number on its own does not.