Original tiers ($349/$549/$799) drifted into Hetzner Dell US
setup-fee territory ($840-$1,020) — too aggressive for a small
Atlanta provider competing against ColoCrossing ($0 setup) and
OVH SYS ($60-$343). The competitor research at
infrastructure/docs/competitors-atlanta-2026.md and
dedicated-server-pricing-2026q2.md both flagged "no setup fees"
as a documented competitive advantage.
New tiers ($149/$249/$399) preserve a meaningful safety net on
monthly customers (~1 month of rental recoups the fee) while
sitting inside the OVH SYS price band. Annual / Semi-Annual
customers still pay $0 setup.
Per-plan changes:
- R440 / R640 SFF (Tier 2): $349 → $149
- R540 / R740 / R740xd SFF / R740xd LFF (Tier 3): $549 → $249
- R640 NVMe / R740xd NVMe (Tier 4): $799 → $399
Spec doc updated. Test expectations adjusted; 12/12 pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Prophet731
2a9d36270a