IPv4 price changes

For a long time now, the pool of available IPv4 address has been almost empty at RIPE, the European IP address management agency. That's why RIPE stopped assigning IPv4 nets. There has also been increased demand in IPv4 addresses. Because of this situation, there is now a fast-growing market in IPv4 address trading with many active brokers. On https://ipv4.global/reports/ for example, users can buy IPv4 networks and transfer them to RIPE, regardless of the management agency that is responsible for administering the IPv4 address. Supply and demand determine the price at IPv4 brokers, so the prices have skyrocketed.

We have tried hard to avoid passing on these higher prices to our customers, and have accepted the economic loss until now. However, the prices have increased so dramatically that we can no longer do this. We unfortunately must increase our prices.

Starting on 2 August 2021, we introduced a setup fee for new orders for additional IPv4 addresses. (See below.)

Starting on 3 January 2022, the monthly price for new and existing additional IPv4 addresses will also increase. (See below.)

These price changes will affect the products below. (The prices do not include VAT.):

Dedicated root servers¹

Colocation

Managed servers

Web hosting

vSwitch

Cloud

Starting on 1 August 2021, we increased the price for newly created Floating IPs (IPv4):

Other notes

Demand for IPv4 addresses will likely remain very high. And we will need to continue to purchase nets. We assume that the prices for IPv4 addresses will continue to rise, and that we will also need to increase our prices again in the future. Prices for IPv4 will likely remain high until after IPv6 has become much more popular.

If you have any questions, we are happy to help. Send us a quick support request using your account: on Robot, go to "Support"; on Cloud Console, go to "Support"; on konsoleH, log in using your client number and go to "Administration, Support request.

FAQs

Are the price changes real?

Yes, the price changes are real. We are not planning on withdrawing them. Please plan on these price changes remaining in place. And please be aware that additional price changes may come further in the future. We are trying to plan ahead as much as possible, but the volatility of the market makes this difficult. Rather than increasing prices steadily over a period of months, we feel it is better to have fewer price increases.

Why are there also setup fees?

In the feedback that we have seen on our social media channels, many of you showed understanding for the monthly price increases and were shocked by the setup prices. The prices for IPv4 nets are expected to increase exponentially in the future. It will likely be a rapid and large increase, rather than a slow and gradual one. The setup fees will help us to cover the increased prices that we will have to pay ourselves for nets. Again, we feel it's better to have fewer and less frequent price increases, and the setup feels will help us minimize them.

Why aren't other providers increasing the prices yet?

We can't speak for other providers. Some may already have had a large supply of nets and still have plenty that they haven't needed to use yet. This might be especially true for providers in countries that had more access to IPv4 addresses decades ago. Other providers may simply be waiting for a company like us to be the first to increase prices. Or they might have covered their price increases elsewhere in the prices for their products/services. Here at Hetzner, we did not have a large stockpile of nets. Plus, we had unprecedented growth in the last few years. Although we have worked hard to find IPv4 nets, the market has become more aggressive, and it is simply become very difficult to find enough to meet the increased demand.

What about IPv6?

We, like many other companies, had postponed revamping our infrastructure and products to IPv6 because the demand — until recently — had been relatively small. Naturally, we will be seriously considering when and how we can make this transition. Unfortunately, that transition will be a complex one, so we cannot give you a roadmap for when that will happen.

What about options for Hetzner Cloud without IPv4 addresses?

Right now one of the core features of Cloud Instances is full IPv4 connectivity and reachability. We are aware that this might not be needed in every case, especially in larger setups. It seems that there is a growing number of customers who want the option of creating instances without IPv4 addresses. The same may be true for customers who want to use their own IPv4 addresses or nets. Creating these options would introduce significant complexity into our systems and may still benefit only a minority of our customers. We are going to keep a close eye on future developments and will continue to internally discuss these potential options.

What about rescaling?

Starting on 1 September 2021, the price for newly created cloud servers (CX11 and CPX11) was increased. The new prices also apply to rescaling. This means, for example, if you decide to scale up to a more powerful plan, and then later scale back down to the original plan (CX11 or CPX11), the new prices will apply when you scale down the server. The new price changes will not affect your existing cloud server, but only if you leave your server as-is.