• Brightbox 256 (was £45/mo) now £39
• Brightbox 512 (was £75/mo) now £69
• Brightbox 1024 (was £125/mo) now £109
• Brightbox 2048 (was £220/mo) now £199

See the updated pricing matrix for more details. Enjoy.

Our special launch offer, “buy 6 months get 6 months FREE”, is now available to purchase. We’re currently only taking payments via Paypal (PayPal account not required) for the launch offer, although we can accept bank payments via CHAPS for those customers who are unable to use PayPal.

The launch offer is limited to 2 special offer boxes per customer and there are only 100 available in total. The offer will close on 29 October (in 2 weeks time).

** UPDATE ** (1 Nov 2007): We’re extending the launch offer for another week as we’re still working on our “proper” payments system. Those customers who have already signed up for the launch offer will get another month free :)

This could well be *the* dullest subject to blog about – but since there always seems to be a fair amount of confusion over VAT (Value Added Tax) and to whom it should be charged, especially when selling goods or services internationally, I thought it would be useful to explain how we’ll be implementing VAT into our payments system for Brightbox.

No? well ok, don’t worry. But if you’re interested or have nothing to do, read on…

In simple terms, VAT is a sales tax (17.5% in the UK) collected on sales and paid on purchases with the balance paid (or reclaimed if negative) to HMRC. Sounds simple, huh? Not really. In fact it’s seemingly impossible for even qualified accountants to keep up with the innumerable rules, exclusions, special exceptions and so on which make up the law on VAT.

Even greater confusion occurs when it comes to selling goods or services internationally. As a VAT registered business in the UK, it seems we have to treat sales to customers in the following regions/categories differently:

• UK-based customers (businesses and individuals) = VAT is added
• EU countries (individuals and non VAT registered businesses) = VAT is added
• EU countries (businesses with VAT registration number) = VAT is not added
• Non-EU countries (businesses and individuals) = VAT is not added

I’m (thankfully) no expert, but based on what I’ve read and advice from our accountant – this is how we’ll be incorporating VAT into our payments system.

Thanks for reading :)

Each Brightbox includes

• Customised Ubuntu 6.06 OS preinstalled
• Brightbox Ruby on Rails stack
• Apache 2.2/Mongrel
• Monit for managing Mongrels
• Subversion repository
• Outgoing mail relay
• Guaranteed (yet burstable) CPU resources
• UK IP address
• Root access
• Mirrored MySQL db cluster
• Mirrored RAID disk storage
• Juniper Networks firewalling
• Free Gigabit traffic between additional Brightboxes
• Fully redundant public network
• UPS and Generator power

Optional extras/upgrades

• Additional bandwidth/data = £5 per 5GB/month
• Additional storage = £10 per 5GB/month
• Custom firewall rules = £10 per month
• Extra IP address (e.g for SSL) = £25 setup

EXCITING NEWS!

We’ll be offering 100 special launch accounts which will feature a sweet discount – pay for 6 months and get 6 months free!

These special discounted accounts will only be available for 2 weeks after launch, and will be offered firstly to those who have participated in the beta programme and then those on the announcement email list, before being offered to the rest of the world. So signup to the mailing list here and make sure you get your hands on one of these special Brightbox accounts.

¹ Rather than limit the number of databases you can create, each Brightbox comes with a limited number of concurrent connections to the MySQL database cluster

² Prices quoted are exclusive of VAT where applicable