Understand what you pay for.
No hidden costs.
How Rackmill's network works
Rackmill operates from a data centre in Perth. Inside that facility sits our hosting servers, space for colocated customer equipment, and any other dedicated servers Rackmill provisions. All of this hardware connects to the internet through shared networks.
Rackmill purchases internet connectivity from multiple providers for redundancy and performance. Shared means everything leaves and arrives through the same connection.
Multiple connectivity providers
Perth peering for local traffic
International for global connectivity
1 Gbps port connections
1 Gbps
Shared port speed
Maximum burst capability
$30
Per TB add-on
Data transfer allowance pricing
$3
Per Mbps/month
Speed add-on pricing
Two ways to share the network
Rackmill uses two pricing models for network access, depending on the product type and typical usage patterns.
Fair use
VPS, Web Hosting, WordPress Hosting
Unlimited data transfer at full port speed. No meter running. Trade-off: If usage becomes unsustainable, Rackmill reaches out.
Best for: Modest amounts of data in brief bursts
Data transfer allowances
Colocation, Dedicated Servers
Specific amount of data transfer per month. Additional data transfer available as a prepaid add-on.
Best for: Heavier, more predictable workloads
01: Fair use
VPS, Web, WordPress: Data transfer, not speed
Example scenario
A customer buys a VPS for a personal website. The site gets a few hundred visitors per day, serves some images, handles contact forms. Over a month, this generates about 20 GB of data transfer.
Most VPS workloads look like this. Websites, APIs, email servers, development environments. These customers can restore a backup at full speed or pull updates as fast as the network allows. Speed doesn't matter for fair use because fair use is about data transfer, and their monthly data transfer is tiny.
Bursts versus sustained transfers
The key distinction: Fair use does not care how fast you go. It cares how long you keep going.
Example: Weekly backup restore
Example: File-sharing service
That's 8,000 times more data :(
Both used the same speed, but one transferred 40 gigabytes while the other transferred 324 terabytes. Duration, not speed, determines data transfer.
Sharing among many customers
Hundreds of VPS instances sharing a single 1 Gbps port sounds impossible. It works because customers are almost never all transferring data at the same time.
When ten servers happen to transfer data simultaneously, each gets a share of about 100 Mbps. If fifty are transferring, each gets about 20 Mbps. These slowdowns are temporary and self-correcting. When some transfers finish, the others speed up automatically.
The trade-off
Shared infrastructure means your VPS can burst to 1 Gbps when the network is quiet, but might see lower speeds during busy periods. In practice, most customers experience excellent performance because usage patterns are distributed throughout the day.
02: Data transfer allowances
Colocation, Dedicated servers: Predictable pricing for steadier workloads
Colocation customers bring physical servers. They are paying for rack space, power, IP addresses, and a specific amount of data transfer per month. A 1RU plan might include 1 TB; a half-rack might include 5 TB. Dedicated server hosting works the same way; it's Rackmill equipment, but the network use case is identical.
Why the difference?
Colocation and dedicated server customers typically have heavier workloads. They bring physical servers because they need dedicated hardware. These workloads can transfer terabytes of data per month. VPS customers usually transfer far less.
There are fewer colocation and dedicated server customers. If one VPS customer out of hundreds transfers too much data, it is a small percentage. Whereas if one colocation/dedicated server customer out of a dozen does the same, it is far more significant.
No penalties for exceeding the allowance
If a colocation or dedicated server customer consistently exceeds their data transfer allowance, they can purchase additional data transfer as a $30 per TB prepaid add-on. Occasional spikes, like a month where usage is higher than expected, do not trigger any penalty.
Paying for data transfer allowances is not a punishment. It's about matching the price to the actual service being delivered.
For everything else: Speed add-ons
When neither fair use nor data transfer allowances are suitable, speed add-ons give fair pricing for high data transfer workloads
Example: Regional CDN node
During peak hours, the server streams video continuously at several hundred megabits per second. Over a month, it transfers 80 TB.
- Fair use: Would trigger a review due to high data transfer usage.
- Data transfer allowance: 80 TB × $30 = $2,400/month. (This is unsustainably expensive for most workloads)
A speed add-on limits the customer's maximum transfer speed but removes all limits on data transfer. The pricing is $3 per Mbps per month.
10 Mbps
$30
per month
Unlimited data transfer
Expected monthly transfer: ~3.2 TB
100 Mbps
$300
per month
Unlimited data transfer
Expected monthly transfer: ~32 TB
250 Mbps
$750
per month
Unlimited data transfer
Expected monthly transfer: ~81 TB
Speed add-ons still share the port
The add-on applies a limiter that caps your maximum speed, but the physical port is shared with everyone else. If five customers each buy 250 Mbps add-ons and all max out simultaneously, they share the available port speed. This works because customers do not all peak at the same time.
The spectrum of usage
Different workloads need different pricing. Here's how the models match real scenarios.
The goal is not to force anyone out. It is to find pricing that matches actual usage.
Why this matters
Transparency is a foundation of trust
All of Rackmill's network pricing comes back to one physical reality: Everyone shares the same internet connection. Whether you are running a VPS, colocating your own server, or renting dedicated hardware, your data flows through the same port as everyone else.
Fair use, data transfer allowances, and speed add-ons are three expectations for customers.
99.9% Uptime
Guaranteed SLA
Perth Hosted
Local infrastructure
Transparent Pricing
No hidden costs
Oversubscription is not a secret
Oversubscription is how every internet service provider, hosting company, and cloud platform operates. The alternative, dedicated unshared connections, would cost hundreds of times as much.
What matters is how the provider manages it. Rackmill continuously monitors network utilisation and expands connection speed before customers notice any slowdown.
Rackmill explains these details plainly, because transparency about trade-offs builds trust.