Graduated pricing means each pricing tier applies only to the nodes within that tier — not to your entire fleet retroactively. This is different from volume pricing, where crossing a threshold reprices everything.
How It Works
Your first 99 nodes cost €5 each. Nodes 100 through 199 cost €4 each. Nodes 200 through 399 cost €3.50 each. Every node from 400 onward costs €3 each.
A Concrete Example
You run 250 nodes. Your bill:
| Tier | Nodes | Rate | Subtotal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–99 | 99 | €5.00 | €495.00 |
| 100–199 | 100 | €4.00 | €400.00 |
| 200–250 | 51 | €3.50 | €178.50 |
| Total | 250 | €1,073.50 |
If you add one more node, only that node is billed at €3.50. Your existing nodes do not change price.
Why Graduated, Not Volume
Compare this to flat volume pricing where 99 nodes cost €5 × 99 = €495, but 100 nodes cost €4 × 100 = €400. In that model, adding one node actually decreases your total bill — which sounds good until you realize the pricing creates arbitrary thresholds that do not reflect real cost structures.
ProxyPass uses graduated tiers because it is honest. Serving 100 nodes costs more than serving 99. The discount reflects economies of scale, not a pricing trick to push you past a threshold.
Scenario: Growing Quarter by Quarter
A digital signage company starts with 20 nodes in Q1. By Q2 they are at 60. Q3: 120. Q4: 200.
Their bill grows smoothly: €100 → €300 → €535 → €895. No sudden jumps. No repricing of the first 99 nodes when they cross 100. No awkward threshold where adding 5 nodes changes their entire cost structure. Just a smooth curve that reflects their actual growth.
Full Transparency
Combined with pro-rata daily billing, the model is fully transparent. You can calculate your exact cost at any moment by counting active nodes, checking which tiers they fall into, and multiplying by the fraction of the month elapsed. The dashboard does this calculation for you in real time.