Why two quotes per kWh are rarely comparable
Hosting is sold per kilowatt-hour, which makes it look like a commodity. It is not. Two providers can quote the same number and deliver bills that differ by a third.
The usual sources of the gap:
- Setup and racking fees. Sometimes bundled, sometimes a separate line, sometimes per machine and sometimes per rack.
- Cooling surcharges. A few facilities bill cooling separately, which detaches the headline rate from the real cost.
- Network and management fees. Monthly per-machine charges that never appear in the per-kWh figure.
- Minimum power commitments. You are billed for a reserved block whether or not your machines draw it.
- Curtailment. Cheap power often comes from a contract that allows the utility or the host to switch you off when the grid is tight. Those hours are lost revenue.
- Repair costs. Labour, parts, and the shipping cost of sending a dead machine somewhere else.
Normalise before you compare. Take each quote and work out the total you would pay over twelve months for your actual fleet, including every fee, and assume a realistic uptime figure rather than the one on the brochure. The ranking usually changes.
For what sits inside our own number, see Bitcoin miner hosting cost per kWh.
Questions that produce the most revealing answers
Rate: “Is this rate fixed for the full term, or does it move with your power cost?” A provider on a fixed industrial contract can answer immediately. One reselling spot power will hedge.
Downtime: “If my machines are off for a week, what do I pay?” The answer tells you whether you are buying energy or reserved capacity.
Curtailment: “Who can switch my machines off, and under what circumstances?” In some regions curtailment is the entire business model, and you should know that before you sign rather than in January.
Repairs: “A fan fails on day 40. What happens, how long does it take, and what does it cost me?” A facility with on-site repair answers in hours. One without answers in weeks of shipping.
Insurance: “Is the building insured, or are my machines insured?” These are very different sentences.
Exit: “I want to move out in month seven. What do I pay and how do I get my machines back?” Ask before you need the answer.
Honesty: “Which of your customers’ machines are currently unprofitable at your rate?” Any operator who claims none is either not paying attention or not being straight with you.
Red flags worth walking away from
- No legal entity. A website with no company name, no registration and no physical address is not a counterparty.
- No site visits, ever. Security is a reason for appointments and escorts, not for a blanket refusal.
- Guaranteed returns. Nobody can guarantee mining returns. Revenue depends on the Bitcoin price and network difficulty, which no host controls.
- Pressure to pay quickly. Large up-front payments with a deadline attached are the most common pattern in hosting fraud.
- Vague about cooling. If they cannot tell you what cooling the building uses and what happens in a heatwave, they have not thought about your hardware.
- Rates far below the market with no explanation. There is always a reason. Make them say it out loud.
None of this is exotic. It is the same diligence you would apply to any supplier holding your assets — it just gets skipped more often in mining because the hardware is bought in a hurry.
How we answer our own checklist
It would be a strange guide that did not answer its own questions, so:
- Rate: $0.072–$0.089 USDT/kWh, all-inclusive, quoted against your order size and the space available.
- Minimum: 5 miners. No minimum power commitment beyond what your machines draw.
- Deposit: a no-deposit option is available. Ask for it in your quote.
- Cooling: filtered air only — eight intake ducts, four exhausts, 156 Summer/Winter Air Filtration. We do not host hydro-cooled or immersion machines.
- Repairs: on site. Labour is usually included for hosted miners; you pay for parts.
- Security: two layers of access security plus video surveillance, on an insured site.
- Contract: from 6 months, billed monthly in advance, no long-term lock-in.
- Company: HostAid Inc., 180 Brodie Drive, Unit 5, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3K8, Canada. Hosting since 2013; this facility since May 2018.
- Visits: yes, by appointment. Walk-ins are refused for security reasons.
The full terms are on hosting plans and rates and the FAQ. If an answer there is not clear enough to act on, call us and we will fix the page.
