[williamstein]

At this moment there are 585 people connected to SMC (a bit higher than usual due to Hacker New effect), and most are using it for free. We only introduced a fully automated paid plan about 10 days ago, and many of our sign-ups have been in the last week. Paying customers get enhanced support, the ability to upgrade project quotas, and can ask (it's not yet automated) to have projects moved to members-only servers. The members-only servers have an order of magnitude less users on them. There were also until recently obstructions to charging users due to IP and other issues involving University of Washington (my employer).

[kaitai]

It would be great to get these paid users writing a line for SMC expenses into their NSF grants. For instance, you could charge $400 for a year's worth of supported SMC for a group (PI and her grad students, postdocs), or $200 for an REU group SMC. It may be easier to get money by asking for a rather larger amount up front, that people plan into their grants or get departments to pay for, rather than asking for $9/month, which I'd feel compelled to pay personally because the hassle of getting reimbursed $9/month is more than the 3 lattes it costs me.

[williamstein]

We now offer $79/year and $499/year plans, which would fit perfectly the model you describe. We only started offering them a few days ago due to demand.

[abritinthebay]

You REALLY need to be charging more that the ~$9 a month you are charging.

~$20 seems reasonable. Cheap even. You can always discount when you get to a scale that sustains.