Check it out at: https://node40.com/pricing/
I gave them a try for a few months and while the service was great, the price was too high. Either make it 1 dash per month or have a USD fixed price.
Just my opinion and I did reach out to them before I stopped my service. Great team and service, always responded to questions. Just too expensive for myself but maybe I am not their target audience which is OK!
I wish they would update their prices for the current Dash exchange rate. Right now they are charging nearly $25 per month =(
I think the argument they have is that they make up part of that by maintaining high uptime. They keep the masternodes producing, so fewer missed payments than if your masternode goes down in the middle of the night. So it is premium service beyond simply "hosting". I don't know the frequency of lost rewards they help avoid, but it partially offsets the cost.
I suppose they give a added value to users who are not comfortable hosting a linux vps node somewhere, or setting up the Dash masternode with a bunch of crazy command line inputs. I have not used their services as I can manage my masternodes myself, but I do see the help provided for many who can't manage their masternode(s) by point and click.
Node40's target market is non-technical users, got to consider also that Dash to grow its user base (blocks are nearly empty) really needs people that wants to get into crypto and get an extra income stream.
Setting up a masternode with a 1000 Dash investment may sound a little pricey but if you have a constant return, every month, could be easier for people to get involved. And making it trivial to set everything up (like Node40 does) could just be what they are looking for. I know there are other masternode hosting services out there cheaper than Node40 but for newbies may be still too technical to configure and get running.
Setting up masternodes is not to only way to get people to use Dash, of course, mine was just one example, I believe merchant adoption could also give it a good boost.
However Node40 are the only company offering detailed online monitoring, voting, upgrades, and more to come.
They even added Financial Statements so to help users track their income and Tax liability, I know this last one is going to go down well LOL, + it takes literally minutes to get yourself up and running.
Oh and now they have setup even a Telegram Bot so you can contact the team directly, send a message to the bot by following this link: telegram.me/node40_bot.
To everyone its own, I'm just trying to tell people there is one more option, an easy one. I'm sure many will host their own masternodes, others will use cheaper providers as well as Node40.
It's all good for Dash and its ecosystem at the end of the day.
Have a great day everyone!
Don't get me wrong, I like the guys at Node40. They're a good bunch and have an awesome site. It's definitely a valuable service.