Colocation pricing: Chicago packages from $99 a month

Four flat packages and a Mac mini option. The monthly price covers the rack space, the power that comes with the package, the uplink and a /29 of IP addresses. The setup fee is charged once.

You pay month to month on a 1-year contract as standard, or choose 3 years for a bigger discount and a locked-in price. Mac minis go on shelves with 1 Ethernet connection and 1 power outlet each; see Mac mini colocation.

Power. We don’t bill power per kW. Each package comes with a set number of amps and receptacles, and the monthly price covers them, so there’s no separate power line on your invoice. The full rack gets dual 20A 120V circuits. For the 1U, 2U and half rack, the amps and receptacle count are on your quote. Measure what your servers draw under load before you pick a package, because power, not space, is usually what decides the size.

Bandwidth. Every package has a 1Gb/s uplink, with 10G available on the half and full rack. Your bandwidth commit is set on the quote, and traffic over the commit is $2 per Mbps.

IP addresses. Packages include a /29. Colocation blocks are on-link, so a /29 gives you 5 usable addresses after the network, broadcast and gateway, unless you run your own router and take the block routed. On the full rack, extra IPs are $2 each per month.

Remote hands. Our engineers are on site in Chicago 24/7/365. Every package includes free remote hands time: 1 hour on the 1U, 2U and half rack, and 2 hours on the full rack. After that, remote hands is $150 an hour. More on what remote hands covers.

Setup fee. Charged once, for getting your space, power and network ready: $100 on the 1U, $200 on the 2U, $1,000 on the half rack and $1,500 on the full rack.

Contract. Billed monthly on a 1-year contract as standard. A 3-year term gets a bigger discount and locks in your price.

Twelve months of the package plus the one-time setup fee:

Three 1U servers. Three 1U packages are $297 a month and $300 in setup, or $3,864 in the first year. A half rack for the same three servers is $10,588 in year one. It only pays off when you’ll fill the space or need 10G, so buy the space you’ll use within the contract.

A Mac mini fleet. Ten minis are $990 a month. From about 15 minis, a full rack can cost less, so ask us to quote both.

Wondering whether owning the hardware beats renting it? We ran the numbers in colocation vs dedicated: a 36-month cost breakdown, and colocation pricing explained covers how providers build their prices.

Chicago is our largest facility and the only one with published packages. In Ashburn, in the Washington, D.C. area, and Los Angeles, at Digital Realty LAX10 in downtown LA, space and power cost us more, so we quote each deployment. Tell us how many rack units you need, what your servers draw and the bandwidth you expect, and we’ll price the site you want, or two sites side by side.