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How Sniping Works

Understanding the mechanics of the CloudCO Sniper Engine.

Product Categories​

CloudCO provides a consolidated view of different infrastructure types, each with unique characteristics and pricing models. Note: All prices listed on the platform are NET values (pre-taxes).

1. Auction (Hetzner Serverbörse)​

These are previously used physical servers available via a Dutch Auction.

  • Pricing: Dynamic. Prices drop over time until a buyer is found.
  • Setup Fee: €0.
  • Best For: Maximizing "Performance-per-Euro" and extreme cost optimization.

2. OVH Eco (Kimsufi / So you Start)​

Second-life bare metal servers from OVHcloud with deep discounts.

  • Pricing: Fixed, extremely low monthly rates.
  • Stock: Highly limited; models appear and disappear quickly.
  • Best For: Low-cost compute, testing, and dedicated resources on a budget.

3. DigitalOcean Capacity Sniper​

Monitors the availability of high-demand Droplet sizes and regions.

  • Pricing: Standard DigitalOcean rates.
  • Goal: Beat "Out of Capacity" errors in popular regions (FRA1, NYC3).
  • Auto-Deploy: CloudCO can automatically provision the Droplet as soon as your rule criteria are met.

4. Vultr Preemptible Sniper​

Advanced monitoring for high-discount Vultr Preemptible (Spot) and GPU instances.

  • Pricing: Up to 80% discount on standard Vultr rates.
  • Goal: Secure high-demand NVIDIA/AMD GPUs or preemptible compute quickly when stock appears.
  • Real-time Detection: Tracks regional availability and surfaces matching inventory in the Sniper Hub.

5. Dedicated (Standard Line)​

Brand new, current-generation physical hardware (e.g., EX, AX, and SX lines).

  • Pricing: Fixed monthly rate.
  • Setup Fee: Usually required.
  • Best For: Mission-critical production workloads requiring the latest hardware.

6. VM (Cloud)​

Virtual Machines (VPS) running on shared physical clusters.

  • Pricing: Hourly/Monthly billing.
  • Setup Fee: €0.
  • Best For: Elastic scaling, short-lived tasks, or small applications.

7. Storage (Storage Boxes)​

Managed RAID storage for large-scale data sets.

  • Pricing: Fixed, low cost per Terabyte.
  • Setup Fee: €0.
  • Best For: Secure backups and file storage without the need for compute resources.

The Dutch Auction​

Providers like Hetzner use a "Dutch Auction" for their server market. Prices start high and gradually drop until a buyer is found.

Global Markets & Regionality​

CloudCO is a multi-region procurement platform. Our engine handles the nuances of different regional APIs and currencies seamlessly.

OVHcloud: EU vs. North America​

We treat OVH Europe and OVH North America (Canada/USA) as distinct providers:

  • OVH Europe (ovh-eu): Operates in EUR. The hub lists offers that have stock in European datacenters (e.g. GRA, RBX, SBG)—North-American-only SKUs are hidden here so counts stay meaningful compared to the CA hub.
  • OVH North America (ovh-ca): Operates in CAD or USD depending on your account. The hub lists offers with stock in North American DCs (e.g. BHS). European-only SKUs are omitted.

GPU and Storage filters reflect how each plan is classified in OVH catalog metadata (features like NVIDIA/GPU wording, storage/archive naming, etc.). If those filters are empty, current eco/bare-metal inventory may be predominantly general Dedicated lines—try All Categories to confirm listings still appear.

Currency Handling​

The Sniper Hub displays prices in the native currency of the provider's region. When setting a Max Price in a rule, ensure you are using the correct currency for that provider:

  • Hetzner: EUR
  • OVH EU: EUR
  • OVH CA: CAD/USD
  • DigitalOcean / Vultr: USD

The Speed Advantage​

The most desirable servers (high RAM, low price) are often claimed quickly after price drops. Manually monitoring these auctions is nearly impossible.

Default Sorting​

To help you identify the best deals instantly, the Live Product Feed in the Sniper Hub is automatically sorted by Monthly Price (Ascending) by default. This ensures that the most cost-effective servers across all categories are always prioritized at the top of your dashboard.

Direct Sniping (One-Click)​

In addition to automated rules, the Sniper Hub provides a SNIPE (Direct Snipe) button for eligible products. This allows you to bypass rule creation and immediately initiate a single procurement request for a specific item.

  • Availability: This feature is exclusive to Pro and Business tiers. It is not available on the Free tier.
  • One-shot purchase, no persistent rule: A Direct Snipe sends exactly one buy request to the provider and stops. It does not create a sniper rule, it does not enable Auto-Buy, and it will not retry if the provider rejects the order (out of stock, racing loss, etc.). If you want CloudCO to keep watching the inventory and retry, create a sniper rule from Create Rule instead.
  • Rule limit: Because no rule is created, Direct Snipe does not count against your concurrent active rule limit. You can use it even with all rule slots already filled.
  • History: A successful Direct Snipe appears in the Snipes page history list, labelled "Direct Snipe" (no rule number). See Managing your snipes for the per-row TERMINATE and REMOVE actions.

The Sniper Process:​

  1. Market Monitoring: The engine continuously tracks supported provider inventory.
  2. Matching Engine: The moment a server hits your target price and hardware specs, it is flagged.
  3. Automated Order: If Auto-Buy is enabled (paid plans only), the system submits at most one API transaction per rule when the first suitable match appears, then marks that rule completed so it cannot keep buying every other matching listing in the feed. Which product categories can complete an order depends on the provider—for example, Hetzner Auto-Buy only submits orders for Auction stock, while OVH Auto-Buy targets catalog bare-metal categories. See Auto-Buy: providers & categories for the full matrix and the one acquisition per rule behavior.
  4. Instant Notification: You are notified via your preferred channel (WhatsApp, Slack, or Email) as soon as the reservation is confirmed.

Notification Throttling​

To avoid alert fatigue, CloudCO limits repeated notifications from the same rule over short periods. You can customize notification behavior in Dashboard > Settings > Notifications.

Direct-to-Provider Payments​

A critical feature of CloudCO is that we never handle your server budget.

  • Direct Billing: All servers sniped are provisioned directly in your Hetzner account and appear on your regular provider invoice.
  • Transaction Safety: We use your API tokens to facilitate the procurement, but the financial relationship remains between you and the provider.
  • CloudCO Fees: You only pay CloudCO for the platform subscription.

What You Receive​

Upon a successful snipe, the server is immediately provisioned in your provider account. You will receive the server ID, IP address, and initial access details.