How much tier would 3000m2 cost with premium?

[SoundwaveKun]

As title says, I’m not familiar on the math of the 1024m2 from premium + additional m2

[davidventer]

TLDR: An extra $13 USD/month if you don't have a Linden Home, or an extra $22 USD/month if you have a Linden Home. 

Detailed Breakdown of steps, fees, and some important things to note:

Log in to the Second Life Account Dashboard on secondlife.com and go to > Land Manager > Land Use Fees. There you will see all the fees: scroll down to the section that says 'Update Tier.' 

Direct link: https://secondlife.com/my/account/landfees.php?lang=en-US

For 3000sqm you would need the 4096sqm Tier level, as there is none specifically for 3000sqm, so it will cost you an extra $22 USD/month on top of your Premium Membership and then you'll also have an additional 1096sqm to use on top of your 3000sqm parcel, so you can either purchase a larger parcel, or another, different/smaller parcel along with your 3000sqm parcel. - Note that this is if you are using your "free" 1024sqm for a Linden Home.

If you aren't using a Linden Home, then that free 1024sqm can be used towards a Mainland parcel, in which case you only need to update to the 2048sqm Tier Level at an extra $13 USD/month on top of your Premium Membership fee. Then you'll have a total of 3072sqm available for use - enough to cover the 3000sqm parcel you're interested in purchasing.

Also note that this is only applicable to Mainland parcels. You do not need to update your Tier level when buying/renting land from a Private Estate/Region Landlord/Owner. On Private Estates, you pay the Estate Owner in L$'s and you do not even need a Premium Membership. You're also able to rent parcels on the Mainland without updating your Tier level and without even needing a Premium Account. You'll simply pay the Landlord in L$'s instead of paying Linden Lab/Second Life in USD.

When purchasing Mainland; You would need to upgrade your Tier level before attempting to purchase a parcel of Mainland that fits in the Tier level, otherwise you will not be able to purchase the parcel. it won't automatically adjust your Tier level for you. You have to manually upgrade your Tier level so that it's sufficient to cover the Mainland parcel that you are attempting to purchase.

Also, an IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE: Your selected Tier level is billed to you whether or not you actually own/use land. So, if you don't end up actually buying the parcel/land, or if you sell or abandon the parcel/land in the future, you'll still pay for that Tier level, even without owning any land,  unless you remember to log back on to the Account Dashboard and downgrade your Tier level back to $0 in the Land Use Fees section. 

Edited December 7, 2021 by davidventer

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, davidventer said:

Also, an IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE: Your selected Tier level is billed to you whether or not you actually own/use land. So, if you don't end up actually buying the parcel/land, or if you sell or abandon the parcel/land in the future, you'll still pay for that Tier level, even without owning any land,  unless you remember to log back on to the Account Dashboard and downgrade your Tier level back to $0 in the Land Use Fees section. 

This part is no longer valid.  If you check your Land Use Fees page it says this...

You may remain at the higher tier level without penalty; tier fees are only charged for the total amount of land actually held within your billing cycle.) If you don't lower your tier and purchase more land, no warnings are sent, as you are still within the tier you allotted.

 

[davidventer]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

This part is no longer valid.  If you check your Land Use Fees page it says this...

You may remain at the higher tier level without penalty; tier fees are only charged for the total amount of land actually held within your billing cycle.) If you don't lower your tier and purchase more land, no warnings are sent, as you are still within the tier you allotted.

 

That’s awesome, and thanks for the clarification. 

[Lindal Kidd]

There are times when it's beneficial to own the land through a group, although not in this particular case. The reason is that groups can own 10% more land for a given amount of tier. This sometimes lets you slip into the next lower tier bracket.

Let's work it for your example. We have a 3000 sq. m. parcel. To own this much land through a group, we would need to donate 2,727 sq. m. of tier to the group. We have a free 1,024 sq. m., so we need an additional 1,703 sq. m.

This puts us over the 1024 sq m level and into the next level, 2048, which costs us $13.00 USD per month.  No advantage to us in this case, but if the parcel were 679 sq m smaller, or 2,321 sq. m., we could get away with paying at the 1024 level, or $7.00 USD per month.

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

This puts us over the 1024 sq m level and into the next level, 2048, which costs us $13.00 USD per month.  No advantage to us in this case, but if the parcel were 679 sq m smaller, or 2,321 sq. m., we could get away with paying at the 1024 level, or $7.00 USD per month.

Probably I'm just having caffeine withdrawal, but I get 2048 * 1.1 = 2252.8 so it seems as if the largest group-deeded parcel for US$7/mo would be only 2240m² (integer multiple of 16m²) with a few m² left over to donate to another needy group.

Now, 3000m² isn't a real parcel size anyway—2992 or 3008 would be—so there's bound to be some "slack" here somewhere.

In any case, it's definitely worth looking at how much you can get for that next-lower tier level. From US$7 to US$13/mo, the additional area to reach 3000m² would be very expensive per m²—and that's enough to make an additional annual Premium subscription an attractive alternative for its added 1024 "bonus" tier, stipend and all. (Of course, that logic might apply to the first US$7/mo tier step, too.) Being able to combine contributions from multiple premium accounts is kinda what group land is for.

[Lindal Kidd]

Very good, Qie!  Yes, I left out the "round to the nearest 16 sq. m." step in the interests of a simple explanation. But land comes in minimum steps of 4x4=16 sq. m. chunks, so in practice you need to consider that.

The other idea in your post is that of whether or not it's advantageous to make an alternate account and pay an additional Premium membership fee.  This can make your calculations even more complicated, because while a Premium membership costs $99 USD per year, you get a lot of that back in the weekly stipend ($L300 x 52 = $L15,600 per year = about $60.00 USD). If paying an additional 1,024 sq m. in tier would cost more than that, it's a step you ought to consider.

Some people take this to extremes, trying to figure out how many alts they'd have to create to pay for an entire region, or where the "break even" point is between making Premium alts and paying tier directly for any given amount of Mainland.

There is still a third money-saving complication we can consider: renting spare tier. Because tier jumps in such large steps, often we wind up paying for more square meters than we actually own. There are still some groups that will "rent" this spare tier from you. You donate that tier to their group, and in return they will pay you a weekly or monthly amount. This can be a simple way to get some financial use out of those unused square meters of tier, and it's much easier than buying more land with it, and trying to rent that land out.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Lindal Kidd