This page provides a number of useful tools and information for Sia hosts. SiaSetup's Host Tools can help you determine if your computer configuration is suitable for hosting, suggest starting prices to set for selling your storage, help you check your host's ranking and performance, and help you troubleshoot issues with your host configuration.
Select a tab below to check out the corresponding host tool. If you're not yet familiar with how hosting works on Sia, you can visit our section on Hosting first. We also have a step-by-step Guide to Hosting on Sia to help you get set up, as well as several Hosting FAQs.
If you think you'd like to become a host on Sia based on this information, check out our Guide to Hosting on Sia for step-by-step directions on getting set up as a host.
As a new Sia host, one of the biggest questions you may have is what to set your storage and bandwidth prices and other hosts settings to. Fortunately, we can help you and provide a starting point by looking at the current averages for host pricing on the Sia network.
The numbers shown below are the current average prices and values based on the top 100 hosts on the Sia network. Explanations of each pricing point are provided, as well as a suggested starting range to use when setting up a new host. Most suggested prices are based on simple math of ± 20% of the average price shown, unless a different rule applies for that specific price. You may decide to set any given price higher or lower based on your host configuration and your available resources, but these prices should be a good starting point to be competitive on the network right now based on your Host Score.
Items marked with Current Average are pre-filled with current prices - contract fees are updated daily, and average storage and bandwidth prices are updated every hour. You can use these prices in combination with our Guide to Hosting on Sia to get started as a new host.
Average Right Now: ??? Current Average
Suggested Setting: ???
What It Is: Your base income when hosting.
Why It Matters: Storage pricing is the biggest factor in your host score. Lower is better, but you also want to price your storage high enough that hosting is profitable after other costs like electricity.
Changed Via: Sia-UI or Terminal
Average Right Now: ??? Current Average
Suggested Setting: 0.3 SC
What It Is: A small fee to cover costs related to hosting transactions on the blockchain.
Why It Matters: To hosts, this fee is usually negligible. To renters, a contract fee is paid to each of their 50 hosts, so this can add up. While it doesn't affect your host score significantly unless you set it ridiculously high, it's generally better to set this number lower. Some large-scale Sia renters may also avoid your host if you try to gouge renters on contract fees.
Changed Via: Terminal only: host config mincontractprice 0.3SC
Average Right Now: ??? Current Average
Suggested Setting: ???
What It Is: Your fee for upload bandwidth when renters store things on your host.
Why It Matters: If a user changes their data regularly, they can use a lot of upload bandwidth. If you have a slow internet connection or a data cap, your bandwidth is probably a valuable resource to you, so you may want to set this cost higher to offset the impact hosting will have. If you have a fast internet connection, you may want to set this very low since moving large amounts of data won't impact you as much.
Changed Via: Sia-UI or Terminal
Average Right Now: ??? Current Average
Suggested Setting: ???
What It Is: Your fee for download bandwidth when renters retrieve things from your host.
Why It Matters: If a user downloads their data regularly, they can use a lot of download bandwidth. If you have a slow internet connection or a data cap, your bandwidth is probably a valuable resource to you, so you may want to set this cost higher to offset the impact hosting will have. If you have a fast internet connection, you may want to set this very low since moving large amounts of data won't impact you as much.
Changed Via: Sia-UI or Terminal
Average Right Now: ??? Current Average
Suggested Setting: ???
What It Is: Your guarantee to a renter that you'll fulfill your contract with them by not going offline for too long or losing their data. It should be set at 2-3x your storage price to maximize your host score.
Why It Matters: Your collateral is your own money that you risk to lose if you fail to meet the contract conditions as a host. Renters won't trust you if you don't put up very much collateral, but if you put up too much collateral you risk losing a lot of Siacoins if something happens to your host machine, even if it's beyond your control.
Changed Via: Sia-UI or Terminal
Average Right Now: ??? Weeks Current Average
Suggested Setting: 13-26 Weeks
What It Is: The longest contract length you'll accept as a host.
Why It Matters: If you accept a contract for a set time period, such as 26 weeks, you're committing to be online for that entire period. You can change this value to lower your commitment to hosting, but you shouldn't lower it below 13 weeks because the default contract duration as a renter is 13 weeks, so you're likely to miss out on contracts by setting this value to anything less.
Changed Via: Sia-UI or Terminal
Once you've set your host up with these values, you can check your Host Ranking and Performance using the tab above and see how you compare to other hosts.
While Sia hosting historically hasn't been very profitable, you may be able to make a small profit hosting if you use surplus equipment in a computer which is already running all the time. You may also be able to make a profit if you hold onto the Siacoins you earn as a host, and they increase in value in the future. Finally, you may just want to know how long it would take to earn a return on investment if you did purchase new hardware, or given other costs like electricity.
You can enter details on your hosting setup here, such as the amount of storage you plan to offer, equipment costs, your host pricing, and other factors like electricity costs, and SiaSetup will calculate your expected profitability. You can also click the buttons to fill the form with average prices of current hosts on the Sia network, or clear the form and enter your own values.
Please note that this calculator is new as of July 2020, and while it is believed to be accurate, certain combinations of inputs may produce incorrect or unexpected results. Also, future conditions such as the price of Siacoin may change significantly, and alter real-world results - therefore, this calculator should only be used as a small part in your decision to host on the Sia network, and not as a definitive prospectus for return on investment or potential income.
Below are calculated profitability results for the values you entered above. If a table column says No Data, a value above is missing which is required to calculate data for that column. You can hover over each column heading to see a description of that column and details on how it is calculated.
| Storage Used | SC Price | Risked Collateral | Gross Monthly Income | Monthly Expenses | Net Monthly Income | Cumulative Income (ROI) | Total SC Holdings | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elapsed Time | Inflation N/A | No Inflation | Inflation | No Inflation | Inflation | No Inflation | Inflation | No Inflation | Inflation | No Inflation | Inflation | No Inflation | Inflation | No Inflation | Inflation |
If you're having issues with your Sia host (your host shows as offline, you're not receiving new contracts, etc), you can use the SiaCentral Host Troubleshooter to help identify common configuration issues. The form below is pre-filled with your current IP address and the default Sia host announce port, but you can change them if you're using a different IP address, DDNS service, or port to host on Sia.
The SiaCentral Host Troubleshooter will open in a new window. SiaSetup is not affiliated with SiaCentral, which is another third-party Sia resource.
For additional troubleshooting tips, visit our Hosting FAQs and see if your question is addressed there. If not, feel free to Contact Us and we'll see if we can add your question and a solution to our FAQ. Please note that we do not provide support for Sia - if you require additional help troubleshooting your host, we suggest using the #help or #hosting channels on the Sia Discord Server.