OpenSim prices drop to average of $14 per region

OpenSim’s average land prices have dropped to $14 per standard region, down from $18 last February.

Average prices of a standard region on OpenSim grids. Shaded area is the full range of prices. (Hypergrid Business data.)

The lowest price for a region dropped from $5 to $3, and the highest price fell from $60 to $50 a month.

The median region price also fell slightly, from $15 to $14 per month.

In addition, some grids run special offers, lowering these prices even further. Tranquility Grid, for example, ran a special offer in April for a 16,000-prim region for just $4.90 a month.

The prices on the list below are for a standard, 256 by 256 square region which can hold 15,000 prims. In those cases where a grid didn’t offer that particular combination — which was often — I used the next larger size.

Many grids, for example, routinely offer 100,000 prims per region or variable-sized regions so that customers get more land area, and more prims, for the same price.

Meanwhile, Second Life lowered prices this past week as well, from $249 to $229 a month. Those prices don’t include all the fees that Second Life customers pay, however. Most OpenSim grids offer free unlimited uploads and groups in addition to unique features such as being able to upload and download entire regions or inventories in the form of OAR or IAR files, or teleports to other grids.

Second Life does, however, have a dramatically larger user base.

As a result, OpenSim is a good location for people and organizations who bring their own communities with them, and are looking for low land prices with maximum freedom and flexibility. OpenSim is a good destination for schools and nonprofits, role-playing groups, and people who are interested in building and creating.

Some creators use OpenSim for staging. They rent regions or mini-grids and use them for collaborative building, then upload the finished projects to Second Life.

In addition, both land sales and concurrent users have been trending downwards in Second Life for several years, while OpenSim land and active users have generally been trending up, making OpenSim a promising place to find brand-new customers. In particular, with OpenSim’s popularity with schools and non-profits — most of whom don’t show up in the stats because their grids are behind the firewall — there’s a demand for high-quality commercial content and the budgets to pay for it. The Kitely Market, for example, now delivers to 345 OpenSim grids, both private and public.

Current list of land prices for OpenSim regions

Source: Hypergrid Business