How Netcup Free Month Vouchers Work: Year-1 vs Year-2 Amortization & Invoice Math (2026)

When engineers first redeem a "2 Months Free" or "1 Month Free" voucher on Netcup, a common question is whether Netcup delays billing by 30–60 days or issues an account balance credit. Under German commercial accounting law (*GoBD* and *UStG*), netcup GmbH must document the full contractual service period on an itemized VAT invoice (Rechnung) and explicitly record the promotional discount against that service period.

When your server is provisioned on Day 1 (for example, November 4, 2026), Netcup sets your personal billing anchor date to the 4th of the month. Depending on the tariff’s advance billing interval (Abrechnungszeitraum—typically 1 month or 6 months in advance for standard compute contracts), your first PDF invoice generated in the Customer Control Panel (CCP) contains two paired line items:

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netcup GmbH — Invoice / Rechnung #RE-2026-8849201 (Date: 2026-11-04)
Contract: RS 1000 G12.5 (12 Months Minimum Term | Billing Interval: Monthly)
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Pos.  Description                                    Period                 Gross (19% VAT)   Net (0% VAT)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1     Root-Server RS 1000 G12.5                      04.11.2026–04.12.2026       21.73 EUR      18.26 EUR
2     Setup Fee (Einrichtungsgebühr 12m Term)        One-time                     0.00 EUR       0.00 EUR
3     Voucher / Gutschein (6874nc... - Month 1/2)    04.11.2026–04.12.2026      -21.73 EUR     -18.26 EUR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Payable Invoice #1 (Month 1):                                               0.00 EUR       0.00 EUR
Total Payable Invoice #2 (04.12.2026–04.01.2027, Voucher Month 2/2):              0.00 EUR       0.00 EUR
Total Payable Invoice #3 (04.01.2027–04.02.2027, Standard Month 3/12):           21.73 EUR      18.26 EUR
================================================================================

To evaluate total cost of ownership (TCO) accurately against hourly cloud providers like Hetzner Cloud, DigitalOcean, or AWS Lightsail, you must amortize the 10 or 11 paid months across the full 12-month contract cycle:

Effective Year-1 Monthly Rate = (Base Monthly Rate × (12 − Free Months)) ÷ 12

For buyers outside the European Union (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Singapore, Japan) and EU VAT-registered corporate entities outside Germany (via VIES Reverse Charge), Netcup strips the 19% German VAT (Price / 1.19). The table below provides the exact Gross and Net Year-1 math across all current G12.5 server tiers:

Unlike Webhosting 30% vouchers (which modify the recurring tariff multiplier permanently), Root Server and VPS Free-Month vouchers grant a one-time promotional credit bound to the initial 12-month contract period (Mindestvertragslaufzeit). Beginning in Month 13 (Year 2), an existing contract continues at its standard monthly base rate unless you terminate or migrate.

Understanding the cumulative cost curve across 12, 24, and 36 months helps infrastructure teams decide whether to hold an existing contract in place or blue-green migrate stateless workloads onto a newly provisioned voucher contract at the 12-month boundary:

Netcup offers most compute plans in two contractual variants: a standard 12-month contract (Mindestvertragslaufzeit: 12 Monate) with a €0.00 setup fee, and a 1-month flexible tariff that adds both a higher monthly premium and a one-time setup fee (Einrichtungsgebühr). Furthermore, Free-Month vouchers apply exclusively to the 12-month variant.

Because the 1-month flexible variant incurs an immediate setup fee plus a higher monthly rate and forfeits the 1–2 free months, the financial break-even point between a 1-month flexible server and a 12-month voucher-discounted server occurs much earlier than 12 months:

• ▪ RS 1000 G12.5 Break-Even Point: With 2 Months Free, your entire 12-month commitment on RS 1000 G12.5 costs €182.60 net (€217.30 gross) for 365 days of dedicated Zen 5 compute. Running a flexible short-term server or equivalent dedicated-vCPU cloud instance (such as Hetzner CCX13/CCX23) surpasses €182.60 net within roughly 5.5 to 6.5 months.
• ▪ Zero Early-Termination Penalty After Month 12: Under the German Fair Consumer Contracts Act (*Gesetz für faire Verbraucherverträge*), once your initial 12-month period concludes, the contract may be terminated at any time with a 1-month notice period rather than locking you into another full 12-month block.

When managing multiple Netcup servers provisioned on different calendar days, Netcup tracks each contract’s individual service period (Leistungszeitraum) down to the exact calendar day, while consolidating invoices generated within the same billing window.

If you redeem a 1-Month Free voucher on a VPS 2000 G12.5 on November 4 and redeem a 2-Months Free voucher on an RS 1000 G12.5 on November 18, each contract maintains its own independent voucher depletion counter (Freimonat-Kontingent). You can inspect the exact remaining free-month period for every server inside the Customer Control Panel under Products → [Server Name] → Billing / Contract Details.

For corporate finance teams reconciling monthly cloud expenditure, Netcup’s PDF and XML/ZUGFeRD e-invoices list the contract number (Vertragsnummer), server hostname or nickname, and exact service period dates next to every line item. Because the negative voucher credit line item references the exact same Vertragsnummer and tax rate (0% or 19% VAT) as the positive server charge, automated accounting ERP imports reconcile the zeroed-out months without requiring manual ledger adjustments.