This post is with regards to mainland only, more pointedly mainland tier and methods of how to either lower your costs or earn a few Linden dollars from your spare tier. The subject matter here will not apply if you’re using estate land. I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form with the business names mentioned in this post and use them merely as examples.
Always ensure when buying land that you keep an eye on the message that informs you what your tier level will be after the purchase. If you intend to buy land for a group but instead buy it for yourself, you could quite easily find yourself in LL’s next tier bracket and you really don’t want to do that, especially if your group has the tier available to buy that land already.
The most reliable and trustworthy source to buy land from is Linden Lab. The same goes for tier. Ultimately (as far as I’m aware) all tier roads lead to Linden Lab. However, if you’re feeling brave and if you want to save yourself a bit of money, there are other sources from whom you can rent tier.
There is currently talk of changes to tier pricing at Linden Lab, “Simplification” keeps getting mentioned. What this means, I’m not sure. I’m hoping it won’t mean an increase at the higher end of the scale but we’ll wait and see. However for now, let’s look at some other options of paying for mainland tier, if you have estate land these services are not of any benefit to you.
Why would you want to rent mainland tier from anyone else? Well as I said, it can prove cheaper. This is particularly the case for people with parcels under half a sim (once you get towards a full sim there’s no real margin to be made profit wise, hence no cheaper tier option).
Those of you who have expanded your parcels have probably at some time hit the tier barrier issue. There you are with a nice 4096M parcel; you see that 1024M parcel next to you become available. It’s ideal, but this purchase will take you into the next tier level and mean your tier fee is at least US$40 a month. If you’re in Europe and need to pay VAT the costs are higher, in the UK for example it would be US$47.
However there are inworld services that can assist you here, for example The Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas group will rent tier to you by the square metre. This would mean that you could still pay Linden Lab US$25 as normal and then pay the extra to The Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas. Their current rates are L$0.25 per square metre a week. Now in the above example of someone holding 4096M of land, if you have group held land then you get a 10% bonus and if you’re a premium account holder you have probably donated your 512M bonus to the group, this means to purchase an extra 1024M of land you probably only need to rent around 200 square metres at the most, which would be L$50 a week, L$200 every four weeks and US$25 a month plus L$200 is a lot less a month than US$40.
If you’re dealing with The Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas you don’t relinquish control of your group, you merely come to an arrangement with them whereby you invite one of their members into your group in a non-executive role (which doesn’t pay or receive group liabilities) and they then donate the tier to your group.
If you’re in the position of having upgraded your tier payments with Linden Lab and have spare tier left, then you can make that tier work for you too, The Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas will pay you something like L$0.15 per square metre for your unused tier. This won’t make you rich but every penny helps hey?
There are other groups who offer services such as this, I’ve dealt with The Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas so I’m a little more familiar with their practices but I know off the top of my head that JR Unknown also rents tier, however in this case it’s not by the square metre but by the same bands as Linden Lab, however JR Unknown offers cheaper tier generally and again, if you’re European, there’s no VAT. The process again involves inviting someone to your group and they then donate tier to your group.
The key is for you to investigate these companies and see which company you’re comfortable with if you want to examine these money saving options. As with any venture in Second Life there are risks involved so do your homework, always read the small print, but if you do want to take the risk then ensure that you do business with established companies and The Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas and JR Unknown both fit that bill, although as I said there are risks involved, greater risks than when you’re doing business with Linden Lab.
If you’re in Europe then great savings on VAT can be made by renting tier from an inworld company rather than Linden Lab. The current stance of European tax authorities is that payments made entirely within a virtual world are not considered as services within the scope of VAT. Therefore you’re not engaging in any under the counter practices by taking advantage of these services.
If the company you’re dealing with want to charge you in US$, again the chances are that they don’t need to charge VAT. The reason Linden Lab have to charge VAT is because the amount of business they do outside of their virtual world is above a business threshold that triggers a requirement to charge VAT. Many inworld companies are not turning over that level of business so there is no requirement for VAT to be added to the bill.
Now of course the further up the ladder you get, then these sort of arrangements become less attractive. For example nobody (as far as I’m aware) can provide tier on a full sim cheaper than Linden Lab (and that’s with VAT payments included too). Why is this? Well because nobody would be able to make a profit, unless of course they charged Europeans US$195 + 10% (which would be lower than any VAT rate). However I haven’t seen anyone offering such a deal.
So to conclude, there are ways of making your spare tier work for you, there are ways of reducing your tier costs as your land holdings grow and these services are available inworld and available now.