Pre-cloud dedicated/colocation pricing 2004–2007 — managed dedicated $250–$1,400/month; budget $89–$199; 1U colo ~$50/month

Claim: Mid-2000s pricing (contemporaneous Web Hosting Talk invoices):

• Managed dedicated server (Rackspace and peers): ~$250–$1,400/month depending on configuration.
• Unmanaged / budget dedicated: ~$89–$199/month.
• Single-U colocation: ~$50/month.

Source: Forum-quoted real prices on Web Hosting Talk (2004–2007). Archived Rackspace/colo pricing pages via Wayback not retrievable.

Confidence: Single-source — forum-quoted invoices, not vendor pricing pages.

Why this matters for Candid: This is the pre-state for the capex→opex story. A small-business website that needed a database in 2005 was looking at $50–$1,400/month for the box alone, before bandwidth or admin labor. The structural-shift entry (The structural shift: capex (server + sysadmin) → opex (managed service, administration included)) depends on these baseline figures.