# What happens when you order a server

> The steps from choosing a plan to your first SSH login, and what VPSNine does in between. Orders open at launch.

Source: https://vpsnine.com/help/what-happens-when-you-order · Updated: 2026-10-10

Orders aren't open yet. This is how ordering will work at launch, so there are no surprises on the day. If you want to know when that is, join the waitlist at the bottom of any page; it sends one email.

## What you need first

- **An account, with its email confirmed.** Accounts open at launch at my.vpsnine.com. [Create your VPSNine account](https://vpsnine.com/help/create-an-account), then [confirm your email address](https://vpsnine.com/help/verify-your-email): orders need a confirmed address.
- **An SSH key.** Every order needs one, because that's how you log in. [Add your SSH keys](https://vpsnine.com/help/manage-ssh-keys-in-the-panel) to your account before you order.
- **A plan.** The planned sizes are on the [plans page](https://vpsnine.com/plans), and [Choose a plan](https://vpsnine.com/help/choosing-a-plan) helps if you're torn. Sizes can still change before launch. Prices are announced when orders open.
- **A distribution.** Without a strong preference, take Ubuntu LTS or Debian. [Choose a Linux distribution](https://vpsnine.com/help/choose-a-distribution) has the longer answer.
- **Bitcoin.** That's how you pay at launch. Card and PayPal come later; see [Payment methods](https://vpsnine.com/help/payment-methods).

## The order itself

1. Pick a plan, a distribution and the SSH keys to put on the server. No key is ticked for you: tick each one you want.
2. Pay the invoice.
3. Once the payment confirms, we build the server.
4. The server appears in the panel as running, with its IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and we email you to say it's ready.
5. You log in over SSH with your key.

Step 3 is where we spend our time. The platform reserves the server's CPU and RAM, creates its NVMe disk, writes the distribution to it, assigns its addresses and boots it. We aim to have all of that done in about a minute from the moment the payment confirms. That's a target: we'll know the real figure once real orders are running. [What "59 seconds" means](https://vpsnine.com/blog/what-59-seconds-means) has the details.

## Your first login

Root has no password on a new server, so you log in with your key, at the address the panel shows. `203.0.113.42` below is a placeholder:

```bash
ssh root@203.0.113.42
```

[Connect to your server with SSH](https://vpsnine.com/help/connect-with-ssh) covers Linux, macOS and Windows. After that, give the server an hour: updates, keys, a firewall. The [first-hour checklist](https://vpsnine.com/help/first-hour-checklist) goes through them in order.

Billing is monthly from then on, with no setup fee and no annual lock-in. You can cancel whenever you like, and the [money-back guarantee](https://vpsnine.com/help/money-back-guarantee) covers your first 14 days.

If the server isn't running a few minutes after the payment confirmed, [open a support ticket](https://my.vpsnine.com/support/new?category=billing) with the invoice number and we'll look into it.