It's easy to shut down virtual servers and continue from the same position. It's not that easy to do the same for servers.
The linked page is very unclear about this.
If you decide to stop completely with the server halfway through the month, you'll pay for the hours.
Of course, a shut down server that's yours is still yours and you'll be billed for it.
Hetzner bare metal already deploys in a couple of minutes when renting existing hardware, and there is plenty of precedent for hourly-billed bare metal services around. I think they're intending to move all their bare metal over to hourly billing.
Previously you could only rent physical servers for an entire month. If you’re doing this the price is still the same. But going forward it will be possible to rent for a portion of the month only (x amount of hours).
> How precisely does Hetzner calculate the hourly billing?
> The beginning of the hourly billing starts as soon as the product becomes available to you.
So for a dedicated server you start paying once the server has been commissioned to you. You stop paying once you return it.
If you turned on the server, it's being used.
> Do you bill servers that are off?
> Yes. Until you, the customer, delete your servers, we will bill you for them, regardless of their state.
Like, it's completely unreasonable to expect to pay more.