Good question!
A Steem account costs 3 Steem to make regardless - this is a fee that is imposed by the blockchain itself. When you sign up for a "free" account through https://signup.steemit.com/ then SteemIt is actually paying this fee for you in exchange for some personal information (such as, I believe, your phone number and email address). It also takes a week or two to process.
Purchasing an account through our service, however, is instantaneous and very fairly priced - we pass along the fee of 3 Steem to the customer and charge an additional 1 Steem for ourselves.
Also, as a side note: the free accounts handed out by Steemit are actually funded with less real steem, instead it's mostly delegated steem. This means the free acount they hand out is worth less than 3 steem as the delegation is ultimately temporary.
Makes sense. Thanks for answering.
Wow! This is something they never put into the FAQ or Intruduction section!!
Thanks for all the information!!
You are really doing great work!
I do appreciate your very nice effort in the community!
Cheers.
@blocktrades I sent the payment about an hour ago. How long does it take to have the account activated ?
@blocktraders-help good explanation to make us understand and like many of us are new to steemit platform.
@blocktrades-help if I sent the payment about an hour ago how long does it take to have the account activated ?