Yes, many businesses still use monthly prepaid models for running their server instances. This approach can offer several benefits that are particularly appealing to certain types of organizations or under specific circumstances. For startups or small-scale enterprises with limited cash flow, monthly prepaid plans allow them to manage their budgets more predictably by locking in a fixed cost for their server usage. Additionally, prepaid plans can often come with discounts, making them financially attractive for businesses that can accurately forecast and plan their server capacity needs.

Industries with relatively stable and predictable workloads can particularly benefit from this model, as the need for flexibility in scaling up or down might be less critical compared to industries with more variable workloads. Some businesses prefer the simplicity of prepaid plans as they eliminate the complexities that might come with tracking usage-based billing and dealing with potential overage charges.

Lastly, while cloud service providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure predominantly promote pay-as-you-go models, they also offer reserved instance pricing (a form of prepaid service) which allows clients to reserve capacity over a term (like one or three years) with significant cost savings compared to on-demand pricing. This indicates a continuing interest and demand for prepaid options in various forms.