Hi MagicMike304,

VPS can be usable without the control panel, if you have some knowledge of Linux. Lunarpages have to pay licensing fees to the panel developers for the product that makes server administration available for everybody. That's why this addon costs extra.

To reduce the cost of VPS, you would try to use it with a free server control panel like Webmin (http://www.webmin.com), which is required to be setup separately. However, please be advised that such panels still usually require some Linux experience and don't have flexible user access privileges scheme. Additionally, Webmin has a long history of security vulnerabilities.

I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to ask should you have more questions on this.