Using the calculator at MyCryptoBuddy.com which takes into account the increasing difficulty of mining bitcoin, it would appear it is no longer worthwhile to cloud mine SHA256 on Hashflare. If you assume $220 to buy 1 TH/s, 15% pool fee, and the difficulty feature turned on, the payback is 9 months and 4 days. At the end of 12 months you'll have your $220 back, plus $12.98 which is a 5.9% return. That assumes you keep all of your earnings and the bitcoin price ($15,921) doesn't change (very unlikely). It's not terrible, but it's also not good.
http://www.mycryptobuddy.com/BitcoinMiningCalculator
If you turn on re-investing, then at the end of a year you will have more Hash power, but you have nothing else- you are just pushing your money out farther and farther. Of course, the extra Hash power will generate more bitcoin, but your payouts are becoming smaller.
If you assume bitcoin goes up 10% over the next year, then mining get's you a little more than the $12.98 I calculated above (I think around$18) . That's not enough to convince me I should start mining.
Please, if you see this differently, I am open to your ideas and I'd like to understand how to make it work.
Thanks.
