Poll: How much is too much to pay for Web Hosting?
Thursday October 12, 2006
I think we've established that most people feel that domain registrars should be inexpensive. While I still don't have a clear picture as to why someone would choose GoDaddy ($8.95 per year) over Omnis ($6.95 per year) or iPowerWeb ($6.50 per year), price is definitely a key factor in choosing a domain registrar. But is it also the only thing you look for in Web hosting?
How much is too much to pay for Web hosting?
Comments
Ahem…umm shouldn’t these be price ranges? Not that I’m picky
I.E. $10.01 to $25.00
I’d pay $25 or less. Anything more than $25 (must be on a Windoze machine to get that much!) is too much!
Cheers!
Chere
Of course this depends on your needs. If you really require 24/7 uptime you have to pay more. Also the bandwidth requirements etc play an important role. But for a standard (cheapest) hosting account I would say 5 dollar per month is the maximum, though you can get it much cheaper.
I pay $5.95 a month for 1 Gb of storage and 5 Gb of (rollover) bandwidth. This is Apache web on a Linux server, with FrontPage support, MySQL, PostgreSQL, PHP, CGI, Perl, Python, unlimited email, Web mail, POP3 access, etc.
Patrick
What you’re hosting makes a major difference. A company that runs their entire business online is going to want more than a $5/month hosting account. They want guaranteed reliability among other things.
As far as a domain registrar goes, why pay $6.95/year to Omnis when you can pay $5.99 (or less depending on what else you get) from 1and1?
It’s not how much you’re willing to pay, but how much is too much. If you’re willing to pay $25, then $25.01 is too much… if you pay $5.95 but are willing to pay up to $10, then $10.01 is too much. And yes, if you pay $5.95 and aren’t willing to pay more than that, then there’s no field in the form that is absolutely correct… But polls can’t have infinite numbers of answers, so in this case, I would choose either $5.01 or $10.01 and then put a comment (as I’m guessing Patrick did).
You also have to consider what else you are getting with your hosting. I build/run most of my servers and when I do a site for a client I usually try to get them hosted on one of my boxes. If you are self employed it’s very nice to get some ongoing income. Depending on estimaded IP/Bandwidth usage I charge anywhere from $15 -> $25/mo but that includes a local person they can talk to about problems plus a simple content update during the month.
Your question has me wondering. Uou quote the cost of domain registration yet ask about the cost of web hosting. Now i know you know the difference (lol)
I have four e-commerce sites hosted by GoDaddy with lots of storage and bandwidth because, if my sites go down, I am out of business.
I have never had GoDaddy go down and I have never had a problem with bandwidth or storage.
And I have never felt I was paying too much. Perhaps it’s because they do offer some bulk discounts and special like $1.99 registration if you buy some other service from them.
I am not a reseller for them and have no reason to praise them except that I am a very satisfied customer.
I think not only the price is important, the quality (uptime) is much more important. There are so much big provider overselling their webspace for less money, but how often there are downtimes?
My advice is, try to balance the importance of uptime with the costs.
Yes, I do know the difference.
Which is why I said “But is it also the only thing you look for in Web hosting?” (italics added). The point being, people don’t want to pay a lot for registering a domain, but will they pay for hosting? 
So this question wasn’t about registering a domain - as we’ve beaten that horse to death. It was about hosting the domain once you’ve registered it.
Here’s a twist.
What kind of Extras is the host providing? And would that make you pay more?
I ran across a service provider that offered to build your site for free if you’d pay them $29 a month for hosting.
I was intrigued and vaguely tempted. A custom site, free DNR and hosting for $29 a month.
Now is that too much?
After a few seconds thought, I decided that it really was too much as over time the cost of hosting rapidly outpaced what I would have paid for say a template or even a custom site for anything I would do online.
However, if you had a large site and that price included some monthly update hours (I think it did), would that be too much to pay?
Cheers!
Chere
Being a Computer Artist I need tons of space ! I have hundreds of “gigs” of work out on the web my poor ole lap top would be overfull if I tried to store it all inside my puter and I pay nothing other than my normal dsl fee
I just search out free hosting sites
thet allow for large file uploads
TagWorld,Renderosity,Daz,these are some good free places to display art…have a great day*waves & Smiles)
In my opinion, a registrar only has 1 real job. Therefore, there is a reason in seeking a small price for that. However, hosting is so different. How much space? How much bandwidth? How many this or that? What about server side capabilities. The more features you add to a host, the more the host can offer. Needless to say, if you are paying for a “budget host” that maybe $30/year, you will not get all of the features as if you were paying $20/month. How much would one pay for hosting is a question that can not be defined by simply how much. However, if I had all of the features I needed, it would be $20/month. This by the way is what I pay for hosting unlimited domains, and sub domanis rather than paying more than $300/year as opposed to a budget host with little or nothing.
You get what you pay for.
Don’t expect a free service to go out of the way to help you. I have heard so many people complain about poor service from free services. Yet they aren’t willing to pay a small fee each month to have better service. Obviously, the tolerable monthly fee is dependant on the use of the site. If the site is not generating revenue, more than $25.00 per month is too much, IMO. On the other hand, if the site is a crankin’ business which needs robust features, dedicated servers, etc. then the ROI factors should determine the monthly amount.
As a Web Developer, I consider who the host is going to be when I determine what I charge. I have found that some hosts are more difficult to work with and communicate with than others. If I am buiding an application for my client there are times when I need to ask the host how they are configured. If I have to figure this out myself through trial and error, this costs me time and money. GoDaddy has proved to be a company that does not cater to Web developers. We have to figure things out on our own.
I prefer to use a hosting company that I can communicate with freely; if I have to pick up the phone and say “Hi Charly, what’s going on here?” I need to get the answer!
You pay more for this, but it is well worth it to me. And to my clients.
I’m hosting with Dreamhost, I pay $18/mo (they have reselling/referral discounts, indefinately). I stay with them because of all the ‘goodies’ I get. Being able to host unlimited domains for no extra fee = uber. Having bandwidth and disk space that increases every week = uber. And they’re a small company, and you get real-human responses when you contact tech support!
[your form should indicate that the name and email fields are required–I just lost my message!]
I pay $16/mo for a service (Dreamhost) that was recommended to me by a Web Designer. Since signing up, bandwidth and storage capacities have had significant increases without incurring additional costs. I’ve experienced minimal downtime, excellent support, and consistently proactive communications from the host. With all of the goodies included, I’m very comfortable paying this amount. Maybe the question should be “How much would you pay to get flexible, reliable and hassle-free web hosting?”
I’m very happy with the host and I consider it already cheap–why would I look for a cheaper host that I might be less happy with?
We have several sites hosted by NetNation (www.NetNation.com). Excellent reliability and customer service. Feature-rich plans from $6.00/mo.
I think it depends what the purpose of the site is and how large it’s going to be, etc. What is the projected number of users, do you need Root access? These are all factors in deciding what to pay. I currently pay $49.95 a month for a reseller account with Website Source.
Frank: I’ve been looking around at domain registrars to compare them, and other than extended offers they really all only do one thing - register domains. I don’t know that I’d take it to the point that therefore you should pay as little as possible for them. I want them to remain in business so that they can do that one thing. But I can see the point.
Charlie: yes, that’s exactly what I think too. You get what you pay for. I don’t want to pay too much for things, but I definitely don’t want to pay too little.
Everyone: I do agree that the features should help determine how much you pay for Web hosting. But I still find it interesting that (currently) 33% of people voting won’t pay anything for their hosting service.
Has anyone used yahoo’s web hosting service??? They seem reasonable and you wouldn’t have to worry about them going out of business, that is for sure.
Ms. Jennifer sez:
Everyone: I do agree that the features should help determine how much you pay for Web hosting. But I still find it interesting that (currently) 33% of people voting won’t pay anything for their hosting service.
I agree that this is very interesting and very far from what I would have expected. (Yes I know it’s a small sample).
Free hosting in my mind equals ads and iframes, funky load times and lots of bloated javascripts.
For those on free Hosts,what kind of site is it? How does your site perform (ads, loads ect)? And if that performance could be enhanced by paying a small monthly fee would you do it?
Not that I have any objection to free! But gee, when you can get good reliable hosting for about $4 a month, the price of a latte, I just find the idea of not paying for hosting…(dare I say it)…illogical!
BTW: My Site Space I’m not affiliated with them, just use them a lot and like them.
Cheers!
Chere
Jennifer, I love your newsletter! Thank you so much for all that you bring to the industry. Hosting is compeltely based on needs. What I would like to see is what people are willing to pay for registration - which is much more generic….
Hi Charlie: I haven’t done a poll on it, but based on the previous comments, I wouldn’t be surprised if the most people were willing to pay per year for a domain was no more than $10US, and probably less than that.
I think it depends on what people are looking for. I find it interesting that many people then $10.01 per month is too high. I just moved from a cPanel host to DreamHost. cPanel hosts were always cheaper and I prefer it to others. However, I’ve begun to see many problems with the hosts I’ve used. After much debate I decided in DreamHost, which costs me $50 or so more a year, because they build their tools - they know them inside out and can provide accurate, real support for them. They also have 10 years of experiance as a webhost, I have recommended them more then once, and lately I’d seen alot of websites boasting Dreamhost. I’m not as happy as I was with cPanel but I’m happy and I feel like I can trust this host to get the job done.
Like with registrars, I think it depends on the name for alot of people. GoDaddy is a big name. It’s just whether a company can hold up to the name it’s made. I’m confident my new webhost will but time will see if my money was worth it. (I have about 80 days left on my money back guarentee + I had a $97 discount code for the first year.)
I prefer eNom domain registrar resellers. I know alot of start up companies use them and resell dirt cheap. I pay $8.50 a year for my domains now, I started paying $6.50 but as time goes on prices increase due to taxes and such. I know that no matter where I move hosting, or if the people I registered through die, I can always move it to another eNom reseller and have the same price (or almost) for my domain.
Right now anything more than $25 is outrageous.
Even that is too much for me.
I pay $9.99 a month.
My problem is that I want the ability to pay per month; or a few at a time if it works for me without being dumped into a particular plan [I realize that makes it hard].
But most importantly, I need to know I’m getting a good deal. At $10 a month I will hopefully learn what means uptime and stability. It will take time.
I think many of us don’t know how to really rate a webhost so we can only use those things we do know. Space, bandwidth, and included packages. I want to know about how often the server crashes, is unavailable, or otherwise. Is my site viewable? I don’t know these things… so for now I will remain in the $10 a month zone.
I don’t really know what is too much to pay. I have seen so much variance in offers from hosting and registrar companies.
I have a package that includes free hosting for life as long as I register my domain to their servers for $35/year.
For what I do with my site, that is not such a bad package. However I have to pay “one time fees” for things like MySQL. But overall, I think that what I have is not bad.