Most people are very price conscious. They want to get the best deal they can, and that typically equates to paying the least amount up front for a product or service. That is why free web hosting is so popular. But it's interesting to me that 7 of the 10 worst Web hosts (as chosen by my readers) are all cheap hosts costing less than $10 per month, and the other four cost under $30 per month. While the average cost of a host on my best Web hosts list is $33 per month and that's including one free option.
Uptime Guarantees Don't Help
The cost of your Web hosting is more than just the monthly fee. Obvious costs include toll phone calls for support, but there are some less obvious costs as well. Let's look at it hypothetically:
You are running a small business that makes $3000 per month in advertising and sales from your website. Obviously, you don't want all that money sucked into the hosting provider, so you go with a provider that costs just $1 per month. That leaves you $2999 to pay your employees and yourself and put back into your business every month.
Your Web hosting server goes down for one day. Every day that your server is down, you lose $100 in sales and advertising.
Chances are your hosting provider has an uptime guarantee. So, since the server was down one day that month, you are refunded 3% (1 / 30 = 0.03) of your hosting price or $0.03 cents.
But your business lost $99.97 in sales and advertising.
The thing is, most hosts don't go down for that long unless something catastrophic has happened. So, often the uptime guarantee nets you more in the neighborhood of 1 cent or nothing, simply because you aren't paying enough for it to round into real money.
Support Can Suck Money Too
Typically, the reasons people call tech support at a hosting provider are because they forgot or lost their password. This is so common that most providers automate the process for getting a new password. But what this also means is that if you're working with a support representative, most of the time the hardest question they have to answer is "what's my password?"
If you call with a more challenging question, most of the time they'll have to look up the answer and leave you on hold.
If you have a problem with one of the services, you'll have to contact support to get help. Hosting companies with good ratings tend to make it very easy to contact support. They provide toll-free numbers, 24/7 service, email and chat alternatives with minimum response times, as well as community forums and bulletin boards.
But most cheap hosts make it hard to find support. Toll-free numbers, if available, are often only available to higher paying customers. And email and chat support may exist, but response times may be listed as a matter of days - not minutes. If you are running the $3000/month website above, every day that you are having trouble means reduced revenues. If you have a question about the PHP they just installed, and it takes 4 days for their support to respond, that's $200 or more that you've lost in waiting. And chances are the response you get won't be the end, you'll have to send a follow up taking more time, and increasing the amount of money your site loses.
So You Decide to Leave - and Even That Can Cost You
Many of the lowest cost hosting providers stay so cheap by offering only long-term contracts. You pay $1 per month, but you have to pay for 5 years up front or $60. They often don't have any trial period, so once you've paid that $60 you're signed up and can't cancel.
If you decide that the costs are no longer worth the benefits of paying only $1 a month, you can move your website, but you may have trouble getting the DNS switched for your domain name.And some providers even have a cancellation fee - which means that it's cheaper to simply leave and go to a new host, but not tell your cheap hosting provider that you're going. But be sure to cancel the credit card you paid with, as some providers have rolled over accounts to a new 5-year term at the end of the old one.
How to Find Good Support
But how do you find a hosting provider who offers good support that won't gouge you? Here are some tips to look for:
- Do they offer "tiered" support?
In other words, do some account types get better support options than others? This means that the support offered for the cheapest level is going to be minimal at best. Support costs money, and if you're not paying them, they won't pay support representatives to help you. - Do they offer phone support?
If they offer phone suport:- Is it toll-free?
- What are the hours?
- What do other people say?
Look at places like my Web hosting reviews to find out what people say about the hosting providers.
