What do you want in cheap hosting?

Hey guys, I've seen a bunch of threads where people are looking at the cheap/almost free hosting, the hosting that pretends to be free then tries to charge you hundreds of dollars, the hosting that you can't do anything or run anything with, etc etc etc.

Question, what do you look for when you are shopping for the low end cheap hosting? Obviously "unlimited" never is, how far you can spread that varies from host to host.

Out of these features what is most important?

Control panel
FTP
Cron Stuff
Completely n00b friendly
Auto installers
Performance
Other cool utilities
Location
Other: ___________

I'm working on a system right now and am going to be offering something to the community for an affordable price, maybe some free hosting...

Where do you guys see the balance of performance versus price? If I needed $100/mo to run a server and were to sell hosting for $1/mo, I'd need to fit 100 people on the server, which would imply some fairly strict regulations on CPU/bandwidth, etc. If I changed $10/mo, then it's only 10 people, but I could be *much* more lax about everything. What do you look for, the cheapest, "ok" performance server, or would you prefer to pay a little more and know you aren't going to have issues anytime?

On location, where do you prefer: US, Europe, BP style in the Netherlands, Russia, etc? If you were using BP hosting what would you expect to pay as opposed to standard hosting?

What would you do to get $10/mo quality hosting for free? Would a refer-a-friend system interest you or be a waste of your time?

Thanks for your input, looking forward to providing something awesome for you guys!

Oh, another note, what would you guys think of a scaling hosting solution? Say hosting was run off small VPSs, with specific resources. Say it required $40/mo to operate. People could rent the whole thing out for themselves, or open it to other members, people occupying the slot could vote to add more people, bringing the price down and finding the most appropriate balance of resources vs price. Maybe even have some sort of self governing setup?
Or there could be fixed VPS slots with certain ones designated as a 4 person slot, ($10/mo) while others may be a 10 person slot. ($4/mo) If you find yourself running low on resources you just step up a level or vice versa, one click transfers between slots.

Would either of those options be of interest to anyone?

The first thing I want to know is about support - is it there 24/7, and when I say 24/7 I mean a human sat there waiting to answer questions, not just a help desk ticket. If there is a human, I want to know that they have a brain and won't just read from a script, offer stock answers or, and this appears to be the gem at the moment, 'I will pass that to 2nd / 3rd / 4th level techs'. That just yells 'I don't have a clue and that you will be waiting whilst I google the answer'

I want to know if you have physical access to your servers or if you have a good SLA in place with your datacentre to get a blown PSU swapped within 4 hours at 4am on a Sunday morning.

You appear to be concentrating on prices - this is for you to decide, not customers or prospective customers. Everyone will answer that they want the world for pocket change. Its your business, they are your servers and you know what your time is worth so you and you only can decide on resources and prices.

What SHOULD be important to your customers, if they value their business, is the stability of the servers, the availability of support, a FAIR price and the professionalism of you / your team.

Once the whole hosting community cottons on that its not all about price will be the time I think about returning to running a hosting business. Undercutting is not the best approach to hosting

I know this seems like a rant, but its not - after many years of running a few hosting companies (properly running - not a reseller acct run by a teen in his bedroom) I have seen a lot of changes, most for the worst!

I wish you all the success in the world but you will have a long hard struggle to beat off the cheap hosts who offer the world. Target your audience, be honest and offer something that no one else does (what that is who knows!).

Good luck!

Cool, thanks for the info fatboy, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

I want tons of different c class ips, reliable server and fast customer support.

hackNstuff said:

Hey guys, I've seen a bunch of threads where people are looking at the cheap/almost free hosting, the hosting that pretends to be free then tries to charge you hundreds of dollars, the hosting that you can't do anything or run anything with, etc etc etc.

Question, what do you look for when you are shopping for the low end cheap hosting? Obviously "unlimited" never is, how far you can spread that varies from host to host.

Out of these features what is most important?

Control panel
FTP
Cron Stuff
Completely n00b friendly
Auto installers
Performance
Other cool utilities
Location
Other: ___________

I'm working on a system right now and am going to be offering something to the community for an affordable price, maybe some free hosting...

Where do you guys see the balance of performance versus price? If I needed $100/mo to run a server and were to sell hosting for $1/mo, I'd need to fit 100 people on the server, which would imply some fairly strict regulations on CPU/bandwidth, etc. If I changed $10/mo, then it's only 10 people, but I could be *much* more lax about everything. What do you look for, the cheapest, "ok" performance server, or would you prefer to pay a little more and know you aren't going to have issues anytime?

On location, where do you prefer: US, Europe, BP style in the Netherlands, Russia, etc? If you were using BP hosting what would you expect to pay as opposed to standard hosting?

What would you do to get $10/mo quality hosting for free? Would a refer-a-friend system interest you or be a waste of your time?

Thanks for your input, looking forward to providing something awesome for you guys!

Click to expand...

Performance is no.1!

Unlimited everything.
Unlimited SQL DBs, domains, Wildcard subs, you get the picture.

godaddy scares me after seeing godaddysucks.com.
as cliche as it sounds on this forum, i use hostgator

bulk emailing support.

hackNstuff said:

Hey guys, I've seen a bunch of threads where people are looking at the cheap/almost free hosting, the hosting that pretends to be free then tries to charge you hundreds of dollars, the hosting that you can't do anything or run anything with, etc etc etc.

Question, what do you look for when you are shopping for the low end cheap hosting? Obviously "unlimited" never is, how far you can spread that varies from host to host.

Out of these features what is most important?

Control panel
FTP
Cron Stuff
Completely n00b friendly
Auto installers
Performance
Other cool utilities
Location
Other: ___________

I'm working on a system right now and am going to be offering something to the community for an affordable price, maybe some free hosting...

Where do you guys see the balance of performance versus price? If I needed $100/mo to run a server and were to sell hosting for $1/mo, I'd need to fit 100 people on the server, which would imply some fairly strict regulations on CPU/bandwidth, etc. If I changed $10/mo, then it's only 10 people, but I could be *much* more lax about everything. What do you look for, the cheapest, "ok" performance server, or would you prefer to pay a little more and know you aren't going to have issues anytime?

On location, where do you prefer: US, Europe, BP style in the Netherlands, Russia, etc? If you were using BP hosting what would you expect to pay as opposed to standard hosting?

What would you do to get $10/mo quality hosting for free? Would a refer-a-friend system interest you or be a waste of your time?

Thanks for your input, looking forward to providing something awesome for you guys!

Click to expand...

Basically, all of them are important aspects of a quality web hosting service. This is how I would go aspect-by-aspect to check the reliability and quality of the service.

1) Location of the Hosting Provider
2) Shouldn't be a Reseller
3) Uptime Guarantee SLA at least 99.95%
4) Customer support via Live Chat, Phone and Email [tickets]
5) Windows & Linux
6) Popular Control panel should be offered such as cPanel, Plesk
7) Quality Bandwidth
8) Email Sending Capacity
9) Auto-Installers such as Fantastico or Softaculous (preferred)
10) Must support most of the scripting languages
11) Must have an affiliate program
12) Should allow you to upgrade your plan as your site grows.

If a hosting provider is able to provide you with above aspects in affordable price you can definitely signup with them.

As an email marketer, I'd prefer that I can use my VPS to send out emails without being trapped in the spam box.

Really matters

I just want a service that is cheap and has good support. It works and doesn't have any problems. But I also agree with everyone else in this topic.

I didn't know a much about web hosting. If any body gather a lot of information in web hosting plz provide. Thanks for spending your valuable time to read this.