How Much Should Hosting Cost?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With web hosting it’s hard to know whether you’re paying too much or too little. Recently I got this note via a client, I thought we’d take the time to answer the question in the blog so everyone can benefit.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][inel_blockquotes animation_delay=”0″]Would you mind finding out how much you are charged for your hosting? My guys charge $250 which someone said was outrageous – they said it should be $20! I have no idea so I thought I’d check before I pay it.[/inel_blockquotes][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]What a difference between these costs for annual hosting – $250 vs. $20. No wonder she was confused!

There are many different prices for hosting.  Some charge $1 for hosting and while others cost over $200 a year. Some companies will try to charge what they think they can get away with, but not all hosting is equal. When you are comparing a $1 a year hosting, with $200+ per year, it’s likely you are not comparing apples to apples.

Factors that influence the cost of your hosting

1.  The level of security: if your site hasn’t been hacked, or you haven’t had a security concern then you’ve probably had a good designer and web host.

2. The amount of Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the amount web traffic consumed by visitors to your site.  Sites with lots of visitors each month will use more server capacity and broadband connection to deliver your site’s information.

3. What content do you show on your site? Video and podcasts take a long time to download and use a lot of bandwidth. If you have a low-priced hosting plan this content may not display properly.

4. Does your hosting plan include support?  Some web designers might charge you more for hosting but bundle extra services like free upgrades and performance monitoring. If they are doing this, $250 is not a lot of money, because hiring technical resources to do this type of work is not cheap.

For example, if you have a website which is only getting a few visitors a day then you might be able to get away with a $1 a year hosting plan. People can charge such a small amount by reselling their hosting space to many, many small website owners. They will all be on a single web hosting plan.

Many websites will use the same bandwidth and traffic allowances as one regular website.  If one of these many websites becomes “resource-hungry”, then everyone hosted on the same account will suffer.  In reality, there is virtually no way of managing your quality of service.

If you search for $20 a year hosting offers, you’ll find providers like Dreamhost will provide you with this service, but it’s only for the first year.  Is it worth all the inconvenience (and cost) of moving your website to save $130 for only one year?

If the hosting you choose doesn’t offer free migration, then hiring the tech-person to move your website might cost you $100-$200

And there are hidden costs too…

Every hosting setup is different. If your tech people are used to one host and you choose another it may make their job harder. If something goes wrong, and it’s not a system they’re familiar with, then even the simplest of requests could take longer and be more expensive by the hour.

Don’t be discouraged; it pays to shop around. It’s important however to understand all your hosting features and benefits. Some of those benefits may not be readily apparent (especially if everything has been running smoothly).

All hosting is not equal, especially the cheaper hosting.  If something is not broken and you can afford the cost, why change?

If your website is not working, that’s another story.  You need to find a web host that is reliable, that is it doesn’t have security issues and where your website is ‘up’ most of the time. If you have that, then you are onto a good thing.

Think for a moment about the cost of your website going down. What does it do for your online reputation when people can’t reach your site?  How much frustration does it cause you?  If you had to worry about security breaches, hacking or defacing of your website how much sleep would you lose? These are all things to consider before you buy cheap website hosting.

Asporea have business hosting from as low as $20 per month. You can find a full range of hosting packages and domain names on the website at http://www.asporea.hosting. Additionally if you subscribe to this blog, you’ll get a 25% discount on all our hosting products, for life.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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2 Responses

  1. Nice article James.

    A couple of other considerations that may be important are elasticity to cope with demand and geographic location, backup options (images) and processes, available hosting locations, and access types for administration and engineering purposes. These are often overlooked by most (except the IT guy/girl) but are very important depending upon what you want to achieve.

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