Researching potential new clients is a big part of what we do every day at RLC Design Services. Like any other business, we need to stay busy and that means looking forward for new customers. And while we do our research we often stumble across some pretty shocking numbers for website hosting.
The 1990’s are over
Time and again we’ve stumbled across small website hosting companies that are charging like it’s the 1990s. Folks, it isn’t the 90’s, and you’re getting ripped off.
When people first started venturing onto the Internet and creating their own sites online the availability of large hosting companies wasn’t there yet. So many small mom and pop hosting companies popped up in towns across America. These web hosting companies had a lot of overhead. Paying for bandwidth as a small business, having a small client pool, etc. So they charged some pretty steep rates to get you online, and it was understandable then. Supply and demand, economics stuff.
Today there are many large and well run hosting companies. And they offer some pretty impressive packages. Packages that the smaller site hosting companies seem to ignore. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about.
Paying too much for your hosting
See, not kidding. This screen shot is from the host in question.
One chain of RV Resorts that we’d like to help hosts with a smaller tech company. And from the tech company’s own website we found their service offerings. Here’s the breakdown on their web hosting prices.
- $25 per month for 100 MB of space
- 1 GB per month of bandwidth
- 10 E-mail Accounts
- Webmail
- 1 FTP account
- Database usage costs another $15 per month per database
That’s their low end hosting package. The RV Resort chain that we’re trying to land has 8 websites hosted with these guys. 8x$25 per month yields $200 per month for their hosting (and that’s the low end package). $200 per month over the course of a year is $2400 a year for hosting. Their higher end packages run $35 and $45 per month. The low end package wouldn’t meet the needs for my single website, The Airstream Chronicles. I use way more than 100 MB of space (we’re talking giga bytes here), and more than 1GB of bandwidth each month.
So, let’s compare, shall we?
Large hosting companies do more
Our sites are hosted with Media Temple. I switched to Media Temple back in 2008. Back then their service and support was stellar. Today they seem to be a little distracted compared to their hay day, but my sites are up and running. What do they include in their pricing packages? Well, take a look at their shared hosting package.
- $20 per month, which is $240 per year.
- Host up to 100 websites
- 1 TB of monthly bandwidth (that’s 1,000 GB of bandwidth)
- SSD (solid state drives) database storage
- 100GB of storage space (that’s 100 times the largest offering of the guys above)
- 1,000 e-mail acccounts
- Creation of multiple databases for WordPress, Joomla, and other SQL driven site builders
So much for so little. There’s no reason to over pay for your website hosting!
Comparing the differences
So lets see. Media Temple will allow me to host up to 100 sites on my shared server for $20 per month. That’s $.20 per site per month. The smaller hosting company will let me host a single site (given space and bandwidth restrictions) for $25 a site. Media Temple includes multiple SQL databases, the smaller shop charges $15 extra per month per database. Are you getting this trend?
Bottom line, hosting a single WordPress site with the local shop will require $25 per month plus $15 per month for the SQL database. That $40 per month for one site, and that works out to $480 per year for one single site. In the case of the RV Resort chain we’re looking at, they’ve got 8 sites. If they were to host with the small shop and wanted their sites on WordPress you’re looking at $3,840 per year.
Whether or not we land this client isn’t relevant. What you should take away here is the fact that you really need to shop for your hosting services. In the case of this small company they’re nailing their clients on hosting prices.
Website hosting has gotten cheap
The cost to host a site has dropped over the past 2 decades. And there are some great hosting companies out there that offer a ton for a little amount of money. Then there are the small local companies trying to compete with the big boys. In this case, shopping local can get you burned.
RLC Design Services knows about all of the good hosting companies out there. We’ll be sure to help you get a great deal on your hosting if you don’t have one already. There’s no reason to overpay for space and bandwidth…unless of course you enjoy wasting money.