Webresellers.net - Sounds too good, Is this normal?

Hi.
I've been doing website design for about 10 years.
Back then, I could only host one website (no multiple domains) for $20.00/Mo.
I'm trying to learn the current price structures.

I'm not trying to pick on this paticular hosting provider.
This website is just a general example.
http://www.webresellers.net/webhosting.htm
Their advanced plan is under $10.00 with 2gb space with 25Gb bandwidth.

My question: Does that reflect normal service plans nowadays?

I hope it's OK to ask this kind of question with a link.

$10/month sounds fair enough. However you can get more space and bandwidth with other hosting such as bluehost.com you can get:
10 Gigabyte Hosting Space
Host 6 Domains on 1 Account
2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
250 GIGS bandwidth permonth

I never use their service before, try to look around for forum discussing web hosting service. and be aware that some of the review is crap as they just rate the hosting according to the one that give the biggest commission to them and their review is not so reliable. The best way is get info from existing user experience. Just my 2 cent. Anyway, i'm using hostgator and never have a problem before.

Cheers!

NO - this reflects a segment of the market called bargain hosting. The web host you mentioned doesnt have prices as low as some others out there (as indicated by xfahmix)

Personally, it really depends what you are using this site for. If this is a business site you are talking about, I would stear clear of these sorts of offers. If this is a personal, hobby site - saving some money can be worth it.

However, it always comes back to the same thing for me - if you have $10 to spend, spend it on a plan that has the amount of resources you actually need - rather then some huge package that 1) you will never need and 2) you will never get to use.

Andrew/Cartika:

Frankly, I'm a bit frustrated with your biased reviews. I'd like to see a single host that you don't consider a bargain webhost that offers shared hosting without packing over 200 websites on a single server. You pack 434 sites on a single one of your servers, yet you charge more than many of these so called "bargain hosts" that pack maybe 50-100 more. The server is overloaded either way.

To answer the question, IMHO I don't see that less than $10/month for a shared hosting plan is anything but expensive. If you want shared hosting, you get packed on a server with 500 other people. If that server costs the host $150 to maintain in a month, then I don't think that charging more than $5/month for each person on the server is anything but fair. If you want quality, go with a dedicated server. If you don't quite need a dedicated box, but you need a little more than a shared host, go with a VPS (virtual private server). Most companies only stick you with 20-30 other sites....a much more realistic load.

Corey

// EDIT: Bluehost packs nearly 1,000 sites on a single box...that is ridiculous. Lunarpages packs about 500, much more "acceptable" than BlueHost.

How do u find how many people are on a server.

You can check how many sites on a server using this whois tools:
http://www.whois.sc/

For example, my server has 1000+ sites on one server
http://www.whois.sc/xfahmix.com

I do agree with truce, if you want a quality hosting, get your self a dedicated server / VPS hosting. What i've seen is the quality of the support and uptime is FAR more important compared to pricing and i don't mind paying extra USD10 just to make sure that i have a reliable hosting.. Unfortunately, if the hosting is expensive it DOES NOT reflect their service quality and reliability. I do rely heavily on user experiences/review before signing up with any hosting company. Just my 2 cents.

I would second blue host. I have found them to more supportive and growing much faster. Currently it is ranked no:6 in my top 10 at http://www.web-hosting-world.com/top-10-web-hosts.php But soon it will be moving to a much higher position.

WOW ! Im sorry I missed this post until now - Ill answer your questions as best I can



Sorry, but I do not believe my answers are biased -

First off - we may have 1 web server with that many domains (out of our 5) - second - these are dedicated web servers - ie) no DB, no email, no control panel, no DNS, etc - we are hosted in a clustered environment - so essentially, those 400+ sites you see on that 1 particular web server, is actually spread out across a total of 6 or so servers - this suddenly doesnt seem so bad does it? - imagine now some of these hosts that have 1000+ domains on a single web server - and that server has all other resources on there as well.... if you do not believe our prices are appropriate - please feel free to take a look at our publicly posted, 3rd party uptime statistics - we have over a years worth of data there - and there is a reason we have an uptime record of 99.95+% on all resources (and this includes scheduled maintenance !)

Care to explain to me how our servers are overloaded?

Here are our server loads as I write this:

web1.cartikahosting.com 0.53, 0.70, 0.46
web2.cartikahosting.com 0.12, 0.23, 0.19
web3.cartikahosting.com 0.18, 0.17, 0.11
web4.cartikahosting.com 0.13, 0.13, 0.09
win-01.cartikahosting.com 0%


If you do not understand the difference between overselling and underselling and between clustered vs non-clustered - that is fine - feel free to ask - I'll be happy to explain it to you.

Examples of hosts that do not oversell their servers:

http://www.monsterhosting.ca
http://www.digitallyjustified.com
http://www.dynamicnet.net




Where the heck are you getting these prices? $150 to maintain a server? Have you completely lost your mind? OK - the server itself (for high quality Dell, Dual Xeon Server, Raid, etc, etc) = $4900+, cost of leasing a cabinet at a quality DC with good bandwith = $2000/month and up, cost of GOOD server admins = $50-$60k/year, Cost of Software, BackUp, etc = several $/year, cost of staff to anwer phones, answer support tickets, etc = $15-$25/hour, cost of good servers, with proven uptime record and competant, friendly support = priceless



Neither of these is appropriate for business - at least not by our clients standards - remember, these are 500 (or 1000) domains + ALL SERVICES - hosted on one server. This is a completely different situation then hosting 500 sites across 6-8 servers.

Remember, just are you are frustrated with my opinions (for whatever reason) - I am consistantly amused to see people suffering from unreliable service, yet countinually shop for cheaper and cheaper prices - theres only so low you can go on hosting prices before something is affected - and its either quality of service, quality of support (or both) that are affected.

Hope this addresses your concerns and as always, please do not hesitate in asking any additional questions you may have ...

Andrew

There isn't normal price structure nowdays, there are many web hosts and many business practices. Usually, it's a 'what you've paid for' situation.

Whatever you do, don't go for a cheap option if you need the uptime to be close to a 100%.

Especially if you're doing web design, when a customers site goes down, the less educated customers don't usually call the web hosting company. So you'd want to spend an extra $ there.

To answer the original poster of the thread, this is slowly becoming "normal" - partially because technology IS making it possible to run hosting companies off of $150/server/month environments. I can't speak for webresellers.net but I do know that there are many hosting companies that are profitable offering hosting at the price point that they are.

Regards,
Roj

It is not possible to run a business grade hosting service with a budget of $150/month per server - even if you have 1000's upon 1000's of servers (ala IBM, Dell, HP, etc) - the economies of scale do not ever hit this number - not without serious compromises - and these are compromises most businesses, which rely on their service - are NOT willing to take.



Profitable - sure - but are they meeting the service levels that all customers demand? If they were, would there be any companies thriving which charge several times more then the dollars you are talking about - with a more expensive cost structre and less clients per server ratio? I wonder why so many business owners shop for this business model? Do you really think savy business owners would pay more when there was zero benefit to do so?

Normally I would agree with most everything Andrew posts, however, Andrew ... I really think you are giving WAY too much credit to business owners.

They simply are NOT that savvy. Fortune 500 CEO's are typically, not that savvy; hell even fortune 500 CIO's for that matter.

Usually what it takes is a shot in the dark to a low-end, low-cost provider (ie. lowest bidder, regardless of preposterous claims) following shortly by extreme critical failure -- THEN they become savvy.

Let them lose a large hunk of annual revenue; that usually brings them around.

Of course, they get a bonus for suggesting a low-cost alternative, and when it fails, they get another bonus for finding a better disaster-avoidance alternative. Win-win.

LOL - cant argue with that - and obviously you are correct - savy business owners are more often then not - spawned by their own mistakes - and only once they have lost several 100 times more in a single day then they pay for their service do they finally grasp the concept of TCO (total cost of ownership)