As a company you can’t really ignore it and even many private individuals need it: web hosting. There are plenty of providers of web hosting packages. The big question is therefore how you make the right choice. We often see that people tend to choose the cheapest hosting they can find. But they usually come to regret that. Cheap usually turns out to be an expensive choice. In this article we give you 5 reasons why cheap hosting is actually expensive. We also tell you what you should pay attention to when choosing your web hosting provider.
These are the 5 reasons why cheap web hosting is actually expensive:
- It offers little disk space and as a result storage that fills up quickly.
- There usually are hidden costs: no free setup, no free SSL, no regular and free backups.
- It’s running on inferior hardware, which means that the speed of your website will be lower.
- The user has less or no influence on the web hosting package.
- The hosting provider does not work environmentally friendly or climate neutral.
Little disk space and therefore storage that fills up quickly
So-called price fighters offer a hosting package for a few euros per month. Often these include 100 email addresses and the possibility to run multiple databases. However, what these companies won’t tell you is that the mail you’ll receive at all those email addresses don’t fit into the purchased package.
Those packages offer so little disk space – and therefore storage room – that it’ll be full within the blink of an eye. It’ll only take one of your aunts sending you her holiday photos once and things’ll be brimming over. Exceedances of your storage space often turn out to be very expensive, or lead to an expensive upgrade right away. Our advice is, therefore, to map out in advance how much disk space you expect to use.
Is your website a onepage business card and not much mail entering your mailbox? Then a budget package could work for you. We also offer budget hosting, but without the excessively expensive upgrades. In most cases you’ll need a more extensive package though. We offer affordable options for all possible scenarios.
No free setup, no free SSL certificate, no free regular backups
Many web hosting providers turn out to charge hidden costs. These hidden costs often include important things, which will make your budget hosting package expensive after all. The first of these hidden costs will reveal itself right after your purchase. Many hosting companies require setup costs for setting up your package. We don’t, because we believe that this should be part of a webhoster’s services.
Other things will come to light at a later stage. The SSL certificate is one of them. In short, this certificate testifies that your website is reliable. If you don’t have this certificate, this can cost you a lot of traffic because search engines and virus and malware scanners will prevent your audience from visiting your site. In addition, various web browsers will tell your potential visitors that your website may not be safe to surf to. You’ll understand that this is a problem if you want to get traffic to your website. Especially when running a company, this can cost you a lot of revenue and, therefore, money.
If free backups don’t come with your package, you’ll often find out when it’s too late. Think the moment you need that backup because your website is no longer running. Understandably, the costs stemming from this issue are potentially be huge. All in all, these hidden costs are a no go if you ask us. As a result, we prefer to keep it simple. Your account setup, SSL certificate and regular backups, they are included in all our packages. Full stop.
Inferior hardware, which will lower the speed of your website
As a web hosting provider, a way to keep prices of hosting packages low is by running things on cheap hardware. Consider, for example, choosing HDD instead of SSD discs. However, a choice like that always comes at the expense of the accessibility and speed of your website.
Speed is important to the success of your website. A fast website will rank higher in search results. Your visitor also wants to see your content appear quickly. Otherwise he or she will definitely click away. In short, you want your website to run on servers that use the most modern technology. All our hosting packages run on SSD storage.
No or less influence on the content of a web hosting package
Our sister company Uisce Web Development, regularly complains about it: web hosting companies that give their customers little control over the design and settings of their own hosting package. As a result, your web design wishes may always remain dreams, simply because your hosting provider does not support it.
Within our product range you can organise a lot and determine even more. We are happy to help you find the ideal hosting package to suit your wishes. We even offer a customised package we can customise to fit those special requirements. The possibilities will surprise you!
Not environmentally friendly or climate neutral
The last disadvantage of cheap hosting is very close to our heart. Many of the data centres on which cheap web hosting packages run seem to have never heard about climate change. Considering how much energy and raw materials our current online economy costs, this fact is almost unimaginable, but true nonetheless.
We have therefore made the conscious choice to offer environmentally friendly web hosting. Our servers are climate neutral. In the rest of the business operations we aim to cash in on all the environmental benefits we can find. That is the reason we’ll send you your invoices digitally, for example.
We hope that this article enables you to make a better choice. Do you have any questions? Do contact us. We are happy to help you.
