Ever cheaper

[ldcdc]

Hosting is getting cheaper and cheaper. Funny though how this is especially true in the cheap or budget hosting area of the market.

Packages that only a year ago would have been laughed at and seen as bad business, unsustainable, specific of kiddie hosts, are now common place. And what is more remarkable about it, it is that it is not the kiddie hosts who are promoting these packages. It's the old, well established budget hosts who are doing it.

It took only two years for the data transfer and even space allowances to multiply 10 fold, at the same price.

Does this trend make any sense to you? Is there something I'm escaping here or is this truly becoming just a war of numbers?

[pvthosting]

Hosting is getting cheaper and cheaper. Funny though how this is especially true in the cheap or budget hosting area of the market.

Packages that only a year ago would have been laughed at and seen as bad business, unsustainable, specific of kiddie hosts, are now common place. And what is more remarkable about it, it is that it is not the kiddie hosts who are promoting these packages. It's the old, well established budget hosts who are doing it.

It took only two years for the data transfer and even space allowances to multiply 10 fold, at the same price.

Does this trend make any sense to you? Is there something I'm escaping here or is this truly becoming just a war of numbers?

As a host I do offer some low priced big packages. I am not as low as a lot of them are and as stated on my web site I don't want to be. I know I couldn't stay in business by offering pricing as low as some of these hosts do. I've been doing hosting now for 3 years. It first started out as needing a server to host some projects i was working on, then I started selling some space to some of my customers. I have only recenlty been offering my plans to any one with online signup. I've always been pretty reasonable priced I think. Enough to cover my costs and justify the time spent with support and sales. My primary source of income is with bigger projects and managing servers for some large clients in my local area.

My cost per customer is extremely low. I don't spend large amounts of money on advertising. This is what keeps my costs down.  I normally don't get extremely low on my pricing, I have for the month of December offered a substantial discount as a holiday promotion. However, even at the discounted rate it's still profitable. I normally advertise my hosting as "cost-effective" not as cheap.

The majority of customers don't use anywhere near the large number or resources that are sold. (see my post in the overselling thread) I think competition has caused us (hosting providers) to have to offer large numbers and hope it never get used.

[crislem]

The majority of customers don't use anywhere near the large number or resources that are sold. (see my post in the overselling thread) I think competition has caused us (hosting providers) to have to offer large numbers and hope it never get used.

This is what I think too. While resources remained mainly the same, hosting providers noticed that customers don't usually use the amount of space and data transfer they buy so they took the chance of offering more than they can afford, thus trying to beat the competition.

It is kind of unfair for the customers because they buy something that is not 100% there, only for them, but most of them don't know it and sleep well at night. So... I don't know if it's a good thing, but it is for sure a good marketing strategy.

[pvthosting]

It is kind of unfair for the customers because they buy something that is not 100% there, only for them, but most of them don't know it and sleep well at night. So... I don't know if it's a good thing, but it is for sure a good marketing strategy.

I had a friend of mine look over my plans and told me his current host was offering twice what i was for only a dollar more. I asked him if he uses all of it. He said he only uses about 25MB which is way way way under what I was offering. I asked if he'd switch over to me if I'd offer him a special doubled plan for the same price that I was offering before. He switched. To this day he has yet to go over 30MB storage. It's just peace of mind that he's not paying the same for less.