I have a new perspective and business model

W

webling

Member
Many web hosting companies charge you a low introductory amount when you are starting off and then gouge you later.

We have a different perspective. We charge you a low introductory amount to get you going, and let you gouge us later! Your costs will actually go down!

I was on the phone with my newest hosting customer today who left WIX after we set up a transfer on her domain. Because WIX makes it so easy but is highly expensive and coupled with the fact she knows nothing about web development I knew she felt a bit intimidated, but liked the extremely low prices I offer now. After talking to her through my FB page she asked if she could have phone support. I told her I would call her as soon as I got her number recorded in my system.

I have a free system for her that only requires a small installation fee and there are no monthly costs ever. She was so happy by the time I got done talking with her that she is now totally content and worry free. I handle all my sales and support personally. I don't know any company that offers support higher than Level 3. This is how I am growing this company and I have more customers lined up now than I ever did before.
 
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I just checked through your website and have 2 questions:

1) How sustainable is your business model? How are you going to make the prices cheaper when they're cheap already?
How much do you reduce them by when they renew?

2) Why isn't your whmcs theme matching the theme of your website? its relatively easy to do, and if you cant do it yourself, because it is easy, it is also very affordable. Most people charge $30 for a basic theme wrap.
 
I don't think I did understand your business model except the mentioned "low pries" and your intention to start overcharging customers at some point?!
 
HostColor said:
I don't think I did understand your business model except the mentioned "low pries" and your intention to start overcharging customers at some point?!
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A lot of things were happening really fast for me. So I think it's only fair to explain a bit.

Yes, I was wrestling with prices for a time. But that struggle ended when I applied my thinking to understand the clients view.

What do a lot of companies do? And I don't just mean web hosting companies. Many offer a low introductory price to bring people in the later gouge them.

What if, we offered a low introductory price, Taylor made to their satisfaction that they could choose from that pleased them? Then later let them gouge us? And through that process we could still make money and the customer was completely happy? That's exactly what I have found and implemented. And my company is actually growing now. I kid you not.

I will not disclose details about my new business model. It doesn't matter, I won't allow others to compete with me.
 
The other issue about low charges is that it usually means packing people in like sardines to turn a profit.

I see that many of your packages are 200MB to 500GB and that Business Accounts are 1GB of DiskSpace with 100 Email Accounts.

Now, 1GB of High IOPS disk is around £0.05p a month that's £0.60p a year, and bandwidth is cheap too, I can see how you achieve the pricing, you keep the number of domains per customer low and with little to no disk space they probably won't have much content, so few visitors, no CPU etc.

Your business account at 1GB however, has nothing more substantial available so should I have a company with say 25 employees, you are saying that they won't have much more than 40MB for each email box.
In my experience, the smaller companies don't complain too much if their site is down for a few minutes, but mark my words, if their email has issues they will be on the phone pretty quickly.

I can't see many businesses giving only 40MB to their employees as a quota (10MB if you have the full 100 accounts you promise), so I think you will be providing lots of "upgrade" support to these customers as they quickly realise they can't operate with such small accounts.

In 2004 (thinking back to being a techie then), when getting a business email was quite a novelty, people had quotas of 500MB and 1GB and it didn't seem enough then.

I might rethink at least the business plan size wise, and if you need to raise the price do so. I found that I got more business customers when I raised my prices.

(My calculations were assuming no website, but that would only lower the amount of space per email).
 
when i look for business hosting i dont look what i need now, i look for what i may need in the future without having the hassle of upgrading. 1GB for a business site especially if its ecommerce will cause issues as its not enough
 
ughosting said:
The other issue about low charges is that it usually means packing people in like sardines to turn a profit.

I see that many of your packages are 200MB to 500GB and that Business Accounts are 1GB of DiskSpace with 100 Email Accounts.

Now, 1GB of High IOPS disk is around £0.05p a month that's £0.60p a year, and bandwidth is cheap too, I can see how you achieve the pricing, you keep the number of domains per customer low and with little to no disk space they probably won't have much content, so few visitors, no CPU etc.

Your business account at 1GB however, has nothing more substantial available so should I have a company with say 25 employees, you are saying that they won't have much more than 40MB for each email box.
In my experience, the smaller companies don't complain too much if their site is down for a few minutes, but mark my words, if their email has issues they will be on the phone pretty quickly.

I can't see many businesses giving only 40MB to their employees as a quota (10MB if you have the full 100 accounts you promise), so I think you will be providing lots of "upgrade" support to these customers as they quickly realise they can't operate with such small accounts.

In 2004 (thinking back to being a techie then), when getting a business email was quite a novelty, people had quotas of 500MB and 1GB and it didn't seem enough then.

I might rethink at least the business plan size wise, and if you need to raise the price do so. I found that I got more business customers when I raised my prices.

(My calculations were assuming no website, but that would only lower the amount of space per email).
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We obviously reach a different niche.
 
Curious on your Wix client move;
Since Wix doesn't allow the exporting of the website, nor support local files or file save options due to how their javascript and font calls work - how is the user saving money by moving?

Are you doing a "File > Save As" and just uploading the raw HTML and hoping that it works, or are you converting their website to another platform?

We move a handful of sites each month from Wix and SquareSpace platforms, but we rebuild the website entirely in WordPress (sometimes similar design, most times with changes).

Just curious how you're moving a Wix created Website to your platform. Seems odd.
 
bigredseo said:
Curious on your Wix client move;
Since Wix doesn't allow the exporting of the website, nor support local files or file save options due to how their javascript and font calls work - how is the user saving money by moving?

Are you doing a "File > Save As" and just uploading the raw HTML and hoping that it works, or are you converting their website to another platform?

We move a handful of sites each month from Wix and SquareSpace platforms, but we rebuild the website entirely in WordPress (sometimes similar design, most times with changes).

Just curious how you're moving a Wix created Website to your platform. Seems odd.
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I'm not, I'm transferring their domain. They were spending unreasonable dollars for their hosting account with WIX and when they saw my prices the registered and ordered an account immediately. I am working with each client to help them recreate their site through free software I offer.

I am seeing a lot of misunderstandings on this thread. Some even saying I am doing self promotion. Which is not my intent at all. I want to bust these companies down to their socks that trap people into spending a lot of money because they make things so easy.

I am one of the few hosting services who is working with clients to bring them a low cost web hosting solution with higher than level 3 tech support because I do all my own sales and support. Some claim most companies offer level 3 support but they misread me because I offer higher than that.

What I am promoting here is a business model that if more hosting companies would lay hold on would stop companies from gouging customers. It's not about me promoting myself, it's about trying to stop the monopolies. My newest customer was literally spending over 300 a year on WIX. Do you catch my drift?

I don't care who any one hosts with, I am just so doggone tired of companies trying to become a monopoly and too many are trying to do it.

I am not fully automated and I do a lot of work and typing to help my customers. That's one of many reasons I still have my very first hosting customer from over 10 years back and still has my Team Hosting Starter plan. Some have speculated that I only offer low end plans, but they have not looked at all my plans. I am the first company that introduced VCS. I have one plan in place for that and currently working out the details of more. I can accommodate most anyone with any shared or IP based web hosting plan they need.

Sorry I have gone on so long, this is not all directed at you, but I have been reading so many posts that just want to criticize, that's not what I am about and I never come on here attacking anyone. I just want to present the thinking that helps all of us do a little better. I hope I can achieve that and help others to grow their companies.

Best regards and thank you for your post.
 
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I wish you luck with your business model. The hosting business is tough so anything you can do to differentiate yourself is good.

One thing to keep in mind with your business is scale. Picture your business in 10 years time with much higher overheads. Will it work with the current pricing?
 
My only word of caution is that if you're doing "X" amount of work to help the client, but you're not being reimpursed for that work, you're not going to be able to keep it up in the long term - or the quality will suffer.

If you are doing work for a client, whether that's moving an account, redesiging a website, etc etc, you should be compensated at some level. Receiving a basic level hosting payment for a complete website design (rebuild using another system) is not a recommended approach.
 
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