I'm about to lose my patience with my upstream provider. I ordered another VPS last night, they set it up this morning and messed the password up and I can't login. So I submit a support ticket and they ask, which server is it? (DUH) After I already made that obvious to them. *sigh So I replied and typed it in simple terms so dummies can comprehend it. It's been all day and they still haven't got this fixed. Does anyone know of a reliable host that provides reasonably priced VPS plans to someone who had paid their account on time every month for the past 10 years?
VPS Issues
- Thread starter webling
- Start date
It looks like my provider resolved the login issue. However I am looking for other VPS offers for future use. Once I'm ready to set up another one I want to try other providers to see what they have. I found one that offers a VPS for only $19.95 a month, granted it only has 15GB and 384GB of RAM, but it seems like a good server for someone who simply wants to run a few of their own sites on it. I have my own domains on a 30GB VPS running Plesk 9. I have a dozen of them and would like to move them off their once I get more customers and secure a smaller VPS for my own sites.
Well, that's just for the VPS obviously, cPanel would be an addon. My current VPS is actually $30 a month with 40GB of space. With the cPanel addon it brings it up to $45 a month.
I haven't used DirectAdmin, I've used Plesk and cPanel and am starting to like WMS better than Plesk for various reasons and because when I ran the configuration on setup it allowed me to set up quotas which is something that didn't seem to be present in Plesk. The problem there with the Plesk platform is when configuring user accounts it will not allow you to set a disc quota in that case. I suppose there are ways to go into linux directly and set it up but why do that if you can get a platform that will do it for you?
The VPS I mentioned for $19.95 a mo is unmanaged. I know the costs of Plesk and cPanel for the upstream provider and I know it's not something you can just give away.
handsonhosting
New member
If you're going with cPanel and in the $45/month range, you're in the right market for managed VPS hosting. Much cheaper than that and you have a pretty high risk of dealing with a company that is understaffed for the amount of tickets that they get.
There's definitely some providers out there in the $30/month range with decent disk space and bandwidth, but run a check with them on how many accounts they place on each node and how large the server is that you're going to be on. This will play into a factor of how much CPU power you get to utilize, and the same with memory. 512MB memory is a MINIMUM that I'd put any account on that's running cPanel. Ideally, 1GB+
cPanel will not work efficiently on a server with 256MB of memory (it MAY work, but you're asking for problems, especially after you put an account on there). If you can only get a small amount of memory, stick with DirectAdmin or LxAdmin.
Myself, I use VPS machines for some of our testing accounts or mini-accounts I'm setting up for clients and I won't even touch a VPS unless it has near 1GB memory (and more, depending on the scripts being used on the site).
More and more these days, PHP programs are requiring lots of memory to operate. Wordpress says it requires 32MB, but the reality is, once you add in plugins etc, it can often take up 128MB per processing instance. If you only have 256MB on the machine, you can really hinder basic performance, let alone once the site starts getting traffic (simultaneous visitors would slow down the machine, and enough of them would crash it).
There's definitely some providers out there in the $30/month range with decent disk space and bandwidth, but run a check with them on how many accounts they place on each node and how large the server is that you're going to be on. This will play into a factor of how much CPU power you get to utilize, and the same with memory. 512MB memory is a MINIMUM that I'd put any account on that's running cPanel. Ideally, 1GB+
cPanel will not work efficiently on a server with 256MB of memory (it MAY work, but you're asking for problems, especially after you put an account on there). If you can only get a small amount of memory, stick with DirectAdmin or LxAdmin.
Myself, I use VPS machines for some of our testing accounts or mini-accounts I'm setting up for clients and I won't even touch a VPS unless it has near 1GB memory (and more, depending on the scripts being used on the site).
More and more these days, PHP programs are requiring lots of memory to operate. Wordpress says it requires 32MB, but the reality is, once you add in plugins etc, it can often take up 128MB per processing instance. If you only have 256MB on the machine, you can really hinder basic performance, let alone once the site starts getting traffic (simultaneous visitors would slow down the machine, and enough of them would crash it).
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
to run cPanel effectively you really want min. 1GB Ram, but saying that. you say you have several VPS with the same provider.
even if the provider is top notch, i can recomment big scoots it is still best to spread your servers with several providers rather than having all your eggs in one basket.
That's what I'm starting to think. I kind of new to this so right now I only have two servers. I had a reseller account that I closed this month because I noticed that even though I am allocated a certain amount of bandwidth and certain number of sites I can set up it's much slower than the sites I have on my VPS.
The price I'm currently paying I'm comfortable with, the cPanel VPS has 40GB of space and uses a little under 4GB for all the administrative software.
I'm trying to get a feel for pricing actually as to what I should charge clients and how much space to give with each plan. The thing I see happening is that everyone wants unlimited, but the average user won't use more than 100MB of space. I see many providers offer 3 different plans, but I thought, why not offer a 4th plan to cover a wider market? Maybe start with a $4.95/mo plan and offer 500MB of space and then on the other end offer a 5GB plan for $29.95. The thing is I don't have all the experience other companies do that have been in it for awhile where I can see more clearly the needs of clients. I know what I look for but that doesn't mean it is the same as the general population. I learned awhile back in marketing to test your market. The only way I know how to do that with web hosting is to look at what my competitors are doing. Now, the other thing and one we are all up against are the monster companies that offer unlimited hosting for $3.95 a month. We know in reality that they really can't allow one person to use all the space on a server for that price, so the consumer is obviously deceived. And this is what I wrestle with maybe because I am very technically minded. I can sit down and come up with 4 plans that will be fair to the company and the consumer as well. However, in the real world this just isn't happening.
That's true. The provider I have started their VPS plans originally with 256MB of Ram. My sites kept going down and I wondered why. I had to go in and reboot so the sites would come up. What was happening is the server was literally crashing and so they changed the VPS plans to 512MB of RAM and I haven't had a problem since. Now, once I get more sites on them I'm sure I will have to upgrade the RAM, but for now things are running smoothly.
That's what I've been seeing concerning the cost on managed VPS. I have reviewed the licensing costs for Plesk and cPanel and I know they are a bit hefty. I don't have a problem configuring a linux box to run my own sites. So a barebonez VPS for my own sites might come into the picture eventually.
Several years ago I had a wire installed in my home to run my servers on, but that didn't last long since I didn't have the security set up that the data centers do and my linux box got cracked. I had to do a full reinstall of Red Hat and start over and reinstall all the software I used on it. I had the hub and services for my IRC network on that box also. Not long after that I moved everything to two data centers and now I don't own hardware, everything is virtual and even though I don't have the luxury of sitting in front of the physical machine, it's a better situation for me because I can still do everything I did before without the trouble of coming home and finding my box was down. If I couldn't fix it, that meant I had to physically take it to my repair guy and even though he would get it done fast being that it was my server, it was still usually offline for two days.
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easyhostmedia
Well-known member
we are not up against are the monster companies that offer unlimited hosting for $3.95 a month we are up against the ebay clan offering unlimited reseller plans for $2 a year
i offer 4 plans of shared, 3 reseller and 1 master reseller, plus a couple special ebay plans and this works. price is just trial and error, see what your full costs are per server and then work out stepped prices to cover these costs + a profit.
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
this is what we are fighting against
http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/sh...dollar-hosting-low-0-89-month.html#post149995
look at his prices
http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/sh...dollar-hosting-low-0-89-month.html#post149995
look at his prices
handsonhosting
New member
With regards being up against larger companies, in reality, they're not your competition. You need to use REAL competitors. If you are trying to operate a business on a shoestring budget with limited resources, comparing yourself to GoDaddy for example is not a real world comparison. They are not your competition. Comparing yourself to an overnight host run by a hobbiest for pennies is also not your competition.
Just like the corner grocery store or gas station, their competion is not Walmart( which is only a mile down the road), they are competiting strictly against other similar businesses. There's something that the corner grocery store offers that the giants such as Walmart can't offer - customer service. Sure they have someone at the door that says hello when you enter, and there's thousands of selections within their building, and for the most part, the checkout stations are usually fairly nice when putting your groceries in bags, but that's nothing compared to a corner grocery store that knows your name, knows what you want, asks about your kids, gives you free doughnuts & coffee in the morning, and creates a welcoming atmosphere.
So it's time to re-evaluate your competition, and find out just who really is your competition. Companies selling unlimited hosting are not your competitors. People selling web hosting for dirt cheap are also not your competition. If you want to lump them in as your competition, you have to be ready to explain why you're better.
For our company, when we started, 10MB of disk space was what the competition offered - but just because THEY offered that, it didn't mean we did.
Up until last year, we still offered web hosting space at $5 for 1GB of disk space. With today's technology and resources, we're able to offer more than that, but you get the idea.
Don't compare your prices to that of your competition. Offer value to your customers, and no matter what the price, you will have customers that will pay. You have to distinguish yourself against the competition, and before you know it, you'll be selling web hosting for 15+ years and not even know it!
We've been in the business since 1994 (nearly 18 years now), a lot of things have changed, but many things remain the same. Customer service is still a priority, and most customers HATE large corporations with hundreds of thousands of clients. Our company has no ambition to be dealing with tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year - it's just too much work
Just like the corner grocery store or gas station, their competion is not Walmart( which is only a mile down the road), they are competiting strictly against other similar businesses. There's something that the corner grocery store offers that the giants such as Walmart can't offer - customer service. Sure they have someone at the door that says hello when you enter, and there's thousands of selections within their building, and for the most part, the checkout stations are usually fairly nice when putting your groceries in bags, but that's nothing compared to a corner grocery store that knows your name, knows what you want, asks about your kids, gives you free doughnuts & coffee in the morning, and creates a welcoming atmosphere.
So it's time to re-evaluate your competition, and find out just who really is your competition. Companies selling unlimited hosting are not your competitors. People selling web hosting for dirt cheap are also not your competition. If you want to lump them in as your competition, you have to be ready to explain why you're better.
For our company, when we started, 10MB of disk space was what the competition offered - but just because THEY offered that, it didn't mean we did.
Up until last year, we still offered web hosting space at $5 for 1GB of disk space. With today's technology and resources, we're able to offer more than that, but you get the idea.
Don't compare your prices to that of your competition. Offer value to your customers, and no matter what the price, you will have customers that will pay. You have to distinguish yourself against the competition, and before you know it, you'll be selling web hosting for 15+ years and not even know it!
We've been in the business since 1994 (nearly 18 years now), a lot of things have changed, but many things remain the same. Customer service is still a priority, and most customers HATE large corporations with hundreds of thousands of clients. Our company has no ambition to be dealing with tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year - it's just too much work
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
i showed that link as an example of what we are up against, but with me and my business, as long as i am getting clients and making a realistic profit and not losing clients i am happy. infact today i have just provisioned a new server due to an increase in clients
I saw that one in a google search, I wondered how on earth can they do such a thing and even succeed at it? Unless they are just cramming them all into a machine and the sites are very slow.
I had talked to the owner at my upstream provider awhile back and he didn't give me any real answers but told me basically to provide top notch support. Which made sense to me because that's the biggest thing I look for is good support.
With regards being up against larger companies, in reality, they're not your competition. You need to use REAL competitors. If you are trying to operate a business on a shoestring budget with limited resources, comparing yourself to GoDaddy for example is not a real world comparison. They are not your competition. Comparing yourself to an overnight host run by a hobbiest for pennies is also not your competition.
Just like the corner grocery store or gas station, their competion is not Walmart( which is only a mile down the road), they are competiting strictly against other similar businesses. There's something that the corner grocery store offers that the giants such as Walmart can't offer - customer service. Sure they have someone at the door that says hello when you enter, and there's thousands of selections within their building, and for the most part, the checkout stations are usually fairly nice when putting your groceries in bags, but that's nothing compared to a corner grocery store that knows your name, knows what you want, asks about your kids, gives you free doughnuts & coffee in the morning, and creates a welcoming atmosphere.
So it's time to re-evaluate your competition, and find out just who really is your competition. Companies selling unlimited hosting are not your competitors. People selling web hosting for dirt cheap are also not your competition. If you want to lump them in as your competition, you have to be ready to explain why you're better.
For our company, when we started, 10MB of disk space was what the competition offered - but just because THEY offered that, it didn't mean we did.
Up until last year, we still offered web hosting space at $5 for 1GB of disk space. With today's technology and resources, we're able to offer more than that, but you get the idea.
Don't compare your prices to that of your competition. Offer value to your customers, and no matter what the price, you will have customers that will pay. You have to distinguish yourself against the competition, and before you know it, you'll be selling web hosting for 15+ years and not even know it!
We've been in the business since 1994 (nearly 18 years now), a lot of things have changed, but many things remain the same. Customer service is still a priority, and most customers HATE large corporations with hundreds of thousands of clients. Our company has no ambition to be dealing with tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year - it's just too much work
Thank you for this insight, it's very valuable and very much appreciated.
I looked at big scoots and they have some good plans. I will definately retain their URL for future reference.
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HostXNow
Member
Or minimum 512MB RAM BUT with an additional 256MB/512MB of burstable RAM.
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
cPanel actually recommend 1GB although it will run on 512MB
http://www.cpanel.net/products/cpanelwhm/system-requirements.html
personally i wont run cpanel on anything less than 1GB and wont recommend to any of the VPS i sell to run it with less than 1GB
i have even seen cpanel on a 256MB server but amazingly slow when a client come to me from another host who sold him a 256mb server with cpanel
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HostXNow
Member
It was changed around Jun 2010 http://web.archive.org/web/20100615...t/products/cpanelwhm/system-requirements.html
But I agree, 1GB guaranteed RAM is much better.
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