Shared Hosting Price Suggestions?

[Sidular]

I've been thinking about moving on over to the 'limited' world of operation, even though I myself strongly believe in the unlimited hosting plan. I'm mostly doing this so I can properly abide by the rules on the various hosting forums and communities, as most of them disallow 'unlimited' providers from posting onto their advertising sections.

I honestly don't entirely believe that this decision is wise, but it would certainly be much easier (and less expensive) to sell predetermined quotas, at least for the time being.

I've been thinking about introducing the following plans, but have absolutely no idea on what a proper price should be. So, can you guys throw some recommendations my way? What do you believe is a fair price for each of the below plans.

Plan A.
Disk - 5 GB
Web - 80 GB

Plan B.
Disk - 10 GB
Web - 175 GB

Plan C.
Disk - 15 GB
Web - 300 GB

Plan D.
Disk - 20 GB
Web - 500 GB

Plan F.
Disk - 30 GB
Web - 750 GB

Plan G.
Disk - 40 GB
Web - 1000 GB

Plan H.
Disk - 60 GB
Web - 1750 GB

Plan I.
Disk - 90 GB
Web - 2750 GB

Plan J.
Disk - 120 GB
Web - 4000 GB


Not all of the above plans will make the cut, or even be practical to host. However, just pretend for a moment that you see a provider offering those exact plans, what price would you be willing to pay? What's fair?


Thanks guys!

 

[Sidular]

Also, what about a custom plan, where you can choose the amount of space you'd require?
How much should a host charge on a per 500 MB basis? (bandwidth & disk space)

Should this kind of plan automatically 'grow' as you do, sort of like a cloud host?

 

[Posilan]

What do you believe is a fair price for each of the below plans.

It's difficult to say what a fair price would be without knowing what your running costs are (are you a reseller or to you own your own kit?).

For example if you were simply reselling another companies hosting, you have fixed monthly fees so it's fairly simple to calculate by working out the buy price, what your additional monthly costs are and what profit you want - then compare what similar reseller competitors are offering.

This however wouldn't work the same if you (like us) you have datacentre rack, power & connectivity costs, own your own hardware & infrastructure etc and staff to support and monitor it all.

That's why some people can advertise on eBay selling the "moon of a stick unlimited hosting" for £1 a decade for possibly an unreliable and unsustainable service, and we have to apply sensible but sustainable prices.

Steve

 

[bunnykins]

Plan A.
$2.50
Disk - 5 GB
Web - 80 GB

Plan B.
$5
Disk - 10 GB
Web - 175 GB

Plan C.
$12.50
Disk - 15 GB
Web - 300 GB

Plan D.
$15
Disk - 20 GB
Web - 500 GB

Plan F.
17.50
Disk - 30 GB
Web - 750 GB

Plan G.
19
Disk - 40 GB
Web - 1000 GB

Plan H.
21.50
Disk - 60 GB
Web - 1750 GB

Plan I.
25
Disk - 90 GB
Web - 2750 GB

Plan J.
27.50
Disk - 120 GB
Web - 4000 GB

There you go those are my suggestions. I also agree with the custom plan.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Bunnykins seems a fair range of prices.

If you are looking a custom packages and you are using WHMCS, consider this

http://www.whmcs.com/addons/configurable-package-addon/

as it will automate custom plans the clients design themselves

 

[xbroshost]

you should have to make price plan as requirement of the plan configuration.

 

[easyhostmedia]

you should have to make price plan as requirement of the plan configuration.

The OP is just looking for guidance on prices, but as Posilan says its hard to provide as we dont know what his outgoings are

 

[SwitchMyServer]

Without knowing your costs it would be hard to try and figure out pricing.

 

[Collabora]

The OP is just looking for guidance on prices, but as Posilan says its hard to provide as we dont know what his outgoings are

Without knowing your costs it would be hard to try and figure out pricing.

Nonsense. Op doesn't have to post costs to get advice. Guide should be the market, not your costs. If your costs are not in line with market prices, do something about costs, not the price. If a host needs to charge 3x more than anyone else to cover costs and follows this advice, he will pay the highest price: failure. In some scenarios, operating at a loss is a better option.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Nonsense. Guide should be the market, not your costs. If your costs are not in line with market prices, do something about costs, not the price. If a host needs to charge 3x more than anyone else to cover costs and follows this advice, he will pay the highest price: failure. In some scenarios, operating at a loss is a better option.

another thing that you are right and EVERYONE else is wrong AGAIN

anyone in business knows to work out your own prices you have to work out what your costs are to work out what prices you charge. Such in retail the normal practice is to charge 2 and half times what you you paid wholesale, but sometimes this equation does not work if you look at what other charge.

one example several years ago i purchased a britney spears doll set to sett on my stall, i only purchased 1 and was able to sell for £15 ( i purchased this for £4). the exact same item was in a national retail chain for £25, so if i got 1 for £4 a national chain would have purchased hundreds of these, so what would they have paid per unit.


so the fact is that whatever you are comfortable with and still makes you a decent profit is what you should go with

 

[Collabora]

Op is an experienced host and not necessarily asking for Price X to make Y dollars. Context is everything

another thing that you are right and EVERYONE else is wrong AGAIN

Sheesh, more misquotes and another post derailment. well at least you quoted me almost correctly. that's an improvement. I can only hope that the casual reader reads my original post instead of your version.

 

[easyhostmedia]

well at least you quoted me correctly. that's an improvement.

everything runs down to Profit and Loss at the end of the day, if the OP has worked out his prices for unlimited plans then he should be able to use the same formula for working out limited plans.

he could also check out what other charge for like for like plans

take is plan C for an example where bunnykins says $12.50

Plan C.
$12.50
Disk - 15 GB
Web - 300 GB

seems a fair price, but then what is also offered on the server

litespeed
RVsitebuilder
RV skin
WHMReseller or similar
ConfigServer eXploit Scanner (cxs)
etc.

As all these add to your overheads, which all need to be taking into account when working out your prices

 

[Sidular]

Didn't expect for this to turn into a debate.

easyhostmedia; although I agree with you, and the others here who understand the importance of the outgoing rates, this was intended to be more of a general all-purpose question, rather than a technical one.

I was curious as to what everyone here would consider to be a fair price for the plans listed. Basically, a price they'd expect to see from a hosting provider offering those plans. Just your general price expectation if you were to see such a plan being offered by a certain web hosting provider.


I actually don't intend to create any of those plans, at least not with my current provider. Considered it, but ultimately decided against it. Business is going fairly well with my current strategy, so there's no real need to change things up just yet.

if the OP has worked out his prices for unlimited plans then he should be able to use the same formula for working out limited plans.

Sorry, I just couldn't let this one go.
Unlimited plans simply remove the use of a predetermined quota. Most customers tend to use less than 2 GBs of total disk space, and 20 GBs of bandwidth. At least, that's how it is on my network. Basically, the 'formula' estimates the total number of theoretical accounts a single server can hold based on the usage average, and everything's worked out from there.

Now, with the mentioned limited plans, X amount of space must be dedicated to a single web hosting account, or else you risk overselling the resources. I tend to put ethics over profitability, which is why I'd vow to never sell more than I can actually provide, at least in regards to the amount of predetermined resources available.
So, when working with predetermined quotas, you cannot simply use the same unlimited strategy, as the two plan configurations are entirely different. To compare, and I apologize if this isn't the bet analogy, you can't simply paint an orange red and call it an apple, as at the core, it will always remain an orange.
You would instead have to throw that orange away, and replace them with real apples.

Basically, some things just can't be migrated over. You can rebrand as a limited host, but if you don't change your strategies to match that of your new hosting market, it'll likely result in failure.

 

[Collabora]

Consider offering a single limited plan, but large enough so that the resources offered are much higher than what can be used by a personal or small biz web site in a shared hosting environment (per tos). Here you can offer what is effectively an "unlimited plan" while at the same time provide the limits required by some forums. For example offer a single 25 GB plan priced at your competition's 5 GB plan price or your original unlimited price -- operating under the assumption that virtually all sites will not go over 5gb anyway. (of course you may have to "oversell" to do that)

This will at least allow you to use the same formula.

Like you said, your calculations to predict PL will change with the multi-tiered approach since you will have a mix of products and pricing with an unknown percentage of each contributing to total sales. Information about these percentages by the others here, rather than insisting to know your costs, would be most helpful here.

 

[easyhostmedia]

You use the same formula as no matter if you decide to sell limited or unlimited plans if your server costs you $1000 a month then this is your outgoings and this does not change if you sell limited or unlimited, so you have to work on this fee to make a profit. this is basic business sense.

no good costing you $1000 a month so you work out your plans and only take an income of $300 a month.

 

[Posilan]

Nonsense. Op doesn't have to post costs to get advice. Guide should be the market, not your costs.

I disagree - It absolutely depends on if the OP is a reseller or owns his own kit. Also, pricing up a product or service without fully understanding the costs is the quickest way to run into problems.

What is the point of advising him to sell something that is not at a sustainable rate for his business?

Yes, pricing should be competitive with other providers, but I'm sure you will agree there are a lot of "bargain basement" reseller hosts out these that can provide nothing like the service levels that a premium host will.

It is the "type" of underlying service that we need to know before giving accurate advice on what the sell price *should* be - the OP can then see if he can provide the service for that price and still make a profit.

Steve

 

[easyhostmedia]

I disagree - It absolutely depends on if the OP is a reseller or owns his own kit. Also, pricing up a product or service without fully understanding the costs is the quickest way to run into problems.

What is the point of advising him to sell something that is not at a sustainable rate for his business?

Yes, pricing should be competitive with other providers, but I'm sure you will agree there are a lot of "bargain basement" reseller hosts out these that can provide nothing like the service levels that a premium host will.

It is the "type" of underlying service that we need to know before giving accurate advice on what the sell price *should* be - the OP can then see if he can provide the service for that price and still make a profit.

Steve

well said Steve.

Collabora is great at telling everyone they are wrong as if you look through his posts you will see.

 

[Collabora]

more misquotes and another post derailment. I can only hope that the casual reader reads my original post instead of your version.

Looks like Posilan went to the same school as easyhost and failed the class on quoting. Here is the rest of the quote posilan does not want you to see

Nonsense. Op doesn't have to post costs to get advice. Guide should be the market, not your costs. If your costs are not in line with market prices, do something about costs, not the price. If a host needs to charge 3x more than anyone else to cover costs and follows this advice, he will pay the highest price: failure. In some scenarios, operating at a loss is a better option.

If you people aren't equipped to provide pricing guidance without knowing OPs costs, then since he is not giving it, that is an admirable reason to remain silent. But you seem to be able to give it anyway while criticizing me for saying knowledge of his costs is required. The fact you are still posting advice without that knowledge is proof that I was right

 

[Collabora]

Consider offering a single limited plan, but large enough so that the resources offered are much higher than what can be used by a personal or small biz web site in a shared hosting environment (per tos). Here you can offer what is effectively an "unlimited plan" while at the same time provide the limits required by some forums. For example offer a single 25 GB plan priced at your competition's 5 GB plan price or your original unlimited price -- operating under the assumption that virtually all sites will not go over 5gb anyway. (of course you may have to "oversell" to do that)

This will at least allow you to use the same formula.

Like you said, your calculations to predict PL will change with the multi-tiered approach since you will have a mix of products and pricing with an unknown percentage of each contributing to total sales. Information about these percentages by the others here, rather than insisting to know your costs, would be most helpful here.

.....I reposted just in case it got buried on another page by the peanut gallery......

Besides someone has to quote me correctly. It may as well be me

 

[Posilan]

If you people aren't equipped to provide pricing guidance without knowing OPs costs,

If you re-read my posts, I've not asked for specific costs - I've asked what the business model is (reseller or own kit) - this is a vital piece of information.

You can dismiss the experienced advice of your peers as much as you wish - but shouting louder, whilst sticking your fingers in your ears (as you seem to do on most posts on this forum) doesn't necessarily make your opinion the correct one :twocents:

Steve