Recently we have had a few customers inquire about low budget hosting. They have seen ads for other companies which offer hosting as low as $2 or $3 a month. They want to know two things: 1) How can these companies offer such cheap hosting? 2) Can Visionary Enterprises offer budget hosting?

Let me start with question one. There are several factors that allow these companies to offer cheap hosting:

1. They load servers with as many websites as possible. Via our friends at Name Intelligence, I looked up the IP address of one popular domain registrar and host and found that the IP address, and corresponding server, hosts 1,801 domains. Assuming each account uses two domain names, that’s still 900 accounts on one server. When they guarantee 5 Gigs of space per account, that means each server has in the neighborhood of 4.5 Terabytes of space. Well, not really. These companies gamble on the thought that each customer will only utilize a small fraction of the promised space available. While true, one wonders what happens when each customer tries to max out their available space. Just to note: we currently run about 150 accounts per server and we don’t oversell hard drive space.

2. Google Support. Google support is when you get so fed up waiting for an informed response from technical support that you turn to Google to find your answer. Budget hosts use tiered support levels to elevate support issues from lower knowledge staff to higher level staff. Usually the first couple of tiers are located in offshore call centers. I have read many stories in support forums from individuals who have tried to get specific problems resolved from lower level support staff to only get wrong answers. When the first level doesn’t understand the basic technology they also fail to move the support request of the ladder because they think the problem lies with the customer, not the server. At Visionary Enterprises we know just about all of our clients by name. Not because they call for support all the time, but rather because we have lunch with them, see them around town, attend meetings with them, and see their kids at ballgames.

3. DYI (Do It Yourself). Budget hosting is DYI hosting. The customer sets up all of their own account functions from e-mail accounts to domain name pointers. Visionary Enterprises hosting on the other hand is managed hosting. When a customer needs a new e-mail account, he or she just e-mails us, and we respond with the new username and password. Some budget hosting customers like being able to make these updates on their own, and that is fair. But some customers don’t want anything to do with these types of updates. We at Visionary Enterprises enjoy doing these tasks. That’s why we are in the business.

4. Wal-mart Factor. Many budget hosts have volume deals with major hardware, software, and infrastructure suppliers. When they can purchase equipment for almost nothing, it makes it difficult for small providers to compete. Also, when they deal with millions of customers, making a small amount on each one adds up. Smaller providers must rely on a bigger return on each customer to pay the bills.

These are just a few reasons why budget hosts can offer such cheap hosting. I’ve tried to stay away from ranting, as I know that budget hosts honestly appeal to some people… and that’s fair. But for other people, who don’t mind investing in a better quality product, better access to resources, more personal support, and who want to support their regional economy, we offer advanced and managed hosting.

On to questions two: “Can Visionary Enterprises offer budget hosting?� While we are not ready to open a call center in India, we know that some clients don’t mind the above factors if they can get a lower price. We are currently developing new DYI hosting plans which will be offered at a lower rate than our managed plans.

While I wish I could go into much more detail at this point, I better hold back as no specifics have been put into place yet. However, we are pretty excited about the possibilities that we are exploring. Stay tuned for announcements about these new services soon.

Good afternoon. This is an exciting time for our hosting clients as we are preparing to upgrade our hosting server and its bandwidth. DDoS attacks on other servers within our server group will no longer affect our clients and uptime will be quite nearly 100%. We have built these servers with our own bare hands, so we are confident they will provide even greater quality service than our customers previously enjoyed.

I have added a couple Helpful links for our customers’ use to the right side of our page here. Our Frequently Asked Questions section has been available for quite some time, but we want to be sure that everyone has easy access to quick solutions to common problems that arise. Also there, you will find a link to our support form which you can fill out any time you have a problem or need an update to your website. Very soon we will be switching this to a ticketing system to help make our support system even more efficient and friendly.