Many pay a monthly plan, but

lweeks — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:55:43 +0000

Many pay a monthly plan, but it is probably more expensive per month. There could also be billing cycles where you sign up for two years, or one year, or 3 months, and pay for everthiny up-front.
The same can be true for domain registrations as well.

birch wrote: I's good to

Freedom — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:48:10 +0000

birch wrote: I's good to pay in advance once you are settled and have spent some time with your hosting company, but not at some initial stage.

Do you think it's possible?

I's good to pay in advance

birch — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:02:36 +0000

I's good to pay in advance once you are settled and have spent some time with your hosting company, but not at some initial stage.

Thanks for that detailed

tummy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:12:51 +0000

Thanks for that detailed reply, Greg.

Quote: I tend to think if

Greg K — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:16:30 +0000

Quote: I tend to think if they make you sign on for a full year, they are worried about loosing you after a few months. And why would they be worried about that if they provide good service?

Another possibility is people (and I have known a few) who will jump ship and run to another host just becasue it is a $1/ month cheaper.

Also it is business sense, they run a business, for finacial reasons it is their benefit to show they have customers "locked in" for a year. (ie, they need to finance more equipment, etc), they can show more cash in their accounts earlier. There are several business reasons why that would not have to do with worried about loosing to bad service (besides, most offer a money back guarantee anyhow). Not saying your reason isn't valid, just offering that there is more to it than that.

Most sites that do offer both monthly and other terms (quarterly, etc) will offer a discount for longer periods. Some cheaper sites ($1/month) will only do a year becasue it is more cost effective billing wise (figure they loose around $.20-$.30 fee PER credit card transaction PLUS a percentage of each one... in processing fees)

I have been with the same hosting company since 1997. I have yearly billing as it saves me money. I understand starting with someone new, you may be gun shy, but IMO after a year, you should be comfortable with your host, and not needing to jump ship.

I have just recently started using a second hosting company, becasue quite frankly, it is for a church, with low traffic, and after several months, their service seems reliable enough for a "cheap site", ($1/month) and to be honest I'm still using this site to monitor the consistency of the hosting company for possible use of more visited site.

Now, for the company I work for, we have a dedicated server. Although we pay monthly, we did have to sign a contract for a 1 year period. They do this becasue after all they are buying the equipment and setting it up, they don't want to do it one month and take it back down the next..

Just my $.02 worth.

-Greg

I would never sign up with a

teammatt3 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:52:49 +0000

I would never sign up with a host for a full year. I've had a ton of bad hosts over the years and I'm glad I could leave them when I wanted.

My dedicated server host had a lot of plans (they waive the setup fee if you signed on for a full year). I still choose the more expensive monthly plan just so I could leave if they weren't very good.

I tend to think if they make you sign on for a full year, they are worried about loosing you after a few months. And why would they be worried about that if they provide good service?

All hosts I've signed-up

JeevesBond — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:05:22 +0000

All hosts I've signed-up with (shared, VPS and dedicated server) have charged by month. The dedicated server providers did make me sign a contract for a year however.