Let's say that you offer a package with 1G traffic/month.

Do you think is normal that your client asks for the whole year traffic when paying for 1 year?
I mean he's buying also the 12 Gb traffic.

I do not know if this is very commercial, but sometimes I think that a reseller would like to have all the traffic he paid for. I suppose that if you are paying a monthly fee of x dollars for 40 G traffic and you are using only 20 you may appreciate if you have the option to use the difference in another month (something which can be called "traffic planning" (-: )

Please let me know your opinions (sorry for my English).

It wouldn't be right; no matter what the plan details are, to receive anything other than what was agreed upon.
If you went into a restaurant and ate only half your french fries, and then did it again on the following day. You certainly wouldn't expect to receive a free order on the third day. It would be nice; but it's not the way it works.
Of course, this might only make sense to me:rolleyes: But, I'm too:cool:

Prices are based on overselling and not actual usuage, so there is no way a 'bank your bandwidth' system would work. Lower prices depend on the fact that you won't use it all.

For an idea, (and *still* this is oversold, so it is still not actual), check out the prices for similar 'adult' hosting packages. Similar space, transfer but note the monthly price...

If you wish to do something like that the way I would go about it is at the end of the year add up all the bandwidth from month to month and pay back to the client the amount that you owe him/her. Ofcourse taking into calculation those months that you charged for extra bandwidth usage and ..... well you can all imagine the figuring nightmare that is about to unfold so if you want to waste days of calculating which would most likey work out to be only a $10 or $20 rebate all the power to you. :smokin:

I was thinking at mobile phone companies which have the following system:

- you pay a monthly fee including a number of minutes;
- at the end of the month the unused minutes are transferred in the next month; if you don't use them this month you loose them;

I think that this is more flexible and more convenient for somebody developping a web site and not using all the available resources at the beginning.

Perhaps this can be used as a "fidelity prize".

And for SoftWareRevue: in certain restaurants (of course not the high class ones) you have the right to take with you the food you haven't eated so.... Not all web hosts are high class and in my opinion almost all of them can be compared to a neighbourhood restaurant with excellent food, good service and acceptable prices (especially resellers).

...then you would have to raise your prices. Since many hosts lower their prices by playing with the game that your customer's won't use up all their bandwidth.

:uzi: :scatter: :rolleyes:

I like to refer to webhosting to a buffet dinner. For example they charge $$ per head and eat as much as you can the nice food/drinks/delicacies. Hehe, your tummy is like the bandwidth you used/eat, so I guess most Host is taking a gamble that the small eaters will compensate for the big eaters.

Let's take another scenario:

1. You have a hosting package with a reasonable margin.
2. You charge the same price as other competitors for the same specifications.
3. Offering this option to your potential customers could be a competitive advantage.

4. Since your margin is still comfortable combined with the fact that having several clients you can buy traffic at lower rates I don't think that a price raise is a must.

Hi,

I think this is a good idea and it would be at the advantage of some people. Although I don't think it would attract many people since you will have to charge more per GB for the reason explained by others above. Only "experienced" clients who have hosted sites with other companies before would know it could be bether for them.

Don't forget that companies like tera-byte.com offers 20 GB of bandwidth for less than 10$/mo. Of course they don't expect you to use 20 GB or they would charge 3-4 times more, but how can you beat that?

May be by specilizing yourself in area that most of these webhosts aren't interested because with the bandwidth gamble they take, they would loose money. I am refering to audio/video streaming, image galeries, adult websites, file archives, etc.. I think this is the only people who would take advantage of your billing system.


Just my opinion..


Cedric

In fact which is the real price of traffic. As far as I understood from some threads here 1Gb = 2 dollars.

Is this right ?

Well, prices differ. The more you buy the cheapest it is. If you're colocating a server, you will be paying from $1.50 to $5/GB, may be more. Remember that a lot of colo provider expect that you'll be doing less than offered (especially efreeservers).

Also some bandwidth is of higher quality than others. If you're provider is using UUNET you should expect to pay more than for Cogent bandwidth for exemple. It's really not the same kind of thing.


Cedric

Hi all,

Thank you for your replie which helped me to better arrange my ideas. I'll test this strategy with a few clients and I will let you know about the feedback.

Thanks again.