ALL WEB HOSTING MANAGERS, please listen in :)

After your years of experience which type of web hosting business model brings in most profits and signups?


1. Your pricing is average but each month you run Special Offers which give high bandwidth and space. This setup ensures that you don't look cheap and your customers are not likely to cancel their account because they got it on special. Example: OLM.net

2. You give high bandwidth and space with no special offers. Example: Hostrocket who gives 15gb transfer and 350mb space for $9.95 or RackShack who offer lots of bandwidth. This setup makes the host look cheap, attracts newbies who want everything for nothing and on top of that people cancel their account whenever they want because it's not on special.. they can get it whenever they want in the future..

In the end does it all equal out?
For example, the mid-price hosting company gets fewer accounts, handles few technical support, hires less people but because they charge more per account their profits are in line with the cheaper-host who has MORE accounts but ends up paying more staff, handles more tech support, etc.

I didn't mean to offend any host out there.. If I did then sorry, I just want to know if customers think of this when they see a particular host. I am trying to step in the mind of a customer :)

Originally posted by universal2001
After your years of experience which type of web hosting business model brings in most profits and signups?
Definately the one that you don't share with your competitors. :)

Seriously, it depends what business model you're more familiar with, what customers you are targeting, etc. Now just remember that the company that offers ultra-cheap accounts not only usually makes less profit, but also has to handle more tech support.
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If I had to pick from only the above two I would choose the first of the two.

Regardless what the host does...note the following:

The longer a customer stays the better. It's been mentioned quite a few times that the customer will require the most support in their first month with the host... in no way do I see it profitable to have a high churn rate considering that fact alone.

Anything you can do to keep your current customers happy is going to save you and the client time and money.

Any plan that says "it's no big deal if we have a high churn rate" scares me...