We have reseller accounts on Site5. Site5 had increased the prices of their reseller hosting packages. RS-UNLEASHED was $49/month. It's $70 at this time.

I think we can buy a good managed VPS with this price or by increase our budget little more.

What do you think about this subject?

With that pricing, a VPS can cover it already. But it still drill down to whether you can manage a VPS...

Shouldn't the price stay the same for current customers?

When prices decrease, the customers want in, when they increase, they want to keep paying the old amount. It's not exactly altruistic of them. :)

Let's just hope the new prices will translate into lower loads on their reseller servers.

When prices decrease, the customers want in, when they increase, they want to keep paying the old amount.

Hehe, very true :)

Looks like they have to make up for all the loyal customers who jumped ship.

Why anybody would pay more for the poor service they provide is beyond me.

You can get a managed VPS for 60.00 per month.

Site5 used to be an excellent company. Lately though we have expirienced nothing but troubles.

Support is VERY slow (if they answer)
Their servers are unstable and totally overloaded to say the least, sites are down for hours and this repeats for days
Their email servers reply
Response: '421 Too many concurrent SMTP connections; please try again later.'.
(Account: 'xxx@xxxxx.com', SMTP Server: 'x***********', Error Number:
0x800ccc0f).
Respectfull posts in their public forums get deleted (So they are definetly hiding)



So if you want your customers to yell at you, stay

otherwise Id say..... STAY AWAY



An if you look at websitepulse..... forget it its simply not true... try hyperspin.com instead

When prices decrease, the customers want in, when they increase, they want to keep paying the old amount. It's not exactly altruistic of them.That's true! :smash:

Goes to show you that what many of us have been saying for quite some time is true. You simply cannot have reseller packages in that price range with those resources allocated. Something has to give. I just cannot see a sustainable reseller business model which allows overselling, unlimited domains, etc for under $70. Heck, even at that budget, I am not certain. If I were them, I would consider adding hard limits to the number of domains they allow - I think the problem is that they are too far along now and too many customers would be dramatically impacted by these sorts of limits.

Goes to show you that what many of us have been saying for quite some time is true. You simply cannot have reseller packages in that price range with those resources allocated. Something has to give. I just cannot see a sustainable reseller business model which allows overselling, unlimited domains, etc for under $70. Heck, even at that budget, I am not certain. If I were them, I would consider adding hard limits to the number of domains they allow - I think the problem is that they are too far along now and too many customers would be dramatically impacted by these sorts of limits.

I've got to chime in here, I understand your concerns. To counter your points I have 6 years experience in this business under two separate entities (networkeleven.com networkredux.com) and I disagree with these comments entirely.

Perhaps the differentiation is building an organization on sustainable capital expenditures rather than leasing low grade equipment from datacenters.

In terms of unlimited domains, yes this is a marketing strategy, and yes it can create instability in terms of the eventual size of say an apache thread as a result of massive amounts of virtual hosts and file descriptors, however there are reasonable solutions and these fall into the acceptable margins in the realm of average usage.

To conclude, this is a sustainable business model, so long as the operational management has its head in the game.

I've got to chime in here, I understand your concerns. To counter your points I have 6 years experience in this business under two separate entities (networkeleven.com networkredux.com) and I disagree with these comments entirely.

In terms of unlimited domains, yes this is a marketing strategy, and yes it can create instability in terms of the eventual size of say an apache thread as a result of massive amounts of virtual hosts and file descriptors, however there are reasonable solutions and these fall into the acceptable margins in the realm of average usage.

To conclude, this is a sustainable business model, so long as the operational management has its head in the game.

Thomas, Although I respect your opinion, I do not believe you are seeing the complete picture here.

There is a reason site5 is raising prices and there is a reason that higher priced providers tend to have better stability. Although there are many more variables then just unlimited domains - when you couple this with allowing overselling, single server environments, proliferation of CPU intensive scripts - the equation just doesnt work.

It's ok if you do not agree - however, time and time again it is being proven that reseller hosting cannot be run like shared hosting (and I am not certain how much longer shared hosting can be run in this manner either) - offering unlimited domains,unlimited mysql, overselling, single server environments, etc - will lead to disaster - personally, I do not feel this is a question of "if", rather, I feel it is a question of "when" - I for one am quite pleased to see site5 raise their prices - and I do not think this will just be isolated to them.

Perhaps the differentiation is building an organization on sustainable capital expenditures rather than leasing low grade equipment from datacenters.

From someone that has been in this industry for quite awhile - and who has over $200k invested in tier1 hardware, I can tell you with certainty that the only way to build a business with sustainable expenditures is to build an environment that has the lowest probability for problems. Allowing overselling, unlimited domains, unlimited mysql, unlimited emails, etc - is not a foundation which minimizes the probabilities for abuse and problems...

Abuse will exist regardless as to whether a provider lists unlimited mysql databases or 5 mysql databases. It is the nature of shared environments. Chances are always taken, whether it be the choice of hardware, preservation of data integrity, or the "unlimited" approach to a particular service.

Ultimately, in my opinion, it is a matter of the operation backing the service. The business model is sustainable so long as the operators are willing and capable of maintaining it.

Arguments exist on both sides of the fence, you and are are evidence of that, however I don't believe it is fair to say a model such as ours is destined for failure unless you have specific experience inside our operations. You are certainly afforded the right to analyze the response of unsatisfied customers reporting back to this community, and I personally feel as though your comments in these specific regards to this specific situation/provider are valid and consistent.

I won't comment on site5 because quite frankly I don't think it is appropriate for one web hosting provider to publicly scrutinize or ridicule another's business practices.

We are all providing a service, and the consumer will ultimately weigh in on their preferred solution. In the case of site5, I wish them the best in their pursuits as a solid and well rounded service provider.

Have a good weekend, time to grill!

-Thomas

Abuse will exist regardless as to whether a provider lists unlimited mysql databases or 5 mysql databases. It is the nature of shared environments. Chances are always taken, whether it be the choice of hardware, preservation of data integrity, or the "unlimited" approach to a particular service.

Hi Thomas,

I completely agree - chances are always taken - however, what I am talking about is managing probabilities. There is a big difference between 99.9% and 99.95% or 99.99% - and the only way to make these jumps in availability is to manage probabilities.

Irregardless, you are correct - there is 2 sides of this argument, and even though we may not agree, at least we can discuss it rationally.

Enjoy your grill and have a great weekend !

Shouldn't the price stay the same for current customers?
IMO, yes. I would never increase an existing client's plan pricing. But, it's their business and they're taking drastic measures, and doing what they feel is best for their business. Each to his own.

Increasing prices means decreasing server load :-)

Increasing prices means decreasing server load :-)

Not necessarily, it may mean more support or decreased server load, but it may mean more $ in the owner's pocket. We will have to wait wait and see if they can get things turned around again.

I know. I am just putting some of the possibilities.

I put positive only.


Not necessarily, it may mean more support or decreased server load, but it may mean more $ in the owner's pocket. We will have to wait wait and see if they can get things turned around again.

If current customer pricing are increased, then this is a bad choice on increasing pricing. If they do not increase the pricing, the current reseller will feel happy because he has make a choice by joining Site5 beforehand.

Current customers are "grandfathered in" at their previous rates.

Increasing prices means decreasing server load :-)

If their reseller packages are moving towards reasonable, their shared packages are not. I doubt this move alone will be enough to pull them out of the dirt.

Edit: On that note, I note they have also capped the amount of sites you can host on a shared plan, at least that's a positive.

It seems that Site5 is atleast beginning to try and stem the tide. Time will tell if they will be able to turn the situation back to normal.