First off this is not an advertisement therefore I will not reveal the company its for so that no advertising is done.

My company I work for has just bought 3 of those new Cobalt RaQ 550s. Two of them have one 40 gig drive in them and one has an 80 gig. We decided to start a hosting company with these. I have worked in the hosting company now for about 2 years but never acually put incharge to plan it all too. Im going to use 2checkout.com but if you know of another merhcant that is very good with reocuring billing please let me know. I have the following ideas for plans but i need to know if you think i could get away with going for higher prices or if they are outragous. Here they are:

All setup fees are 2.95

Plan "A"
200 Mb Space
15 gig Transfer
6.95 a month

Plan "B"
500mb Space
25gig Transfer
14.95 a month

Plan "C"
1 gig Space
40 gig transfer
25.95 a month

Do you think i shoudl throw in anotehr plan like one before A that offers only 100 mb space and 10 gig transfer for like 4.95 a month or something? Please let me know what is best. Thanks for your help.

All I can say is that those are some excellent prices. Just make sure that when you have the funds... expand your company and servers. A lot of companies think getting away on 2-3 servers with hundreds of clients is ok.... but then when a server crashes... hundreds of sites go down... just some words of wisdom.

But again... excellent plans and prices... I would love to see the rest of the plans (mysql, etc). And I don't think an extra package is needed... although it sure might bring in more clients.

-Alec

Originally posted by phpcoder
All I can say is that those are some excellent prices. Just make sure that when you have the funds... expand your company and servers. A lot of companies think getting away on 2-3 servers with hundreds of clients is ok.... but then when a server crashes... hundreds of sites go down... just some words of wisdom.

But again... excellent plans and prices... I would love to see the rest of the plans (mysql, etc). And I don't think an extra package is needed... although it sure might bring in more clients.

-Alec

Well basically only thing we limit them on is the space and bandwidth everything else is basically what the cobalt can take (mysql and stuff). Yes we do plan to expand servers and not over load servers. I could fit almost 400 of the plan A on one server but i would never do that because that would over load the little 1.26 ghz processor and the 512 ram lol...these still are little blue pizza boxes. As you can imagine it costed alot of money to purchase the three servers and transform parts of our building into a small data center with backup power and all. We plan on getitng enough cleints to be able to afford to pay back the inital investment and then buy more servers and who knows...be the next multi million dollar hosting company...but we must start with baby steps first and slowly work our way up. :D Well thanks for that input and more is welcome. I have figured that with these prices we are going to be making enough money to afford running the company and then a good bit extra. Some of these places that do charge a very high amount are really making good profit.

Whether you reveal your company name or not, the rule says that all surveys need to be posted in the ad forums. Hopefully a moderator will move this for you soon.

Your price is very competitive, however, hosting is more than just diskspace + transfer = monthly fee. There are setups involved, and tech support issues to be taken care of. Don't get the impression that you can simply "sell" off your spare resources. Hosting is a full time affair: you and your company need to figure out if it is a proper route to go besides your core business. A lot of companies have failed because they over-extend themselves and enter markets that they don't really have a clue/relevence in.

I didn't write this to scare you. I just wanted to provide the proper warning. I am sure you are aware of these issues as well.

You may also want to consider the network connection you get. It makes a big difference in the pricing. The way you have it now, I presume these are cogent connections?

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
Whether you reveal your company name or not, the rule says that all surveys need to be posted in the ad forums. Hopefully a moderator will move this for you soon.

Your price is very competitive, however, hosting is more than just diskspace + transfer = monthly fee. There are setups involved, and tech support issues to be taken care of. Don't get the impression that you can simply "sell" off your spare resources. Hosting is a full time affair: you and your company need to figure out if it is a proper route to go besides your core business. A lot of companies have failed because they over-extend themselves and enter markets that they don't really have a clue/relevence in.

I didn't write this to scare you. I just wanted to provide the proper warning. I am sure you are aware of these issues as well.

You may also want to consider the network connection you get. It makes a big difference in the pricing. The way you have it now, I presume these are cogent connections?

Peter

First off sorry i saw someoen else in here ask about plans so i thought it could go here. Sorry bout that.

Otherwise umm hosting isnt new to me. Ive beend doing it for about 4 years now and 2 of the years were on dedicated servers and 1 of those years were on our own personal servers. We know lots about hte hosting business and all. We are not new at this. We know there is other things invovled and the full time job part we know and have the extra staff for this. Our current solutions would work great for our clients if we coudl offer them a host too.

I am glad to know that you are well-informed. With your experience and pricing, I am sure you will be successful.

As for the other threads, I think I commented in it as well. The moderators seem a bit slow these few days. (Maybe its time rackshack starts paying them...)

Peter

From a clients perspective, your prices would turn me off a little. They are really cheap, which is great, but that will turn off alot of customers. I would raise your prices $5 for each plan IMO :)

(Disclaimer: I don't work at / own a hosting company, and don't even have a lot of experience purchasing hosting plans...)

While I can see what vigor means about turning off some potential customers, I think you'd also turn off other potential customers if you raise prices -- you might just be aiming at a different clientele. And if you raise prices, you 'risk' getting a clientele who expects more.

Again, I have no actual experience, but these are just some random thoughts I had. Good luck in your venture.

Great prices man. Are you going to colo or purchase your own line?

Originally posted by vigor
From a clients perspective, your prices would turn me off a little. They are really cheap, which is great, but that will turn off alot of customers. I would raise your prices $5 for each plan IMO :)

Yes maybe but i may lose 5 people but get 20. Really i think its good to have lower prices because it goes out to those that are not rich enough to afford expensive hosting but still need a good bit. Our prices are not cheap but not expensive. I know that not everyone is made of money and can afford 26 dollars a month for hosting. I may have been blessed to be able to afford them my self but others are not so blessed. But yes i do see your view on the matter.

Originally posted by Global-Host2
Great prices man. Are you going to colo or purchase your own line?

We have our own lines.

Originally posted by ckpeter
The moderators seem a bit slow these few days.
It goes slower when we have to run across 'em and no one reports the thread. Reports often lead to 5 minute response times :D

Chicken I reported the violations to my thread 3 times today. Shame you simply closed the thread instead of deleting the offending posts first.