There is a thread http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=65409&perpage=15&highlight=$15%20year&pagenumber=1

where someone asks for a $15 dollar per year host. They got several answers, but also a great deal of scoffing.

From a customers point of view, what can I reasonably expect from a $15 to $25 per year account?

Can I expect them to be there next year?

They may be around next year... but, odds aren't good.

Tru

You cant expect to be refunded when they close down.

Usualy the support isn't all that great, if you even get support. :rolleyes:

i.e.. www.web-mania.com is a cheap little hosting shack, but its support is useless.

Originally posted by Axel Teflon
Usualy the support isn't all that great, if you even get support. :rolleyes:

i.e.. www.web-mania.com is a cheap little hosting shack, but its support is useless.

That is not true all the time. You probably won't get any support at most of the cases but I also found good support / cheap rates.

Originally posted by jrm
<<MOD NOTE: Post removed as it seemed more of a plug than anything even remotely related to the thread>>

I just checked your web site and your prices range from $5.95 a month to $24.95 a month. This is slightly different from the $15/year hosts this thread is discussing.

As others have said, it's unlikely the $15/year host will be around for long.

My impulse is the same as others here...it can't be done....but let's analyze a bit further.

Let's assume you get 1,000 of these clients.
Let's put 500 of those per server and assume they will underutilize so that they will fit on two servers.

That means revenues for the year of $15,000
Server costs @ $129/month = $3,096
Credit card fees using 2checkout.com = $870

So, without any overhead or support you are now at a gross profit of $11,034.

Cheapest support I know of would be $400/month. That comes to $4800/yr.

So, now gross profit before any overhead is $6,234.
So, if you believe all those assumptions, it works.....but in practice, I would bet against it. Furthermore, if you want to run a business that only provides $6 pre-tax pre-overhead profit/per year/per customer, more power to you.

Originally posted by Incognito
So, now gross profit before any overhead is $6,234.

Of course, with the work involved in keeping those 1000 customers happy over a full year so they stick around, and don't scream for refunds, or just chargeback their fees would make that $6 thousand a year seems a bit thin. Probably best to just spend your time spitting in people's burgers for a living :)

Greg Moore

And you don't have to pay for phone lines, monitoring services, the latest security measures, advertising, hardware when it crashes, refunds, setup fees during growth times, lawyer fees, taxes, hell even postage, paper, fax machine, cell phone . . . I think I just wiped out that $6,234 :D

Oh, and Greg, you weren't referring to that Beavis and Butthead episode, were you? They were doing a lot worse than spitting :D

I disagree. We offer a $20 per year account (free if you buy a domain name from us) and we've been around since 1997.

The key here is WHAT ARE YOU GETTING FOR $15 -- $20 per year??? If you're getting 100 MB of space and 5 GB of transfer and POP/SMTP, CGI, and so on and so on....chances are the host will go under.

Our $20 per year package offers Webmail only, no CGI or extras and just a bit o' space and transfer. This is fine for people with only a few static webpages and no need for email.

So, lets compare apples to apples please...and not unjustly trash someone's reputation unfairly. :)

Thanks!

--Tina

There´s a place that charges $10 a year, but they say they don´t give technical support. You may need a lot of personel and expenses to handle a large quantity of clients.

There´s Valcato.net right now with less than $15, I don´t know how they do it. As I see on these forums lately, UK and Australia servers are less expensive. Am I wrong?

If you want good reliability, support, speed ands servers, and minimum downtime, then that $10 per year hosting is the wrong place. They probably put 9999 people on 133 MHz sever with 64 ram.

Some also lie about their speed, saying that they have an OC3 for example, but then, on their site they may post “Hosting is down while AT&T fixes its broadband connection”

Now to the facts:
I am starting to offer hosting myself, and one of the clients that will host with me said that few of his friends fell for those cheap hosts, those hosts went under with their whole website, never heard form that host again, and never got the money back. IN that case, it was a $5/Month hosting.

The old old old old old saying, "if it sounds too good to be true...." certainly applies.

That guy who posted "you can make $6000/year. For all the sweat, labor, and extra fees, would you go through all that work for 6 friggin thousand/year? Seriously, you could work less and make more and your local fast food joint (heh, I went that road too when I was in High School).

Remember, WebHosting is just like every other business, there are a lot of operating costs and hidden fees. If you want the cheapest hosting available, well, in order to stay in business they have to cut costs somewhere. Lets just hope something you need wasn't cut.