Snargleflap
09-22-2008, 08:24 PM
I've been with Eirca.net for 4 months on their HS1 reseller plan, and I'm very happy with the service I'm getting from them.
Here's the details:
Pricing/Value
Their bottom tier reseller plan offers 5gb space and 50gb of bandwidth for $24.95. When I signed up with them I used a discount coupon I found here on WHT and my monthly cost is 19.95 a month. The plan includes 20 Hsphere licenses. I'm planning to upgrade my account soon to the next tier, HS2, and my discount coupon will apply there as well. In fact, my discount will apply all the way through their top-end reseller tier.
They are an overall excellent value for the money.
Tech support
There are times when it takes a while to get an issue resolved, but I can just about always count on them to open and acknowledge my support tickets within an hour or two. They provide end-user tech support as well, and with my schedule, it's a life saver to watch the email interactions between them and my customers without my having to get involved to resolve hosting related issues. I have had a couple of issues with support tickets lately being closed without being resolved, but it appears to be an issue with their new ticket system auto-closing tickets incorrectly. Also, overnight response to online tickets can be slow, which is a bit bothersome to me because I often work into the early am hours. However, their solution to this is that you can pick up the phone 24/7 and speak with support. The only reason it's even an issue for me is because I prefer doing all my support interaction via tickets and email.
Also, when I do interact with tech support, I never feel like I'm dealing with someone who's following a rehearsed dialogue. What I mean is that I feel more like I'm having a discussion with co-workers about how to resolve this issue or that. This works well for me because I prefer a more casual relationship.
Overall I have to say they're very good at support, and do care about keeping things running and keeping the customers happy.
Hosting Features
I won't even try to go into detail about what you get. Suffice to say that you get all that you and your clients are going to need. Platforms, development languages, databases, 1-click installables. You can visit their site for detailed information.
I am completely happy with their offering of features.
Control Panel
We are on Hsphere, and this is my first experience with a reseller control panel. I'm a developer and I'm accustomed to having complete control over the user interface for applications I design. With that in mind, I find Hsphere to be far too limiting when it comes to customization of user interfaces (such as signup forms), and limiting in other areas where I don't think a good control panel shoud be. My experience with it so far gives the impression that it can tend to be buggy, especially when upgrades are installed. There have been 3 ocassions where my dislike of Hsphere prompted me to being searching for a new host. In all 3 cases, when I compared feature for feature, I simply couldn't find another company that offered what Eirca offered at a price I was happy with, so I'm learning to adjust my way of thinking about Hsphere and find ways around what I consider to be limitations. The big upside is that with Hsphere, you can resell your Eirca hosting accounts on either Windows or Linux.
Email
This is another area of real importance to me. Webmail is very important to my clients. Webmail systems have matured to the point where we can have rich Outlook-like webmail interfaces, such as Smartermail, so I don't think it's unreasonable at this stage of webmail evolution to expect hosting to include something a bit more sophistocated than tools such as Horde & DWMail. I understand that this may or may not be an issue, depending upon your particular situation, for my clients it's an important consideration. In any event, Eirca is looking into some alternative webmail solutions so this may be one area where they improve, making their offerings all that much better.
Summary:
I consider them to be great value for the money spent. I believe them to be an honest host who lives up to what they offer. Up to this point they have provided top-notch tech support, and seem to genuinely care about their customers. While there are things I'm not happy about, you may not be nearly as picky as I am, and you might not even consider them issues.
All in all, I can confidently recommend Eirca.net to anyone looking for reseller hosting.
Here's the details:
Pricing/Value
Their bottom tier reseller plan offers 5gb space and 50gb of bandwidth for $24.95. When I signed up with them I used a discount coupon I found here on WHT and my monthly cost is 19.95 a month. The plan includes 20 Hsphere licenses. I'm planning to upgrade my account soon to the next tier, HS2, and my discount coupon will apply there as well. In fact, my discount will apply all the way through their top-end reseller tier.
They are an overall excellent value for the money.
Tech support
There are times when it takes a while to get an issue resolved, but I can just about always count on them to open and acknowledge my support tickets within an hour or two. They provide end-user tech support as well, and with my schedule, it's a life saver to watch the email interactions between them and my customers without my having to get involved to resolve hosting related issues. I have had a couple of issues with support tickets lately being closed without being resolved, but it appears to be an issue with their new ticket system auto-closing tickets incorrectly. Also, overnight response to online tickets can be slow, which is a bit bothersome to me because I often work into the early am hours. However, their solution to this is that you can pick up the phone 24/7 and speak with support. The only reason it's even an issue for me is because I prefer doing all my support interaction via tickets and email.
Also, when I do interact with tech support, I never feel like I'm dealing with someone who's following a rehearsed dialogue. What I mean is that I feel more like I'm having a discussion with co-workers about how to resolve this issue or that. This works well for me because I prefer a more casual relationship.
Overall I have to say they're very good at support, and do care about keeping things running and keeping the customers happy.
Hosting Features
I won't even try to go into detail about what you get. Suffice to say that you get all that you and your clients are going to need. Platforms, development languages, databases, 1-click installables. You can visit their site for detailed information.
I am completely happy with their offering of features.
Control Panel
We are on Hsphere, and this is my first experience with a reseller control panel. I'm a developer and I'm accustomed to having complete control over the user interface for applications I design. With that in mind, I find Hsphere to be far too limiting when it comes to customization of user interfaces (such as signup forms), and limiting in other areas where I don't think a good control panel shoud be. My experience with it so far gives the impression that it can tend to be buggy, especially when upgrades are installed. There have been 3 ocassions where my dislike of Hsphere prompted me to being searching for a new host. In all 3 cases, when I compared feature for feature, I simply couldn't find another company that offered what Eirca offered at a price I was happy with, so I'm learning to adjust my way of thinking about Hsphere and find ways around what I consider to be limitations. The big upside is that with Hsphere, you can resell your Eirca hosting accounts on either Windows or Linux.
This is another area of real importance to me. Webmail is very important to my clients. Webmail systems have matured to the point where we can have rich Outlook-like webmail interfaces, such as Smartermail, so I don't think it's unreasonable at this stage of webmail evolution to expect hosting to include something a bit more sophistocated than tools such as Horde & DWMail. I understand that this may or may not be an issue, depending upon your particular situation, for my clients it's an important consideration. In any event, Eirca is looking into some alternative webmail solutions so this may be one area where they improve, making their offerings all that much better.
Summary:
I consider them to be great value for the money spent. I believe them to be an honest host who lives up to what they offer. Up to this point they have provided top-notch tech support, and seem to genuinely care about their customers. While there are things I'm not happy about, you may not be nearly as picky as I am, and you might not even consider them issues.
All in all, I can confidently recommend Eirca.net to anyone looking for reseller hosting.