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01-13-2014, 05:29 PM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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Is it good to offer Unlimited plans?
Hello,
What do people think about offering unlimited plans? Loads of web hosting companies do it these days (including me, to keep up with competition), although they ALL obviously have some sort of limit. In my experience the mass majority of customers aspect this as a must these days. Obviously the majority of people on here are experienced, so know all about limits and keeping a image.
Do any of you offer unlimited plans? Have many problems with people using excessive amounts of bandwidth and space?
All your suggestions and experiences would be great!
Ross
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01-13-2014, 05:32 PM #2
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01-13-2014, 05:36 PM #3Web Hosting Evangelist
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Like above, when you offer those they are usually not unlimited. Unless you are going to truly not restrict the disk space after a certain amount I don't think you should offer it. With bandwidth it is a different story, because of things like resource usage that would get in the way if someone was really using that much bandwidth.
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01-13-2014, 05:39 PM #4Junior Guru Wannabe
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Yeah, I too think it's wrong to advertise unlimited plans, if you cannot actually uphold the promise. If you look at the majority of the leading hosting companies, they all offer unlimited plans. However the majority of the smaller companies I see on here, don't offer unlimited plans.
Ross
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01-13-2014, 05:42 PM #5Web Hosting Evangelist
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Exactly, the bigger companies usually do because of the average person. I think when people see unlimited they jump and are excited and don't even realize they use a very small amount of space. I relate that to when the phone carriers stopped "unlimited" data which was only unlimited for 2 GB. Most people that whined over it barely used 1 GB per month.
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01-13-2014, 07:15 PM #6Web Hosting Guru
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Listing "unlimited" resources is always misleading (at best), and I wish that wasn't a common practice in this industry. Unfortunately, it is, and many other hosting companies have to plan their marketing strategies and ad copy carefully with respect to this trend.
I wonder if you might be able to draw in new clients by portraying yourself as an honest, straight-forward, "no b.s." type of organization. For example, you could offer a specific amount of storage and have a small but easily noticeable link below your products (or perhaps a button that releases a pop-up when clicked) that says something to the effect of: "We don't offer 'unlimited' resources. Here's why and what you need to know about 'unlimited' offerings ->"
Then, you could provide an educational, easy-to-read explanation as to what "unlimited" really means in this industry. You can further elaborate on how they should feel much more safe with your company, because you guarantee a specific amount of storage, which means your clients don't have to worry about suddenly receiving some unexpected -- "We've determined you're using too much storage, and you will need to rectify this soon to avoid suspension/termination" -- notification based on their own undisclosed, arbitrary limits.
I know many hosting seekers would have a great deal of respect for you if you decided to use an approach like this instead of the standard "unlimited" listing. What I don't know is how this would affect your bottom line; more specifically, your rate of new clients signing up for a hosting plan. Without more in-depth research, I could see how this would turn out both ways -- increasing and decreasing your "new revenue" each month.
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01-13-2014, 08:07 PM #7Web Hosting Master
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Better let them know what the limits are from the beginning.
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01-13-2014, 11:45 PM #8Web Hosting Master
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And the Unlimited vs Limited war starts all over again..
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01-13-2014, 11:52 PM #9Web Hosting Master
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Unlimited is good wish it was real thought. Nothing on earth is unlimited well maybe my mothers mouth is. Neither is air unlimited someday it will run our unless people keep planting trees and growing green.
Most hosts that offer unlimited plans don't even truly offer unlimited because once a client gets to use too much resources usually the host will then contact then explaining to them that they need to upgrade their plan or service because their usage is a little to high. Hosts like this make their clients suffer because when a site gets to big it affects the other sites on that server. Even though hosts will make the client upgrade or suspend them it still causes problems here and there that can be avoided if they in the first place dedicated a certain amount if resources to that spefic client.
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01-14-2014, 12:52 AM #10Web Hosting Master
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We don't think about it at the moment.
Until such time as I can buy an unlimited space hard drive, an unlimited bandwidth Network card, an unlimited number of CPU's an unlimited Ram, for a not unlimited price, then we will offer it, until then all bets are off.
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01-14-2014, 01:13 AM #11Disabled
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Well, yes you should keep offering it. If someone is already experienced with the limitations of the "unlimited" hosting, it is okay for you. If you manage to grab a client or two because of it, it is good also.
Last edited by GreenHornet; 01-14-2014 at 01:14 AM. Reason: punctuation
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01-14-2014, 11:29 AM #12Web Hosting Master
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I see no problem with unlimited web hosting. I can highly recommend this web host for such services:
http://web.archive.org/web/199910121....com/webspace/
OK, so you might get cut off after 20MB of disk use for misuse due to the TOS but who cares?
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01-14-2014, 11:35 AM #13Newbie
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01-14-2014, 11:51 AM #14Web Hosting Guru
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I think that customers need to be realistic too, if they are paying $4/month they can't expect perfect uptime and unlimited everything. Apparently some customers just believe that they will get a superb service with an extremely low budget. But unlimited is a very good marketing strategy for those looking for their first host.
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01-14-2014, 02:37 PM #15Web Hosting Master
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It depends on who your target customers are. If you sell services to experienced users, then "unlimited" might actually offend them since "unlimited" is considered a scam by most experienced users. However, if you sell services to very inexperienced users, then "unlimited" might be the best solution. Inexperienced users don't understand what the resources are and can quickly become frustrated by any notion of limits on their new websites. I have actually heard newbies ask "What is a bandwidth and what does it do?" If you are seeing dumb questions like that, then you are dealing with inexperienced users and should probably offer "unlimited" services.
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01-14-2014, 03:03 PM #16Web Hosting Master
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I disagree. Educating users is the better route, and it doesn't have to be lengthy. Think of how email and media services help users to understand limits by equating them to numbers of MP3s, etc. ISPs, too.
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01-15-2014, 09:02 AM #17
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01-15-2014, 09:30 AM #18Web Hosting Master
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I see what you're getting at. It's not about being okay to deceive users that don't know better and more about marketing to your target market. EIG, Godaddy, 1and1 etc. target users via mainstream media, most of their clients probably don't have a great understanding of hosting and consider unlimited hosting on par with unlimited minutes on a cell phone. They may also think that, like cell phone plans, a limited package could result in costly overages.
I wouldn't recommend offering unlimited packages unless you have the size/scale needed to make the model work. I've seen users comment about offering unlimited packages on 15GB reseller plans, that is really cringe worthy.WHMEasyBackup.com - Take Control Of Your Backups!
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01-15-2014, 10:42 AM #19Newbie
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These days, I was making a shortlist of hosting companies for my website. I am not an experienced user but I am not new either. It's been a while to host anything but if any advice from a buyer's view count...
I skipped any offers with Unlimited Space & Bandwidth or too many Unlimited words in general in the package offer. Maybe the companies were good, maybe they were the best but Unlimited is making me feel like a fool.
I prefer to know what I am buying and not to have to dig in the whole website to find the small words that explain what unlimited is.
Be clear and transparent of what your offering and good customers will respect that.
Just my 2 cents
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01-15-2014, 10:56 AM #20Junior Guru Wannabe
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i like limited space because i think their oversell their server to offer unlimited plan
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01-16-2014, 09:50 AM #21Web Hosting Evangelist
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As a customer, I would never sign with a company offering unlimited plans (never say never), as I know that's impossible, the services could suffer as a result -- and I better know the limits to be able to realisably assess what I do, how far I can really go etc. I think it's more fair towards costumers than putting the limits in a fine print nobody reads (bear is right here).
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01-16-2014, 10:27 AM #22Web Hosting Master
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Yup. Just sitting back and reading this one......waiting for the crazy moments.
There was another thread talking about this too. I recently noticed that one of our smaller mobile carriers still advertises unlimited data while all the other carriers have taken it out their ads.
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01-16-2014, 11:24 AM #23WHT Addict
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I'm going to put morality aside and put it from a marketing standpoint. If you have the outreach and ability to get your company out there as an unlimited host, that could potentially attract inexperienced (or possibly ignorant) clients. On the other side, why would they choose your unlimited host over Godaddy, or another mainstream unlimited host. Let's say you do get a fair number of customers due to your unlimited promise. Said customers reach the limit posted in your TOS, well it's in your TOS so no problem right? No, the customers get angry, think of you as a deceitful host, spread bad reviews, you lose many of them, other potential clients (bad reviews turn away clients whether they are truthful or not) and although it's clearly in your TOS you can't blame them. It's even clearer that it's unlimited in your ad. It can work either really well for you, or it can kill you, as well as anywhere in between. In my opinion it's not something I'd want to gamble on, especially while trying to be a reputable, reliable provider.
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01-16-2014, 04:42 PM #24Web Hosting Guru
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Right. This is exactly why I suspect there's some untapped value in a shared hosting company positioning itself as an honest, trustworthy educator on the subject of "unlimited." Find a way to incorporate a lesson about "the reality of unlimited resources" that isn't too bulky or overbearing to read. Use this to communicate to the potential clients that you're willing to define clear limits so they never have to worry about waking up one morning and finding out they crossed some random threshold and their site has been suspended or terminated.
In my newbie days of searching out hosting, this certainly would have grabbed my attention -- assuming of course, it was presented in a way that encouraged me to read it in the first place (some marketing strategy comes into play here, yes)..
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01-16-2014, 05:10 PM #25WHT Addict
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If I were a hosting provider myself, I would advertise unlimited bandwidth and space to keep up with the competition, but on my list of features, and NOT in fine print hidden somewhere in the TOS, I would clearly say that CPU and memory are limited thus putting a cap to the traffic that a site on shared hosting may receive.
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