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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
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    38

    Question How many hosting packages to offer?

    Hi,


    I'm in the process of doing some competitor research for shared (non-reseller) hosting for my business plan, looking at package specs and how many packages they offer, I'm seeing 2 packages e.g. a Basic & Professional, I'm seeing 3 packages and some are offering 5... All with varying degrees of features/tools.

    What do you think is the magic number of plans to offer? I'm currently thinking 3 with a basic, mid and an advanced plan, which could have a more robust feature set/more disk/bw allowances.

    I've toyed with just offering a single package with a set price and features, I've also toyed with 2 plans depending on the features required, then I think 3 offers a nice upgrade path...

    What plan setups have worked best for you?/What do you think works best?

  2. #2
    In my past experience I would say a minimum of 3 plans. A basic, medium advance plan. Then you can go with a fourth as well. 5 and more plans is to many choices. Most hosts offer 4 plans.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Lincoln (UK)
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    901
    I think 3 to 4 is the norm, more than 4 and it just gets confusing for the customers unless you are talking about a VPS or Dedicated Server which may require more plans.

    Personally I have always stuck to three, though I can create custom built plans where needed.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
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    United Kingdom
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    3,476
    4 shared hosting plans and more plans for VPS.
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
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    US/UK/MY
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    It all depends on your offering, who your targeted client base is and what YOU feel comfortable with.

    If you feel that offering 1 plan is sufficient, then offer 1 plan.

    Don't offer 3 plans because the majority does.

    Simply be YOU.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
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    United Kingdom
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    1,136
    3-4 plans. We offer 5 but only 4 are on our website the 5th is via WHMCS cart ordering only.
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  7. #7
    If i were to start again knowing everything that i do now. I would most defiantly go with one plan.

  8. #8
    I'd say maximum 3 of each type (KVM, OpenVZ, Shared, etc) because after that it's going to start getting confusing for your clients.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    342
    I don't think going with just one plan is the best way to go. You want to show you give different options and you should also accept that maybe you will get customers who might want custom plans. I think you need to be open to at least giving 3 or 4 different packages and then if you have customers asking for something in specific, work with them as well.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    761
    Having to many options can become confusing for some potential customers. We have 4 shared hosting plans that are visible on our web site but we do have other shared hosting plans available for different target customers groups - for instance WHT customers have a selection of shared packages available that are not available to landing on the site from other locations.

    In the past we experimented with different types of shared package like budget and premium as well as standard but we noticed a dip in sales when these options were offered.

    My advice is to keep it simple.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by StarWebHosting View Post
    Having to many options can become confusing for some potential customers. We have 4 shared hosting plans that are visible on our web site but we do have other shared hosting plans available for different target customers groups - for instance WHT customers have a selection of shared packages available that are not available to landing on the site from other locations.

    In the past we experimented with different types of shared package like budget and premium as well as standard but we noticed a dip in sales when these options were offered.

    My advice is to keep it simple.
    I would second this advice definitely keep it simple. But target your plans for different customers.
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  12. #12
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    Nov 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by SmallFish View Post
    Hi,


    I'm in the process of doing some competitor research for shared (non-reseller) hosting for my business plan, looking at package specs and how many packages they offer, I'm seeing 2 packages e.g. a Basic & Professional, I'm seeing 3 packages and some are offering 5... All with varying degrees of features/tools.

    What do you think is the magic number of plans to offer? I'm currently thinking 3 with a basic, mid and an advanced plan, which could have a more robust feature set/more disk/bw allowances.

    I've toyed with just offering a single package with a set price and features, I've also toyed with 2 plans depending on the features required, then I think 3 offers a nice upgrade path...

    What plan setups have worked best for you?/What do you think works best?
    There is no magic number of what to offer but make sure your lowest plans are profitable since a majority of budget minded clients will simply sit on the lowest plan and try to run there the next Youtube type site. We don't just limit on diskspace and bandwidth but also memory and CPU usage and IO usage too.

    Basically our moto is "The more you pay the more you get"
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  13. #13
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Harrisburg, PA
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    2,074
    Three has been the magic number for us. With three plans most customers are going to gravitate towards your top or middle plan. There's some sales psychology at work here, in that the process works like this:

    1) Customer arrives looking for the cheapest plan.
    2) Customer thinks "great, I'll take it! Cheap is good!"
    3) Customer sees your most expensive plan, thinks "pfft, that's ridiculous"
    4) Customer examines your most expensive plan to see what the fuss is about
    5) Customer notices some of those features are missing / downgraded on the cheaper plans
    6) Customer notices your mid-tier plan offers many of the same features as your most expensive plan for less money
    7) Customer perceives the middle plan as the "best value", buys it

    Make your mid-tier plan a substantial upgrade over your low-tier plan, and your top-tier plan a small upgrade (but large cost upgrade) over your mid-tier plan. Voila. Instant automatic upgrades.
    Fresh Roasted Hosting :: High-performance Harrisburg web hosting since 2012!
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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    10
    Quote Originally Posted by FRH Lisa View Post
    Three has been the magic number for us. With three plans most customers are going to gravitate towards your top or middle plan. There's some sales psychology at work here, in that the process works like this:

    1) Customer arrives looking for the cheapest plan.
    2) Customer thinks "great, I'll take it! Cheap is good!"
    3) Customer sees your most expensive plan, thinks "pfft, that's ridiculous"
    4) Customer examines your most expensive plan to see what the fuss is about
    5) Customer notices some of those features are missing / downgraded on the cheaper plans
    6) Customer notices your mid-tier plan offers many of the same features as your most expensive plan for less money
    7) Customer perceives the middle plan as the "best value", buys it

    Make your mid-tier plan a substantial upgrade over your low-tier plan, and your top-tier plan a small upgrade (but large cost upgrade) over your mid-tier plan. Voila. Instant automatic upgrades.
    Agree with this.

    Not only as a provider but as a customer as well. I look at the middle plan in most things I am looking to buy, this can even relate to material purchases (phones, cameras, etc).

    However, I usually see that if I spend just a few dollars more I can have something nicer - I feel the same goes for service providers or this case, web hosting.

    I have three plans.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Gary, IN
    Posts
    209
    I usually use 3 or 4 packages for shared and reseller plans. VPS's, on the other hand, generally have more packages offered because they can be used for a wide range of things and they're more expensive and people generally want to pay only for what they need. Extra resources on VPS's and servers can get really expensive so offering a wide range of plans gives the client more flexibility.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    London, UK
    Posts
    698
    As others have said, if you offer 4 plans for shared and reseller hosting but allow customers to increase size through Add-on's then you can't really go wrong
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  17. #17
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Cybertron
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    10,484
    3. Always go with 3, no matter the situation

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Langley, BC
    Posts
    2,045
    Quote Originally Posted by SmallFish View Post
    Hi,


    I'm in the process of doing some competitor research for shared (non-reseller) hosting for my business plan, looking at package specs and how many packages they offer, I'm seeing 2 packages e.g. a Basic & Professional, I'm seeing 3 packages and some are offering 5... All with varying degrees of features/tools.

    What do you think is the magic number of plans to offer? I'm currently thinking 3 with a basic, mid and an advanced plan, which could have a more robust feature set/more disk/bw allowances.

    I've toyed with just offering a single package with a set price and features, I've also toyed with 2 plans depending on the features required, then I think 3 offers a nice upgrade path...

    What plan setups have worked best for you?/What do you think works best?
    Keep it simple. Offer 1 plan, than upgradable if need more.
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  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    India
    Posts
    15

    Plan design

    Design a plan is depend upon various things like your business nature.In my past experience I would say a minimum of 3 plans. A basic, medium advance plan.You can offer some extra feature in the plan in ascending order like diskspace and bandwidth etc .
    You can create different plan for the offers.
    All plan should have monthly, quarterly, half yearly,yearly,2 year and 3 year subscription.

  20. We have always used 4 plans for shared hosting and 5 for virtual servers.

    For dedicated servers it depends what we have in-stock and can be as many as 8 at a time.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Posts
    269
    We have only 3 shared hosting packages at the moment. We are planning to add 1 or 2 more in the future.
    VPSFlame - OpenVZ & KVM VPS, Web Hosting, Minecraft, Domain Registration
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  22. #22
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Indonesia from UK England
    Posts
    314
    Question:
    How many hosting packages to offer?


    Answer:
    As many as possible, though entirely up to you and taking into consideration the sustainablity of the proposed packages you want to offer.

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Gods Own Country
    Posts
    35
    three plans work great, go for it
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  24. #24
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    SLASH ROOT
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    867
    We are not a webhost, but let me put what I would do in such a case.

    First:

    Take a note of how your shared plans will differ. Some hosts differentiate only for disk space, bandwidth while some provides additional features like SSL, dedicated IP.

    Second:

    Then create plans with as many you like and see which are the best sellers.

    Last but not the least:

    Omit the plans that you think are not 'selling'.
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  25. #25
    I offer specials via the whmcs cart only, but I offer 12.
    Small Budget Hosting - Starter Hosting, Advanced Hosting - Reseller Hosting

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