Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Unlimited

[Bannaz]

Should I offer unlimited databases and e-mail accounts with my hosting packages? What are the implications?

Accounts will be such:

500MB space, 5,000MB bandwidth. Unlimited databases, unlimited e-mail.

I'm going to try this on a reseller with somebody to see how it goes... as most resellers don't limit the databases and e-mail accounts setup.

[Quartz]

I don't know, everyone seems to say "Unlimited". Personally if I were to set those up, i'd set it to about 5000 or something.

[rapture9]

From my experience, most people don't use a whole lot of databases or e-mail accounts. However, it does tend to look better when you say "unlimited" rather than an "X" number of each. Personally, I use at most, ten MySQL databases and maybe five e-mail addresses. To contradict myself: yes, I do offer unlimited databases/e-mail accounts on my reseller.

[KnownHost]

Resellers like to see unlimited but it isn't a must. This would be a company decision but for shared hosting there is no need. 2 DB's per site is sufficient in reality. It is all marketing when you see unlimited, etc..

-Jay

[Swelly]

Unlimited email accounts, databases, and such of that matter seem to appeal more to the customer and the consumer stand point. You might want to be a little more careful offering this to shared hosting customer rather then resellers. Reseller's tend to have customers that themselfs use the databases, and email more than regular shared accounts. Also on another point, you might have a customer or two that have 20 to 30 MySQL databases (yes it happens) which will take up excessive resources.

[Alien Helmet]

From my perspective as a client, I tend to get a little ticked off at hosts who impose artificially low limits on services, such as mailboxes, that have a marginal cost very close to zero. Hosts that charge $3 a month per extra box, or force people up into the next plan if they need six boxes rather than five, look pretty greedy no matter how one slices it. Offer one box per meg of disk or something of that sort.

[Swelly]

I don't think its about greed, rather about resource usage. You don't want a customer who is paying 5 or 6 dollars a month taking up excessive resource on emailing and mysql.

[DimensionServers]

For resellers unlimited mysql and unlimited email boxes just means that they wont need to worry about it. I dont suppose the people who made the word unlimited actually ment it, I would say it just means that any normal person wouldnt be able to creat enough accounts to max the server out.

[PunchM6]

It's hard to say really. Some clients will be put off by the promise of "unlimited" features because it's quite obviously a slight stretching of the truth (no one can truly offer an unlimited number of databases) but others will be attracted.

As long as you don't overuse the "Unlimited!" selling point then you'll probably be OK. Your clients need realistic numbers to make a good decision, not just massive promises.

Hope this helps a little.

[Alien Helmet]

Originally Posted by HostFrog

I don't think its about greed, rather about resource usage.

On the hosts I've used so far, email traffic and storage comes out of the user's quotas. A user would blow his/her disk or bandwidth quotas long before overwhelming the server.

[dspillettt]

Originally Posted by Knownhost - J

Resellers like to see unlimited but it isn't a must. This would be a company decision but for shared hosting there is no need. 2 DB's per site is sufficient in reality. It is all marketing when you see unlimited, etc..
-Jay

With the use of Fantastico (which wants a DB per installed script even if the script itself doesn't require it) users can easly need more databases but won't cause any perceptable loading by having them. A personal site with a gallery and couple for blogs may need more than two databases.

Limiting database use to an arbitrary number of databases it pointless anyway - what is to stop people using the same DB for more than one app (all will be fine as long as the apps don't use the same table names)? And even with just one ap using a DB a busy DB driven app or a badly designed on (or worse a busy app AND a badly designed database) can easily consume vast amount of CPU time.

Rather than setting a pointless arbitrary limit, offering "unlimited" databases with the two caveats:

1. it all comes out of your quota
2. it is all subject to the fair usage policy in the ToS/AUP

is the way most hosts choose to go.

[webkami]

for resellers I would say to make it Unlimited.
Its gives resellers a peace of mind.

For shared hosting accounts I always limit the number.
Like 50 MB, 50 DB, 50 Emails

Just sound Good 50'sh to me.