Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Pay-as-you go web hosting

[skillipedia]

Is there such a thing as pay-as-you-go web hosting where cutomer pay only for what they used - the same as mobile broadband: server, and service are free?

I could see this is the future of web hosting industry

[Cody Salter]

Originally Posted by skillipedia

Is there such a thing as pay-as-you-go web hosting where cutomer pay only for what they used - the same as mobile broadband: server, and service are free?

I could see this is the future of web hosting industry

Most hosts don't have contracts so you are really just paying as you go month by month.

[CrazyTech]

I'm not sure if anyone runs this, but I forsee some problems with this unless things are well thought out. It's an interesting concept, but with the current setup I don't know that it can be labeled the future of web hosting.

[skillipedia]

GoGrid seems to be doing something simiar, but i am not sure on how they bill customers

[kpmedia]

I pay month to month until I trust them -- and that takes at least a year. Usually I'll sign up for a full year after that. Sometimes just 3-6 months. Depends on the savings benefit of a long-term contract.

I would be surprised if a host charged only by the usage. I foresee problems, especially with the modern "shared" environments.

[rkenney]

Originally Posted by Cody Salter

Most hosts don't have contracts so you are really just paying as you go month by month.

The nice thing with the way current host operate is that you know the most you'll pay each month up front.

[WPSensei]

nearlyfreespeech.net/services/hosting.php

They've been offering "Pay as You Go" hosting for quite some time. It really depends on what features you need.

[skillipedia]

Not sure if they do dedicated , but they seem to be what i meant

[trafficlight]

I've seen that nearlyfreespeech.net page, too. It looks pretty decent, but I still can't figure out how their pricing structure works. Way too convoluted, but it seems like it should be really cheap for most sites.

[mrzippy]

I think it really depends on what the consumer wants and/or expects.

Most people looking for web hosting will be comparing your offering to [insert some huge low-cost discount budget supplier with huge advertising budget here].

If you offer "pay as you go" service, and the "competition" offers a flat rate of $5/month for basically unlimited everything... then how can the consumer compare?

They will pick the $5/month package, because it makes them feel like it's less risky. Most consumers like to know how much something will cost before they use it.

[Chasseur d'étoiles]

Well for the pay as you go thing, aren't amazon already doing it ? With the EC3 servers. You pay for the bandwith/storage/get/list requests.

[Laws]

With shared hosting deals at like $2.95 for 500GB and 1TB bandwidth pay-as-you-go hosting seems quite meaningless.

[smueller]

Originally Posted by CrazyTech

I'm not sure if anyone runs this, but I forsee some problems with this unless things are well thought out. It's an interesting concept, but with the current setup I don't know that it can be labeled the future of web hosting.

Several companies are doing this, it's called utility (or sometimes cloud) hosting. This is absolutely the future and every issue has been very well thought out.

Originally Posted by rkenney

The nice thing with the way current host operate is that you know the most you'll pay each month up front.

Unless you need more bandwidth, storage servers or other resources throughout the month. Or you want to decrease those allotments during the slow periods of the day or month. That's why utility hosting is the future. You can start paying very little. And if you grow and shrink and grow, which is natural for any business, you pay far less than you would in a traditional hosting model.

[WPSensei]

You probably won't find a provider that specifically offers Dedicated "Utility" Hosting simply because of how it's setup for shared hosting.

With the shared hosting aspect, you pay as you need additional disk space and bandwidth. If there are months where you need less, you pay less, those months you need more, you pay a little more. It's called Utility as it functions much like that of how a Power Company would bill you.

To do this with dedicated hosting and streamline it, you would need a pretty large setup considering most pay-as-you-go hosting setups are automated and I don't foresee automatic hard drive installation anytime in the near future : -). Hard drives still have to be installed by hand.

The only way I could see this working is with semi-dedicated or VPS since disk space and bandwidth can be added easily if one can automate such.

[01globalnet]

You can achieve a "Pay-as-you-go" concept with H-Sphere.

For example you can create a starter plan like this:
- 100mb space
- 2gb transfer
- 3 emails
- 1 database

This plan would cost let's say 5$ per month.

If the user wants more, then he/she can buy directly from the control panel additional resources (without the intervention of the hosting provider) - with a click of a button he can add more emails (let's say additional 1$ per month, additional database etc.) and he can pay directly from the cp (with cc or a payment gateway).

I believe there is market for something like this - of course you will not target the clients that want more for less ( overselling warriors )