The average cost of an entry-level web hosting package from a good web host is typically between $25 and $40 per month.  The problem with these hosting packages is that these $40 accounts are typically what we refer to as shared accounts.  A shared hosting account is when thousands of websites are placed on the same server. This generally means all sites share the same pool of ram, disk space, processor, bandwidth etc.  If a few websites on the server see spikes in traffic, other websites on the server start to run slower.  This is needed so the server doesn’t crash and lose its uptime track record.  In a shared hosting environment as some websites start to succeed, it can cause others to suffer.

To circumvent these issues, some shared hosts limit your website speed regardless of traffic spikes to avoid potential problems.  This is great for a host’s bottom line but lame if you care about website rankings, user experience and overall website revenue.

So what solutions are there beside shared hosting?

Think cloud hosting is the solution?  Guess again.

Cloud hosting is actually a shared environment on crack.  It’s definitely cheap but reliability and security is all over the board.  Mad Fish typically uses cloud hosting in addition to regular hosting for massive data processing, large file storage (i.e. mp3s, videos etc.), and for quickly serving images, javascript, and other static elements on a site.  Cloud hosting is better as add-on to existing solid hosting servers, rather than as an entire hosting environment.

The other solution is to have your own dedicated web server. However this requires a much higher monthly cost. Typically costs are between $125 and $175 per month for an entry level server.  Many IT people push their employer to go this route since it seems like a better option and more reliable.  The key difference between shared and dedicated hosting is that with a dedicated server you’re on your own when it comes for server management, upgrades, maintenance, security, etc.  While you’re not sharing resources, if the server goes down on Sunday at 2am, it’s on you to get it back online (not fun).  In addition to the excessive man/woman hours, the monthly costs can quickly rise as you start to add security, uptime monitoring and other services to keep things running smooth.

By understanding each client’s goals, Mad Fish customizes multiple hosting services, then self manages those services to offer clients the best website loading speed and uptime possible.

But we don’t host everyone.

 

To make sure we always deliver on our commitment to uptime and website loading speeds, we have to be very picky about the websites and hosting that we offer to clients. For example, we don’t host any email (we recommend using Office 365 or Gmail) and websites that we do host, must meet one or more of the below criteria:

1.)    We built the website

2.)    We manage the client’s entire web profile online (i.e. SEO, PPC, Social media etc.)

3.)    You’re an incredible client, and/or you bought one of us a really good drink or lunch.

We are selective in which websites we host to ensure we are providing a quality service and we work around the clock to make sure that those efforts are providing value to our clients’ online marketing strategy.

A good dedicated server will run a few hundred dollars per month, which may not make sense for every client’s website.  Therefore we put together a hosting service that serves our client’s websites with both lightning fast speed and reliability at the same cost as a shared hosting package.