Among the variety of Hosting options on the market, sometimes it’s hard to make a decision. Taking into account the rapid technological development and demands for increasing website functionalities, a lot of medium businesses and growing startups give preference to the VPS hosting. Its flexibility and control options are much wider than those provided by shared hosting and the price is significantly lower than the one for a dedicated server.
Talking about the pricing, it’s not a secret that despite VPS hosting is a high-end product that brings more advanced demands most of the users pay attention to pricing. In the majority of cases, it becomes the main decisive factor. There exist a bunch of reasons for that starting from being on a budget to uncertainty whether a project will turn into success.
So here we go with the tips and tricks on how to choose an affordable VPS wisely:
Check the real price
This point can seem strange in the article where we are talking about cheap hosting but it’s a popular trap hosting user come into. Usually, all the hosting providers offer bigger discounts only if you commit to a longer billing cycle of two or three years or just a purchase price while in fact, the final price may be twice higher. Checking only the pricing card number may play a bad trick when you proceed to checkout or see your first renewal invoice. Usually, hosting providers inform you about these options right away in the pricing card or during the checkout, so try to imitate the purchase flow and pay attention to the billing cycle. Don’t forget to read everything written in the small font to make sure you are aware of all the additional fees before making your final decision.
Get acquainted with a money-back policy or trial period
It’s common for the providers who are confident in their services to offer either some trial period where you can enjoy the service for free before deciding whether to subscribe or search for some other company to host your website. Unfortunately, this practice attracts fraudsters and involvement into scamming activity thus affecting the company reputation that’s why the majority of known providers, like Namecheap or GoDaddy [1] to offer the money-back guarantee where you buy a hosting plan but if you are not satisfied with anything within a certain period after the first subscription ( usually it’s from 14 to 30 days), you can get the full refund without having to wait for the long disputes and wasting your time explaining that your decision is final. So if you are hesitating in your choice, check whether a company has a money-back policy, and if the answer is positive, you can safely make your purchase.
Check the provider’s reputation
New hosting companies enter the market every day offering extremely low pricing and great service conditions to attract new customers. Needless to say that sometimes they disappear at the same pace as sometimes the competition is too harsh. That’s why it’s crucial to choose a reliable and trustworthy provider that would be able to ensure the high level of service and uptime. So, it’s better to give preference to companies that exist for some time on the market. Also, it’s worth getting acquainted with the current users of a hosting company you consider in order to know what to expect. But don’t hurry to google ‘x company reviews’ as often the reviews published on famous websites are nothing more than an advertisement, not the real feedback. If you want to know the truth, visit some forums and communities to see what people are really saying about their pain points, workarounds and discuss some other topics related to their server performance or quality of service.
Find out what’s included in the package
Usually, in attempts to reduce the price and sell cheap VPS plans, providers do not include control panels or firewalls offering you a bare server that needs a configuration. But adding the prices for additional licenses may mean that you will pay more than if you opt the plan which includes basic security or a control panel like cPanel and even opt for a managed server that at the first glance may look. If you are a tech-savvy person or don’t handle the server on your own leaving this to a server specialist, the absence of GUI may not worry you, but if you plan to it’s necessary to ensure these options are included and calculate the final price with all the addons you would require for your daily work.
Compare prices with the tech specs
Apart from the pricing, it’s necessary to evaluate it against the balance of technical resources and the available resource burst as well as the policy limitations. Sometimes you may see very attractive pricing but when it comes to the resources it may seem that they are not sufficient to cover your needs or some critical resources like bandwidth for instance, or CPU would be lower than the market standards. To avoid such situations and make the right decision whether to invest a bit more to be flexible or stay with the lowest priced option, we recommend that you check the system requirements for the software you plan to host and have a high-level understanding of your future growth in terms of website visitors, or users of your application to see whether you need. In addition, it’s necessary to take a look at the Acceptable use policy ( we know no one likes it) to see whether the cheapest hosting allows using a VPS plan for your intentions as often there are some limitations for streaming, hosting adult content, gambling, etc..
What about customer support?
Last but not least is support. Usually, companies providing cheaper services save on quality support but for the majority of customers, it turns into spending more eventually on external system administrators when it comes to more complicated products as VPS. One of the important factors to consider is the availability of support 24/7/365 as sometimes you will need advice beyond office hours or you may be located in different time zones.
Also, it’s preferable to have several channels of communication with your provider. If the matter is urgent, most probably you would want to have immediate assistance via phone or chat rather than waiting for the reply via email. One more point is the average response time from hosting provider support be it chat or ticket. The response rate for sure would depend on the complexity of the matter, but on average several hours for email and up to 10 minutes between the chat replies are considered to be good for a hosting provider.
One more tip: before making a purchase initiate a chat or ticket conversation with some pre-sales questions about some technical details to assess the waiting time and to see how well support is prepared for your questions, even if you are chatting with a Sales rep.
Takeaways
Paying attention to the above mentioned aspects will help you choose your perfect hosting provider wisely and avoid the most common mistakes when the desire to save can turn into spending a fortune in the long run and enjoy an affordable VPS experience. It’s hard to make a decision looking only at the landing pages as they serve marketing purposes and focus on the benefits that stimulate more sales.
That’s why we recommend making homework before purchase. Spend some time to get acquainted with all the options, compile the list of hosting providers along with their offerings on all these factors, and compare all the crucial parameters. In this way, you will see the full picture of what you get for the money you pay to choose the best affordable hosting for your business or personal goals.
Happy Hosting!