WEB HOSTING BASICS - CONTROLLING YOUR COSTS

How much should I expect to pay?

Web hosting service plans differ greatly in price. For simple shared plans you can easily find plans below $10 and even below $5 per month. Sometimes larger domain registrars offer discount shared hosting.

On the ther hand, dedicated hosting and colocation plans usually start at about $200 and reach into thousands of dollars per month, depending on your requirements.

To estimate where your web site would fit in read the article on Levels Of Service.

What Are The Possible Hidden Charges?

The most obvious "extra" charged to web site owners is the "extra traffic" charge. It may seem unfair that you may be charged for your site's popularity, but that's how this business works. Don't worry, though, if you are just launching your site, chances are you are not going to face high traffic in the first months – in fact, 99% of business owners will never exceed the "included" traffic allowance.

If you do, you may find yourself paying for

Extra bandwidth
Extra transfers

The difference is subtle, since both measure how much you are using your hosting provider's internet channel, but there is a difference. One is measuring the maximum speed while the other – the total amount of data transferred.

Most plans come with either a maximum monthly transfer (e.g. 2GB per month) or a specific bandwidth limitation (e.g. fixed bandwidth of 500Kbps or 1Mbps).

Some providers charge for making changes to your DNS settings. You can avoid this charge by hosting your DNS records elsewhere (many domain registrars offer this option).

Finally, in a colocated or dedicated hosting setting, you may be charged hefty hourly fees for dedicated support by the hosting center's engineers. Make sure you understand what is and what isn't included in your monthly service charge.

Extra Services

Hosting providers may offer related services such as monthly backups, web design services, domain registration, and even conference rooms in their data centers (typically offered by large urban co-location hosting providers).