Web Hosting: From $3 to $300, You Get What You Pay For

When you're trying to figure out what you should pay for web hosting, pricing is all over the map.

Here's a breakdown of what you pay for, and what you might get for it.

Domain registration - $10-$60 per year, depending on the domain

Web hosting - When you purchase web hosting, you typically get the following things along with it.

• Disk Space - your website has to fit within the allotted disk space that you purchase. While more is better, treat this like an all you can eat buffet - if the buffet has enough food for you, then does it matter how much other food they have? The average business website does not take up more than 1G (1 gigabyte) of space.
• Data Transfer - your website is generally allotted an amount of information it can send out to your audience. Again, more is better, but an endless amount is of no use to you unless your website is really, really busy.
• Email accounts - most web hosting plans include a number of email addresses with the plan. If they include enough for all of your employees, that's all you need.
• Languages and Environment - most web hosting companies can give you whatever environment you need, you just need to ask for it in advance. If your CMS requires Windows Server, or Linux, or Cold Fusion, or whatever - let them know before you get things set up and they'll be able to accommodate you.

To get the kind of hosting you need to service an average website, you can pay as little as $1/month, or you can pay as much as $100/month. My advice would be measure the companies you're looking at by scoring them as follows

• How quickly do they answer the phone when you call for techical support?
• How quickly do they answer email to their support email address?
• Do they have the features you need?
• Does your data get backed up, and does the hosting company have a disaster recovery plan?
• Does their price seem reasonable? (keep in mind that a price that's too low may mean that the company cannot afford enough staff to provide excellent support!)
• Where in the world will your website be physically hosted, and if you wanted to see their data center, could you get a tour? While this may not seem like an important consideration, the closer your website is to your targent audience, the faster your website will appear to be. If you can't get a tour of the company's data center, either they are relying on someone else's data center, or they don't have a data center.
• Can the hosting company provide some references?

Web management - This is a service where you can hire someone else to make changes on your web site for you, if you either don't know how (although a Content Management System makes it easy!) or don't have the time to make changes.
Low-end - $10-$15 per hour
High-end - $100+/month

The most important thing in choosing a hosting company is to find one that you are comfortable with, and who takes the time to understand what you are trying to do.