Hidden Hosting Costs: How NameHero Is Different

Web hosting is a complicated experience. There are many moving parts, pricing models, and optional value-added services. It’s not easy to determine in advance how much it costs to start a web hosting business. Add in the fact that different hosting providers have varying levels of service and performance, and we can conclude that the total price-value equation of hosting can only be described as “opaque”. While it’s not possible to anticipate everything in advance, here are some hidden hosting expenses that you might face with other web hosts, and how NameHero helps you alleviate those expenses.

Hidden Cost #1: Performance

Not all hosting is built the same. Often when you sign up for a cheap hosting experience, you find that your website isn’t responding the way it should. Optimization can only take you so far and when you contact customer service, they’ll tell you that you have no option but to upgrade to a higher plan. I’ve faced this problem myself in my early years of hosting when I didn’t know any better.

And of course, a higher plan will cost you more. So what you once thought was cheap hosting, turns out to not be so cheap after all. At least you can hope that the next tier plan will have better performance. It’s far better to not get caught in this trap and select a host that doesn’t compromise on performance out of the box.

Hidden Cost #2: Backups

When you have a website, you need a system to regularly take backups and store them offsite. It’s like insurance. Any number of unexpected things can go wrong with a regular site. Your files could be infected with malware, your server might crash, and even your web host’s infrastructure could fail. A botched upgrade to some plugin, or a site design that didn’t work out the way you expected. All of these problems can render a site unusable, and you need a way to revert it to a state in the past. It’s simply not feasible to run a website without a backup system in place. Sooner or later, something will go wrong.

But most web hosts don’t provide backups as part of the basic service. Often, they make you pay for an additional add-on that raises the cost of your hosting. This is the second hidden cost associated with having a website, that many people don’t consider when price shopping. Either you have to purchase a 3^rd party backup system, or you rely on the tools your provider has – for a price.

Hidden Cost #3: Malware Scanning and Firewalls

Along with backups, you need to be aware of the hidden cost of protecting your site from malware attacks by scanning the files regularly and implementing a firewall. Unlike backups, many web hosts don’t even have add-on packages for this. You’re forced to implement a 3^rd party system like Sucuri or a Cloudflare Pro plan.

Both of these solutions can get very expensive – easily dwarfing the total cost of hosting itself. Security is an expensive business. Not considering it can lead to a nasty price shock.

NameHero Controls Hidden Costs

NameHero takes care of these three hidden costs by bundling them with your plans. True, this means that it’s not the cheapest, but the total cost of ownership comes out to be much lower. Here is how it deals with the additional expenses:

Performance:

NameHero uses the LiteSpeed web server, which is a huge performance boost thanks to its server-side caching. No need to upgrade your plan until you have more visitors than your current plan can handle.

Backups:

Using the Jetbackup cPanel plugin, NameHero allows you to manage automatic and manual backups for free. If you need additional storage, you can purchase more, but the basic functionality is part of the hosting package.

Security:

NameHero has in-built malware scanning, thanks to the Imunify360 plugin, and also implements advanced firewall rules to limit the access of bad actors to your server. These features are, once again, included for free along with the basic hosting package.

So with NameHero, you can be sure that the price you pay is the price you really need to pay. With other hosting companies, there are always hidden costs that bump up your total cost of ownership, and you don’t find out about it until it’s too late.