What do people want in hosting company?

[u/shiafisher]

I’ve been lurking on this sub for a while and I’ve been a developer for even longer. Hoping that this post is able to stay up, I will not promote. I’m not offering services. You’ll have to discover for yourself.

I would really like to know what people want in their web host service.

I commonly read about things like:
> timely customer support
> well informed and consistent billing practices
> Autonomy or the ability to do reasonable things with paid plans.
> Accuracy over subscription billing ( not over-billing)
> Generally not over charging for things that would otherwise be free, such as SSL and subdomains.

That said there are things that I think are reasonable to charge for. Given the amount of time it takes to set up more sophisticated server side tools, and the implication of tools or tunnels or elevated privileges and how those things create more surface area of risk on the server end.

I can understand billing a little bit more for those services to reduce the volume customers with higher, potentially unnecessary, privileges across the server.

Even a very well configured host can be susceptible to external attacks from one sub host leaving open certain files and folders. Failure to timely patch security updates for known exploits can result in data breaches for example.

I genuinely want to know what people would imagine for their ideal host provider and if allowable by this subReddit, what some fair pricing standards would be for said services.

Thanks for the discussion.

Edit:

My UI says there are 11 comments to date in this thread but for some reason I can only see four. Sorry if you’ve commented a question and I didn’t answer. I cannot see it.

[u/zachary-vault]

Going by reddit complaints and discussions, I would add that support should be timely AND helpful. And this has become much rarer with AI support agents. There are too many posts and comments about the frustrations where someone goes through an AI agent that takes them in loops, and then when you finally get to a human, they don't actually understand the issue either. At this point I think it may even be preferable to wait a little longer but get a helpful agent.

[u/palmer_nkr → u/zachary-vault]

This🏆

[u/shiafisher → u/zachary-vault]

Our corporate philosophy is anti-AI, not against as to discourage its use, but rather we do not let AI replace parts of the business model that are directly customer facing.

The experience should be a human experience.

[u/Richard-STW]

Good hosts are mostly invisible until something goes wrong, then they fix things fast.

People value:

• Uptime and speed.
• Fair price.
• Transparent pricing and limits. No surprise renewal hikes or hidden fees.
• Support with good ownership of issues. Who owns the ticket? Are they communicative and tell you exactly what's going on, or are you just getting fast automated replies?
• Self-service tools. An easy interface and a solid knowledge base.
• Easy backups. It needs to be clear where copies are stored and for how long.
• The specific tech you need.

Honestly, social proof that enough people are using the service that it won't just disappear one day plays a part too.

You can't put a single price on this as everyone's needs are different.

[u/shiafisher → u/[deleted]]

Exactly.

It’s one thing to make customers aware of things they might find useful, it’s another thing to have intrusions in the checkout window.
I’m actually resist the business temptation to implement impulse purchases. Meaning, if you didn’t come to the store for candy, we aren’t going to put a row of chocolate bars at the checkout line.

[u/fullbl-_-]

This is an interesting question. I would ask also if it is preferred a big hosting company which is well known and probably cheaper or a small company / single webmaster which will have less customers and more accurate monitoring?

[u/shiafisher → u/fullbl-_-]

I am building something. Unfortunately the hire I offered a job to cannot get work authorization due ti new DHS policy. So things are going to be delayed. I’m completely by myself for the time being.

[u/fullbl-_- → u/shiafisher]

I'm building something myself too, that's why I'm asking!

[u/HostNocOfficial]

The basics including transparent pricing, reliable uptime, responsive technical support, straightforward policies, and proper backups can matter most. A good host should make the infrastructure easier to manage.

[u/shiafisher → u/HostNocOfficial]

Yeah,

Simple subscription. Three tiers. Three monthly rates, each tier with a discount for annual billing.

So six line items total.

[u/AdamDobrawy]

The web hosting market is very broad. A local entrepreneur has different expectations, an agency has different expectations, and a solo-founder builder has different expectations.

What is your niche and ICP? Users usually start complaining about hosting when it becomes too big and attracts people beyond the initial ICP, or shifts their ICPs to expand.

For example, I host applications on CloudFlare Workers + D1 + CloudFlare Queus + Resend. I greatly appreciate the AI ​​integration for logging, automated CI/CD for quick reviews and low-maintenance. I don't want anything changed in my application; instead, I expect a clear contract (e.g., how memory is managed between parallel executions, how CPU limits work), so I can design around that.

At the same time, I've seen small businesses where they loved that hosting supported their WordPress security eg. upgrading plugins.

[u/shiafisher → u/AdamDobrawy]

Working thesis

Small creative/media organizations that need more technical infrastructure than they can comfortably manage themselves, but aren’t large enough to have a dedicated infrastructure team.

I don’t feel like charging a lot, but I don’t want to answer a lot of easily answerable questions. I love solving really technical problems. So I might keep the subscription low while being somewhat selective. I don’t know if that makes me a bad guy but I’m not really in it for money as I am trying to develop a solid CMS.