Why do people pay so much for a web server?

We have been doing quite a bit of work lately with clients, primarily taking over hosting of their websites from other providers. This has turned up some interesting little facts about website hosting and small businesses in the UK. The strange thing is that businesses are paying way too much for website hosting.

When enVirtua started in the website hosting business, we did a little research and when we set our prices, we made sure that they were compeditive. When compared with a majority of the big hosting companies, we made sure that we offered more at the same price. We like to think that we offer a larger feature set at a lower or equal price AND we offer a one to one service, not helpdesks, no automated phone systems. It’s personal and we think that makes it better.

The problem is that we have been finding that businesses (and sports clubs etc) have been paying either for features/services they don’t need or just paying horrendously high prices for simple offerings. We have encountered small sports organisations with dedicated web servers, rather than your more standard “virtual server”. We have found businesses paying the same per month as our clients pay per year.

So please consider this when you look at hosting, we offer three basic levels (and when required custom offerings of features based what you need) Gold, Silver and Bronze. The most popular package is the Bronze one, it is the one we suggest to most small businesses that approach us, why? Because it is the cheapest and if this is not big enough, upgrading is dead simple and the only cost is the difference between the two levels.

This post is, yes, an advert for our services.
Which would be something that we would feel bad about if only it were not for the number of people we meet that are paying far more than they should do for web hosting. Sure, it works for us when we speak to people, but that is a small minority of businesses paying for website hosting, so we decided this post was worth writing as perhaps it will spur other businesses to look at what they are paying (or planning to pay) and think twice.