Over the last couple of years we’ve seen an increasing trend for top web hosting companies to move away from their traditional business models into what we at Cheap Web Hosting Now like to call ‘All Inclusive Web Hosting’ packages.
If you’ve been around the hosting game for a while, or even if you’ve just checked out a couple of companies like Godaddy -who at time of writing were still using the old model- then you probably know the kind of approach we’re talking about.
It involves selling shared hosting plans in tiers, starting from a basic, low cost option and moving all the way up to a premium, high cost plan usually designed to cater for businesses. Whilst this certainly has its benefits, it’s becoming quite an outdated concept, with top hosting companies like iPage and eHost leading the charge for all inclusive hosting.
But what exactly does this mean? And what’s actually included in a cheap all inclusive web hosting package?
Unlimited disk space and data transfer
This is the core detail that separates all-inclusive from the traditional three (or sometimes more ) tiered hosting packages. With the latter, it’s often the case that the more you pay, the more bandwidth and storage resources you get.
With all inclusive hosting, you no longer need worry about whether the plan you’ve picked will provide enough resources for your site, especially if you’re planning to expand as time goes on. You can avail interserver discounts on different deals.
Instead, you get as much disk space and data transfer allocations as you need, meaning you shouldn’t have to worry about down time, slow loading speeds, or simply running out of space to your site to the next level.
Free domain name
A free top level domain name is a pretty standard feature of the majority of hosting companies, including those who offer the kind of fully comprehensive bundles we’re talking about today.
In most cases, you’ll find that the free domain name offer extends only for the duration of the first term, and that you’ll then be charged for it once you renew. Again, this is basic industry practice, but we are seeing a new approach adopted by brands like Cheap Web Hosting Now’s number one rated provider, eHost.
With eHost and similar services, you actually get what they call ‘a free domain name for life.’ This means that as long as you continue to host your website with them, you’ll never have to actually pay for your domain name, which certainly makes these companies a good choice if long-term budget requirements are a major factor in picking a home for your new site.
Email accounts
Tied into that domain name, most all inclusive hosting companies will offer unlimited IMAP and POP3 email accounts, complete with essential tools like web mail, email forwarding and aliases. For personal and hobby sites, this might not be anything special, but if you’re a business or a professional, having access to [email protected] email addresses all within the price of your hosting plan could make these all-in hosting solutions an attractive option.
Technical features
Unlimited MySQL databases and FTP are another common-place feature of comprehensive hosting plans, as are the kind of one-click installation support for major website platforms and software solutions that you get with other kind of plans.
Marketing support
Additional marketing benefits such as free advertising credits for Google and Facebook are fast becoming just as much the norm for top hosting packages as those aforementioned free domain names. If you’re going all-inclusive with your hosting package then, expect to receive at least a couple of hundred dollars in advertising credits, free guides and similar tools to help you promote your new site.