Does an expensive web hosting plan mean quality web hosting?

Quality web hosting today is widely available for a very low price compared to, say, 7 or 8 years ago. When the Internet first became a mainstream communication tool, web hosting provider thought they could earn a lot of money by charging cutthroat prices for what would seem to be basic features today. Fortunately, with the growth of new quality web hosting providers, competition has driven the cost down to a very affordable level.

This does not mean that expensive web hosting plans have ceased to exist, however. A quick search on the Internet reveals that there are still many hosting providers that offer basic hosting plans for a relatively higher price tag. The question is: do these expensive web hosting plans guarantee quality web hosting as well?

Pair.com, for example, offers a plan with 500MB disk space and 40GB monthly bandwidth along with the usual features like e-mail, FTP accounts and so on. The package is priced at $9.95 per month with a $25 set-up fee. It sounds ridiculous for those well-acquainted with the web hosting industry, since it is a widely-known fact that quality web hosting with unlimited bandwidth and storage space are available at a price much lower than that.

A closer look yields the probable reason for this cost. The plan comes with junk e-mail filtering and virus scanning – a feature not many quality web hosting companies could provide. Users’ data are protected and backup servers guard against data loss in case of server failure. The company also claims that all its operations and services are carbon-neutral and thus environmentally friendly.

Do all the features make expensive web hosting better compared to cheaper options? Not necessarily. For many webmasters, all they ever need is only a reliable host to put up their websites and thus all the extra features are not required. Quality web hosting plans are widely available at low prices, ranging from a low $3.95 to $7.95 monthly. Many offer unlimited bandwidth and disk storage too, with unlimited databases, FTP accounts and e-mail aliases.

Expensive web hosting plans do not necessarily mean quality web hosting. However, neither would cheap web hosting guarantee an uninterrupted service. Many web hosting plans are able to offer unlimited features because the hosting accounts are shared web hosting – all the server resources are shared with other users. Should a sudden traffic spike or visitor surge arrive at one of the websites, it will put a strain on server resources and most of the time the hosting account will get suspended.

How does one then justify the cost that goes with a quality web hosting plan? In the end, it all depends on what type of websites and what feature a user needs. A complex shopping website, for example, will need dedicated servers and thus the higher cost will guarantee quality web hosting. The opposite is true with small blogs, which require minimal resources. Quality web hosting , in the end, is a matter of choice.