Web hosting services are so common now it seems like everyone has one. Not meaning this is a wrong way, trust me, competition is something I truly believe in. But, it seems there are people who think that they don’t need to know anything about developing and maintaining a business, to start their own web hosting business.

Those I find most surprising are those that offer hosting services at crazy prices. There are web hosting offers from people for $1 a year. Yes, you read right, one dollar for an entire year of service. With prices in the range of $60 to $100 per year for the minimum service, one would think this is a great deal but you must really analyze it first.

Let’s do some simple math. Hypothetically speaking a reasonable amount of clients a provider should get while having a small web hosting business is 1,000. If the owner sells his services at a buck each, he will bring in a outstanding $1,000 in just one year. Do you believe he can offer quality service, support and upgrades for this price? I am hard pressed to think he will have enough for food alone!

This can still be a profitable business in you have enough customers. All right, since I’m feeling good now, I’ll go on with this instance. Provider-for-a-dollar getting 10,00 customers; now that’s a goal worth having! In that case, the amount is an income of $10,000. Do you feel that a business will be successful with this much of an income for a year? Picture what the expenses would be of having 10,000 customers. It would only take the cost of power lines, rent, and power to suck all the money away from a small income.

As ever, the human mind is marvelous and searches for a solution. Clients that buy these services reason that if they get the deal for a year, it doesn’t matter if the provider goes out of business next year, which is most likely. They already got the service almost for free. And again I ask, is this true?

If your provider suddenly goes out of business, you will no longer have access to your services, and you will lose your email addresses and your web site. Even if you have your domain registered with another provider, you will not be able to get a new service for at least a couple of days in the best case scenario. That’s only if you didn’t make the mistake of getting your domain name with the same provider.

If that is the case you may lose your domain name so you will have to get a new one. Just think about how much time you have wasted not being able to notify clients about a new email address! What if you lost important emails and documents too? Do you think this is worth the risk?

When you buy your next web hosting service, consider the support services, the promptness in answering your emails and phone calls and the time the provider has been in the market. Yes, do check the price too, but if it sounds too good to be true, it may be a good idea to look somewhere else.

But if you insist on getting one of these services for a dollar, we will be happy to help you when your provider disappears, just let’s hope the damage isn’t too bad.