Do you usually buy one-year hosting plans?

[PenguinManiac]

All hosting companies offer several plans for each offer, and most of them will include a one-year plan and one or two multi-year plans at a discounted price.
What plan do you usually go to, and why? Is the convenience worth it or do you prefer to stay flexible and switch hosting companies frequently to make the most out of new member promotions? Do you find it safe to pay such a large lump sum?

 

[Rob Whisonant]

I pay monthly for one reason and one reason only. Even great hosting companies can go bad. Especially when they get bought out by another company.

 

[Soulwatcher]

Soulwatcher

I agree 100% because the web hosting business is a very hostile business. You have companies folding left and right and you have people buying each other out left and right. So only a uninformed person would pay a year in advance.

P.S. I also would like to throw this out there. You're risking losing it all If you're not backing up every 3 days on a busy website and 7 days on a slow website. And I would be backing up to a external hard drive or your PC. Because those R1soft backups are not going to do you any good if the company folds up shop.

 

[jyy]

I'd rather pay yearly, but since my monthly bill (for one service) is around 80 dollars, the yearly bill would be around 960 dollars and it's tough to get that kind of cash all at one time.

I pay monthly for one reason and one reason only. Even great hosting companies can go bad. Especially when they get bought out by another company.

That's a good reason, but if could afford it, I'd probably pay yearly anyway - because having it paid for the year lets me relax a little.

Is the convenience worth it or do you prefer to stay flexible and switch hosting companies frequently to make the most out of new member promotions?

Even though there is often free website migration and also can migrate things myself, I'd rather keep things with the same company - unless of course, the company goes bad or out of business.

 

[PenguinManiac]

I pay monthly for one reason and one reason only. Even great hosting companies can go bad. Especially when they get bought out by another company.

That's my biggest concern about yearly plans. Things can either go south for the company, leading to a server shutdown (worst possible scenario), or the provided service can simply get worse, which is not as catastrophic but still bothersome.

I'd rather pay yearly, but since my monthly bill (for one service) is around 80 dollars, the yearly bill would be around 960 dollars and it's tough to get that kind of cash all at one time.

Even though there is often free website migration and also can migrate things myself, I'd rather keep things with the same company - unless of course, the company goes bad or out of business.

Yeah, it's quite the investment to make. You could even lose interest in the long run and find yourself deprived of wasted hundreds of dollars.
It's understandable why you'd stay with the same company. No one would be eager to leave for a new company if you're satisfied with their quality (especially if you find good support on their behalf, which has become quite rare nowadays).

 

[Gazoo]

Most of the time when I buy my web hosting services I always try to go for monthly. I do this for many different reasons but the main ones are the fact that monthly billing lets me change my hosting service if something goes wrong with the service I am using of if plans change and I no longer need that hosting plan.

I have had bad experiences in the past with web hosts that were good at first but a month or two later things went bad. It's usually with support but I have had problems with downtime due to server problems.

If you pay for a year and have to leave for some reason then you will usually be out the money that you paid if you leave after 30 days since most hosts seem to have a refund period of around that.

If you pay by the month then sure it will usually cost more but if you want to change hosts or no longer need the service then you won't be losing that yearly payment.

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

I guess hosting quality is just too fluid to settle comfortably with a single provider (unless you go with big names, obviously). You start to notice downtime issues just in the long run, and, as you mentioned, by that time it will be too late to resign if you had paid for a yearly plan.
That also raises another important concern, which is the refund period. Why is it limited to a twelfth of the total time you're going to use that hosting for? 60 days would be a much fairer period, especially for new customers who have decided to invest a decent sum on a yearly plan.

 

[EzzyTech-Sakib]

Actually customers feel safe to pay on a monthly term. But there are many factors related to the payment term such as when you pay for 1 or 2 years the total cost can be reduced.

 

[smsmbooster]

Firstly, just 1 months, after things run well, 1 year or even more because they often have big promotion if you buy longer package.

 

[HostLittle]

I have a handful of small business' on my hosting, they all prefer to pay for a year at the same time they renew their domains.

I usually pay month to month for personal projects.

 

[vishwa]

When I choose a hosting company I usually do a intense research about them. If I have a faith on that company than I would go for Yearly option as it will save my money. However if the hosting company is completely new to me, I would go with monthly option to check out their server performance.

 

[Gazoo]

I guess hosting quality is just too fluid to settle comfortably with a single provider (unless you go with big names, obviously).

That can be true sometime but not always. Some of the biggest web hosts are consistently bad but that's because for every customer they lose, they gain many more in their place. They are OK with that although they shouldn't be. Just a poor way to do business in my honest opinion.

That also raises another important concern, which is the refund period. Why is it limited to a twelfth of the total time you're going to use that hosting for? 60 days would be a much fairer period, especially for new customers who have decided to invest a decent sum on a yearly plan.

I fully agree with you on that. I think the problem with them doing that is the fact that most people will stick around for 30 days and go beyond that refund period because many of them are new website owners and the first 30 days, they are still learning a lot and are more tolerant of issues with hosting because they are not sure if that's how things go normally or not.

If web hosts gave a longer refund period then many people would want refunds after the 30 days and before the 60 days than in just the 30 day period because they get tired of problems, service levels, hosting quality and so on.

Although a 60 day refund period would be great from a buyers' standpoint, it isn't most likely the best idea for web hosts or at least the hosts with services and support that are not great.

 

[Heatman]

Looking to be on the safer side, I think monthly payment is advisable because a lot of things could go bad within the course of one year. So, I basically go with one month payment.

 

[mastrodigital]

This is exactly why I pay monthly as well. I feel like you have more freedom and control when you're not locked in for a full year.

 

[ahmed]

i always buy 1 year hosting plan because it helps me to pay in advance and not worry about not paying if i dont have money next month.

 

[zomgmike]

There used to be a time when you had to pay annual to really get the good deal. Now all the big reputable places allow you to pay monthly and get basically the same deal as you used to get from prepaying. I would agree that there's no huge reason to prepay anymore.

 

[Talaa]

I prefer to pay monthly, because if the current web hosting provider is not stable or reliable, you can move to other providers. After you host your website on the current company for over a year, and you will find out that whether it is very stable and reliable or not, if yes and with a good discount, you can pay it annually.

 

[ArcadiiBreuz]

I have been hosting for 2 years, because there is a big discount

 

[odysseus]

I'm hosted on Azure, which as far as I know has no yearly offers, so monthly.

 

[bsangeeta]

First you should use monthly plans. After that if you feel good about that company and satisfied with the server and don't have any issue. Then you can go for large plans as well. But, the most suggested plan is monthly.

 

[jakeis]

I prefer to start with month-to-month payments, and then, after 2-3 months, if everything is fine with the host, I purchase an annual plan and benefit from the discounts.

 

[Nina7788]

If I didn't try this hosting, I'd prefer a monthly plan to be sure that this is what I like and need.