• 10 Nov
    2017

How Much does Web Hosting Cost in South Africa?

Your business has just started, you have a new website to go with it, and now you are shopping for a web hosting service. It is crucial to know how much rent you will pay for your new website to be on a web hosting company’s server, especially when your business is about to begin. A web hosting company stores websites on its server, and a server is a computer.  

No Fixed Price for Web Hosting

Regardless of where you shop, you will discover that there is no set of standard prices for services such as shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting. Generally-speaking, web hosting companies charge whatever the client is happy to pay. Having said that, there is such a thing as competition, with constant pressure from the competitors to keep prices as low and yet attractive as possible. Bear in mind that the more resources and support your website requires from a host, the more you will obviously have to pay.  

Some Guidelines for Determining if the Web Host is too Expensive

  1.  Overpriced Web Host Charges
    There is serious competition in the South African and international web hosting industry, so, this is not likely. If it does occur, how would a company stay competitive? In addition, if their pricing is like that, what about their hardware, software and technical support?  
  2. What about going for the Cheapest Host Charges?
    One must be wary of going for that really ‘cheap deal.’ The reason is that a host company cannot go below a certain price level, because of specific overheads, which, include infrastructure maintenance and technical support, software and hardware upgrades, staff salaries and so on. Going less than such overheads could mean that the host company may well be compromising the safety and security of the entire hosting system. This would place all those websites, placed trustingly into the care of the host, at great risk - something that any business owner would like to seriously avoid.
  3. Low Charges by Web Host must be Tested
     However, just because a web hosting company charges low prices, doesn’t mean it should be dismissed as being suspect. Like you would do with any new web host service, investigate the reputation of such a company, and examine any online reviews or clients’ comments. Large web hosting companies of high repute can keep prices low because of the large volume of work passing through them.  

    That is why if you go for the well-known brands such as Afrihost, your website will be safe and sound. The chance of receiving the critically required 24/7 support is much greater with the host giants then with the smaller ones.
  4. Reliable Support and Performance by Web Host CompanyWhen entering into a contract with a South African web hosting business, there will be certain guarantees / standards presented to the client such as 99-100% up time, rapid response time, and when, for instance, will the mitigating response to a serious server problem take place? Reliability and performance don’t come cheap, and paying for those critical success factors is well worth it. The other side of the coin is when your website’s uptime is less than what it should be, and you are beginning to lose business.  

For example, Afrihost guarantees a 24/7, dedicated host support service, which includes:

  •   An efficient client support service
  •   Provides great telephonic communication
  •   Constant monitoring of all systems, which are on full alert for any computer crashes
  •   Remote reboot devices that can speedily restore any crashed servers.

Complexity will cost you

When you move away from the normal, standard web hosting services supplied by the web host, and you go for the more specialised, and customised options required for your website, the price is going to go up.

Extra Services offered by the Web Host

To make hosting easier for the client, the web host may offer to manage a specialised, customized service on behalf of the client. This may involve basic performance monitoring, but may extend to helping the client with detailed application development. Whatever the degree of involvement of the host and the accompanying support offered, the client in the end must decide what is best for his or her website and business – is it worth paying the host extra for all the additional involvement, compared to the return on investment?

Linux Web Hosting

Linux is an open source operating system, which means web hosting companies do not have to pay licensing fees when Linux is used as their operating system. This understandably makes Linux web hosting attractive as it will enjoy low prices. Linux web hosting is considerably more popular than Windows web hosting, and is used for shared web hosting, which is when several or many websites are hosted on one server. The fact that the total cost of running a server is shared by many website owners, means the costs are lowered even more.

Afrihost offers its lowest and cheapest “Silver Home” Shared Linux Web Hosting package for R29 pm (VAT inclusive), which includes a free domain (for the first year), unlimited traffic, 1000MB of storage, and one MySQL data base, with the latest version of PHP scripting language. The top of the range, the “Platinum Home” option at R49 pm, provides everything the same as “Silver Home”, except that storage is 3000MB, and 5 MySQL data bases are made available.  

Windows Web Hosting

This web hosting server’s operating system is Windows based, which can only work with Windows-related products such as ASP.NET, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft SQL server (MSSQL). ASP.NET is a Windows server-side script language for rendering website pages more dynamic, and Microsoft Access, MSSQL, and MySQL are data base management systems.

The scripting language PHP can still be used on Windows. The only disadvantage of the Windows operating system is that, unlike the Linux operating system, it is considerably more open to attack by computer viruses.

Afrihost’s cheapest Windows web hosting package is called “Bronze Home,” which costs R49 pm, and includes a free domain (for the first year), unlimited traffic, 1000MB of storage, one MySQL data base management system, and one Microsoft Access data base management system, and the scripting languages ASP.NET and PHP. The third-lowest option “Gold Home”, at R99 pm, offers the same as the “Bronze Home”, except for the extra one Microsoft SQL data base. 

Do you still have questions about web hosting? Feel free to contact us or browse our web hosting FAQ section

Sources:

https://www.afrihost.com/site/product/linux_hosting
https://www.afrihost.com/site/product/windows_hosting
http://www.thewhir.com/cost-factors-web-hosting-service-relationship
https://www.afrihost.com/site/faq/web_hosting

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