If you like at the Survivedigg.com model, it failed. You do realize that they still offered more than what you are, right? At least in regards to disk space and bandwidth. But comparing disk space to other hosts is not.my.point. So I’m not going to bring that up again.

I’m not trying to say your idea is crap, I’m just trying to say it isn’t good. It can be worked at, to actually be WORTH $20. What you are offering right now, just as is, isn’t worth paying $20 a month for it. The only reason I see the $20 is to rectify the cost of the server.

So you’re going to have a server with 120 clients at $20 a pop. That’s $2400 a month. You say that your pricing level is to essentially defray the cost of the server.

You only need 120GB of disk space for clients, so perhaps you’ll have a 200GB hard drive or something. Bandwidth would have to be around 5TB assuming each person used 40GB, but since you only have 1GB of disk space, the average person isn’t going to even utilize 35% of their resources. So let’s say you skirt by with 2TB of bandwidth, or maybe even opt for an unmetered line.

Even with a overkill system from Softlayer’s Quad Processor Multicore servers, their basic is $500 a month. So we’ll just run with this example, you’re now making $1900 a month with the model you presented. Again, is where I say that $20 is overpriced.

The average hosting client doesn’t utilize MT. People that utilize MT go there for the quality support, service, and what their account includes. So basically the above average client wants to have multiple PHP environments, they want shell access, maybe RoR, and god knows what else.

I’m able to afford Holdfire Network because the business model I set up works for what I have. I pay for my servers a year in advance so that I get the best pricing model available. Depending on the server (there is currently two for shared, and three for resellers) the model is different. The shared servers max out at 75 clients. One of them I stopped before I even got to 75 clients to allow them to grow into their packages if need be. My reseller servers are the same way. One is stopped at 15 clients, while the other has 20 clients.

My ROI when I first started two years ago was minimal. At one point I was paying about $45 over what I was making, due to extra software I was paying on a monthly basis. Right now, my ROI is high enough that I lived off of it for about 7 or so months, until I started working full time as a designer. Took awhile to get there, so it’s not like it happened over night.

I’m not trying to “shove” it in your face, but I’m merely trying to tell you that I don’t see anything special about it… That right now, as it is, isn’t going to help gain your viewer’s attentions.

I keep comparing to Media Template, A Small Orange, etc because they have stuff that the average hosting client doesn’t use. You said yourself that you’re not catering to the average client.

You have the hardware to boast, and this supposed model of redundancy for uptime. Okay.. you’ve got that.. But.. what else? What else tells the client that the $20 they are spending, is worth it each and every month.

But that’s the thing, I’m not trying to help the average customer with low traffic sites.

I admit that the idea is nothing special, but I don’t get why you have to keep using that as your main point. What I’m setting out to do is provide reliable hosting at a price that high traffic sites can afford. You’re already in the hosting business so you should know, that alone is more than what thousands of other hosts are doing.

When I said reliable, I meant being able to survive daily medium to high traffic, not just have a safe place to host your low traffic sites. People that simply need a home for low traffic sites should look toward hosts like DreamHost and etcetera.

And I don’t use the fact I will provide WordPress support to differentiate my service. It’s just a bonus. I also don’t claim that it’s anything special because of that fact.

On your point about Media Temple, my service is not based on a bunch of bonuses that you’re never going to use. If that’s what you’re looking for in a host then go with Media Temple. I’d like to see you use up the 1TB of bandwidth that MT promises and reproduce that type of performance for all of their customers.

I’m curious about your 3GB/100GB package. You dont’ have to answer any of the following questions: How are you able to afford it? What is your server cap? Is it 120? Are your customers getting everything they’re paying for? What is your ROI? Please don’t shove the $20 in my face and say that it’s overpriced when I’m basically taking the opposite route of your 3GB/100GB package.

My example of Media Temple was not to compare overselling and not overselling. The price was comparing the features (excluding disk space and bandwidth) that the hosting package includes. With you the only thing that puts you above others is “WordPress support.”

Otherwise there’s nothing special about your idea. Again, I’ll state this. Charging $20 for a meager 1GB of disk space and 40GB of bandwidth IS OVERPRICED. Within my hosting company, I have a 3GB/100GB package that comes to $40 yearly. You can try to chime in that “Oh, you don’t have WordPress support.” I don’t see that being a constant necessity for the average user. And the above-average WordPress user isn’t going to a just-out-of-the-box host, that doesn’t offer anything other than some beefy server specs. They’re going to want to have their own enviroments be it PHP4 or PHP5. Maybe Ruby on Rails, maybe not. My servers only use dual-core Xeon’s and 4GB of ram, and they’re nowhere near using 25% of their resources in regards to disk space and bandwidth. You can smartly oversell your resources if you know how to play the game correctly. I use logical disk space quotas. Nothing like Dreamhost or Surpass Hosting.

Back to my comparison about MT: It was not even ABOUT the diskpace and bandwidth offered. Seriously, if that’s your only excuse you’ve got, you might want to try a little harder then.

I know plenty of hosts that host their websites on quad-core servers, with plenty of ram and DON’T oversell ridiculously (albeit they do oversell, but nothing in terms of Dreamhost) but they DO cap accounts on the server. I’m in the market, and I see what else is out there. I KNOW it’s out there.

You’re going to have to have a lot more features with your package to justify the $20. Tell me right now what makes your $20 package better then any other place. Because right now, charging $20 for a paltry amount of disk space and bandwidth, with no major features other then your WordPress support makes me think it’s all about making money from this.

Hypothetically speaking: What else are you going to offer that will make a viewer think “Alright, I have $20 a month to spend on hosting. Do I look at places like Media Template , A Small Orange, Site 5 (overselling aside), East Solid who seem to have some features I might want to use.. Or do I go with this Wpdesigner PH where the only main feature is WordPress support?”

It just seems like a clone from Survivedigg.com, which seemed to have been a bit of a failure….

Yeah that’s cool. It’d be better to have it release a little later and be awesome and fully working, than to get it a earlier and have some bugs!

Anyways, I see where you’re coming from as well. What kind of site do you think your hosting service would be good for?

Example: 2,000 unique hits a day, 5,000 page views, etc.

I think if you gave out something like that, it would help let people know if your host is right for them.