Lifetime Hosting

I came across this web hosting service called Lifetime Hosting, that says you can pay a one time fixed amount and use the hosting to host your website for life. There are 3 plans including starter (3 websites), standard (6 websites) and deluxe (12 websites). Does anyone here have any experience signing up lifetime hosting?

 

I wouldn't do it, personally. It's not a sustainable business model, which tells me they won't be around for your "lifetime".

There's also this from the Terms, which I expected:

 

Agree with sarahk. Lifetime hosting is just a marketing gimmick that's all. It will lure the customer and lead them to poor hosting services and many of these hosting providers are fly by night operator.

 

If it sounds too good to be true...it probably is not true. "Lifetime" anything should be viewed with suspicion and skepticism.

 

there is no exist lifetime or nolimit resources. what about in 2026 with your pay once? what happened there when you have x users and about 20-30gb used in their hdd...

 

nothing for lifetime or like unlimited hosting etc so stay away like this hoting and buy premium host.

 

How on earth could the owner sustain the business without subsequent income?
It does not make sense.
Unless there is a catch.

 

I do not agree with the business model as we know its "impossible" long term. For clients, I would not trust this at all. I would also want the flexibility of being able to change hosts if needed. Not to mention that your hosting needs can change over time.

However, if we do the maths, it actually looks like it could be more profitable then other hosting business models.

Lets do the maths.
The most expensive part for the host is gaining new signups. This is why the big hosts offer $75 - $100 for commission payouts to signups. For people who charge monthly or yearly often cannot recover these costs before customers leave. This is why Hostgator gives massive discounts for 3 years pre-paid. It covers their initial upfront costs in one clear go, and they are betting you wont stick around for the complete 3 years... Slow, overcroweded servers, anyone that cares about the site will never last the 3 years.
From a hosts perspective, in the past, I have done massive adwords campaigns, and other marketing to gain new signups, and then had people abandon their sites after 1 year- they did not change hosts, they just abandoned their website, domain name, and everything. In this situation, where the cost to acquire is higher then the first years income, I have essentially provided an entire years free hosting, and still lost actual cash that can never be recovered.

If this host, has a cost of $40 to gain each new customer, then on the budget plan, they would have $40 left to play with. Its now getting more and more common to find budget hosts at $10-$20 per year, so the basic plan is essentially 2-4 years worth of hosting completely pre-paid.

I have seen many sites that lasted just 1 year. Even on DP I have seen people start forums, and 6 months later are selling their vb license scripts..... Alot of website owners do not make money, and sometimes cut their losses by not renewing the domains. Or how many sites are later sold? New owner may prefer their own host, (or to consolidate hosts for easier management), and or, perhaps cannot transfer the current hosting account to the new owner...

I really think you will find that 90% of the people in the targeted niche, will "give up" their websites after 1-2 years and or perhaps change hosts due to not being 100% happy. The other 10%, that do not give up and stay their costs are paid for by everyone who left. Those that stay, and have no traffic, (it does happen), actually have very negligible hosting costs. A static HTML site, with no traffic, costs close to $0. All you need is enough signups each month to cover the server costs.

But what if the host claims they have "outgrown" shared hosting... it does happen, and sometimes there are disputes between host and client but if you do genuinely outgrow your shared hosting, your option would likely be to leave and forfeit the remainder of your lifetime hosting. You and me would say that if they can host 3 sites, and 1 site outgrows that the other 2 can stay. Most hosts do not work that way, they all tend to be forced off.

On the (more) darker side of the hosting business.... Alot of 'companies' tend to start up during "spring break", and at the end they are flogged off for sale at any price as the kids need to get back to school. At $80 signup, $40 set aside for affiliate / signup costs, that gives you 1000 customers x $40 profit = $40,000. Thats easily enough to cover the sever, and software costs for 3-6 months. You could then "potentially" flog off the entire business model for 3-6months profit....

Getting clients is actually really hard, but this is why you can sell "free" cpanel webhosting clients at around $2 each, while paid can fetch $10-$100 depending on how much they are likely to spend per year. Even if this hosting business was closing down, someone would offer to buy it, simply to upsell other products and services. At $10 per client, x 1000 clients, = $10k in the bank even if this is not profitable business.

This is slightly disturbing. But here is where you can see hosting accounts be traded like garbage. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=184

TL/DR: Host could be making a pretty good profit as most small / new websites have minimal traffic, minimal hosting costs and wont be hosted long term, and the few that are hosted long term, and use alot of resources will just "outgrow" shared, and be forced to move / upgrade.

 

Hi: Look into signing up for hosting in 1-3 year increments. If after a year you are happy with the host then you can renew. If not then you can switch to a different hosting company. Lifetime hosting may sound cheap, but it could lock you in to a company that you don't really want to be with long term.

Dan