Hot - $10/yr web hosting incl 150meg, 3 gig/mo, 10 email accts, and lots more!

[AuctionHugh]

I have been working with e-rice.net to set up a tiny commercial account for a business my wife is building a web page for. This is in addition to the free account that they have given me for my personal page. The free accounts are gone, but the entry level hosting account is only $10/year! You get a 7 day free trial, too, with no payments until the 7 days is up and you are satisfied.

The story is that the owner is leasing a rackshack server to learn on, and merely wants to sell enough accounts to cover most of his costs. This is not a CyberWacks scam as far as I can tell.

My account has been up for a couple months, and my downtime in that period has been a matter of a few minutes only, according to my website uptime tracking service. Also, there is an easy "whole website backup" function built in to the admin console, so you can never lose more than your $10 even if he did go belly up!

More info at this link. Sign up here.

Here are the plans:

Value Plan
150M Disk Space
3G/mo Data Transfer
1 MySQL Database
10 Email/User Accounts
$9.99/yr!

Standard Plan
250M Disk Space
5G/mo Data Transfer
3 MySQL Databases
25 Email/User Accounts
$19.99/yr

Advanced Plan
500M Disk Space
10G/mo Data Transfer
5 MySQL Databases
50 Email/User Accounts
$44.99/yr

All plans come with this:
99.5% Uptime Guaranteed
24/7 Technical Support
No Setup Fee
7 Day Free Trial
Ensim Control Panel 3.1
PHP 4.2.2
Server Side Includes(SSI)
Full FTP Access
Web-based File Manager
Subdomains
MySQL 3.23.52
PhpMyAdmin
POP3 & SMTP Server
Auto-Responder/Email Forward
Squirrelmail Webmail
Catch-all Ability
Backup & Restore Function
Password-protected Directory
Web Traffic Statistics
FrontPage Server Extensions

Hope this is helpful to some of you folks who want a decent website without investing a lot of cash into it. Of course you will need a domain name (www.domainname.com) too. I got mine for $8 or $9 a year at go daddy.

 

[wjones]

The price is good. Just that I never heard of them.

Also, there is an easy "whole website backup" function built in to the admin console, so you can never lose more than your $10 even if he did go belly up!

hehe... another cyberwings trick. Pay now and you'll never lose much. (no offense )

 

[RossMAN]

I can't find any feedback regarding this webhosting company on WebHostingTalk.com all I found was this.

 

[MontyBurns]

You can tell he is still "learning" because he is offering 150 megs storage and 3 gigs transfer for 83 cents a month. He will soon learn that's not economically feasible. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting a great deal. But with Web hosting, you get what you pay for.

 

[lex]

e-rice also advertised "free" accounts here, and I signed up, and while server responce times were slow, it was free, but then they changed the TOS (one day) and canceled me.. so let that mean whatever it does..

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: lex
e-rice also advertised "free" accounts here, and I signed up, and while server responce times were slow, it was free, but then they changed the TOS (one day) and canceled me.. so let that mean whatever it does..

Thanks for the info. If it sounds too good to be true then ...

 

[AuctionHugh]

I've had no problems with my free account. In fact, my access times are always very zippy, my email always comes through, the web email interface is great, and the support response time for my relatively ignorant questions has been same day and pleasant. I don't know if they can maintain these low prices for thousands of people, and I don't know that you would put your business' giant commercial website up under an e-rice plan, but for a little website to fool around with or for a small business, what do you have to lose? Worst case you are down for 3 days while you transfer your url to another hosting plan costing 10x as much. Either way, I don't care one way or another nor do I get a commission nor do I know the owner personally. I just think this will be a hot deal for some!

Frankly I think a lot of you deal-loving-techies are still feeling burned from cyberslings, but this seems to me to be a whole different type of operation.

 

[MontyBurns]

how do you make money giving away free accounts?

 

[AuctionHugh]

I don't want to push this service, except that it so far has been a really good deal, so I'm giving it one more bump here. You don't make money giving away accounts. But if you decide to learn the hosting business, lease a rackshack server for $100 a month to do so, and need some accounts to learn with, you start by giving some away. Not thousands, but maybe a hundred? All I know is over on FatWallmart, several people agreed that they had purchased cheap accounts at e-rice and every one was very satisfied. I know this is a risk but I think the risk is really minimal. We are talking $10 a year plus the cost of registering a url (www.mylastname.com or whatever) to build a real working webpage with no ads and so far, no bologna. You could easily pay $100 a year somewhere else and be taking the same level of risk.

The only downside I've seen is I'm pretty new at managing a website and the documentation on this site is a little sparse. I've had to ask in the forums there how to do stuff, when more complete docs would have been nice. But I always get a "same day" answer.

Originally posted by: MontyBurns
how do you make money giving away free accounts?

 

[MoFunk]

Who ownes this host? Shawn J. White?

 

[kermalou]

i don't think i have seen this many bumps from someone that "doesn't" own the company????

is there more than meets the eye?

 

[MontyBurns]

I still don't see why you'd want to register a site with a host who is just learning how to be a Web hosts. Why should customers pay him for that? If he wants to learn, he should offer it for free, and warn people up front about what he's doing.

If you care that little about a Web site, just go with one of the free hosts.

Plus, I think it's a little irresponsible to offer YEARLY plans when you're just starting out. How does he know he's going to want to do this for a year?

 

[dlaw]

Originally posted by: MoFunk
Who ownes this host? Shawn J. White?

No, it is "the CEO".

 

[everman]

I would much rather go with a much more reliable and reputable host myself and pay around 10/month for better service. I think we would have learned from cyberwings.

 

[dakata24]

no CGI?

 

[AuctionHugh]

I came back to reply a few times because I knew after all the well meaning folks that got burned by cyberslangs, there would be some scepticism. Again, I have no relationship with e-rice.net, its owner, or anything, except that they gave me a free site. This is the hot deals forum and I sincerely believe a website for $10 is a very good deal for folks that need a little site to host their auction photos or dog pictures or whatever. I'm not saying they won't go out of business, who knows? But I also don't see any questionable promotions (actually I don't think I've ever seen ANY promotion or advertising, except one thread some time ago that got me to go over there and sign up). I also don't see any kooky 10 minute response time claims or anything like that, hype, etc. I bought a cyberslobs account, and while I did recieve my refund eventually, I lost my website. At least e-rice.net gives you the chance to easily backup to your local hard disk. Frankly, I don't care if anyone signs up or not, but I do sincerely believe that this is a hot deal until proven otherwise.

Originally posted by: kermalou
i don't think i have seen this many bumps from someone that "doesn't" own the company???? is there more than meets the eye?

 

[SinMen]

Originally posted by: kermalou
i don't think i have seen this many bumps from someone that "doesn't" own the company????
is there more than meets the eye?

Then you should check out the thread that bumps Dixiesys.

 

[vladgur]

Ok, I do not understand how loading up your servers with freeloaders will make you learn anything about it?

He is not only losing money with $10 year accounts but also time. People who know anything about webhosting would not get a $10 a year account simply because they care about their content too much. So what do you get, a lot of newbies who will flood his support desk with too many basic questions and when he wont be able to respond to them, they will all come back here and say how his response times are low, how this doesnt work, that doesnt work etc. Which will decrease his user "ratings."

If you really want to learn something hosting and supporting customer, its better to start with a private base of customers than to advertise it here.

 

[vladgur]

plus the guy who owns the server is in another hemisphere -- dont expect instant support

 

[SinMen]

This is not an ad from the owner, it's from a happy customer. $10 is too cheap? I thought Dixiesy had a 2 for 1 sale for $20, and was highly recommended in this forum. That is essentially $10/year. Bad ratings? Read the Dixiesys thread and see if it matters.
And it doesn't matter that much where the host is located. Mine is in Isreal, and the response time is usually within 15 minutes.

 

[vladgur]

So you if you are having a problem at 5pm Pacific while its 5AM in Israel you get a response within 15 minutes? Thats extremely good, even better the top notch hosts that costs $100/month. Maybe you can share with us who your provider is?

In any case, according to the originator of this post, we are dealing with a fellow who is knew to webhosting, so I would bet he is not going to provide you around clock support like that. Not that you can expect for the money you paid.

I doubt this guy has a solid business plan though, why would you want to throw your money away on an annual subscription if he might change his mind in a few month and see that it is too much trouble for himself to maintain this server and just dump it back to rackspace or whatever. Gone are your data and you have to search for another host in a hurry, update your dns records, downtime could be several days....

 

[wjones]

$8.95/year (I know this plan can't compare to e-rice's offer but if this is a reliable company, then it might worth it)
50 Megs of Space
1 Gig Transfer
50 Email addresses
Ensim Control Panel
Frontpage 2002 Extensions
No set limit Subdomains
Lots of Email Addresses
Apache Web Server
Server Side Includes (SSI)
SuEXEC (chrooted)
SSL
Log Files
Frontpage 2002 Extensions
Personal CGI-BIN
Htaccess
Sendmail Mail Server
Aliases
Responders & Vacation Message
Web-based Squirrel Mail
Mail Forwarding
Spam Filters
Majordomo Mailing Lists
POP3 + IMAP
SMTP Authorization
ProFTPD FTP Server
Scripting Tools (Perl, Python, PHP4)
Backup and Restore Manager
Usage Reports
Site Statistics
File Manager
File Upload
MySQL Database
Traffic Monitoring

Anyone host with this company?

 

[hamburglar]

Originally posted by: vladgur
So you if you are having a problem at 5pm Pacific while its 5AM in Israel you get a response within 15 minutes? Thats extremely good, even better the top notch hosts that costs $100/month. Maybe you can share with us who your provider is? In any case, according to the originator of this post, we are dealing with a fellow who is knew to webhosting, so I would bet he is not going to provide you around clock support like that. Not that you can expect for the money you paid. I doubt this guy has a solid business plan though, why would you want to throw your money away on an annual subscription if he might change his mind in a few month and see that it is too much trouble for himself to maintain this server and just dump it back to rackspace or whatever. Gone are your data and you have to search for another host in a hurry, update your dns records, downtime could be several days....

nicely put

 

[vladgur]

. 8-95.com can not and does not offer an "uptime" guarantee. Additionally we cannot be held responsible for any damages cause by any downtime or failures in service, regardless of the reason for that failure. 8-95.com will do everything in our power to prevent and shorten any such problems but no guarantees are given implied or otherwise.

I just dont get how they are gonna get money. with low 1gb/month bandwitdh its very risky to oversell, because many customers will in fact come up to the limit. So it is reasonable to say they will get 500 customers, at 8.95 a year, thats nearly 4500 a year or only $375 a month for a server that probably costs over $100 to maintain. So thats about $200 a month to support 500 customers.... Imagine what kind of strain 500 customers will put on the machine....

 

[SinMen]

Originally posted by: vladgur
So you if you are having a problem at 5pm Pacific while its 5AM in Israel you get a response within 15 minutes? Thats extremely good, even better the top notch hosts that costs $100/month. Maybe you can share with us who your provider is?

5pm Pacific is 8pm EST, then I can tell you that they DID answer my emails in about 15 minutes at that time. I didn't know about 2am EST though. Usually I would post a question, go to bed, and then check my email again in the morning. The only time that they would respond to email slow is during the weekend, sometimes it could take up to 2 hours. After Cyberwings, I don't see it right to recommend any hosting companies. Most of them don't have a long enough track record to tell us if they will stay.
P.S. Remember this is the Internet, some of the support calls I had were answered by people lived in UK and US. Some 5am or 5pm apparently doesn't matter.
BTW, my hosting plan cost more than $10/year, but way way way less than $100/month.