With many cheap alternative hosting companies such as goDaddy & Crazy Domains,
“why do agencies charge so much for hosting?” – is a common question we get asked by our clients so here are some quick bite sized facts aimed to educate and add value to your decision making process when looking for a hosting partner. (Agency or independent).

Below are key differences between agencies and the cheaper wholesalers who are usually targeting large quantity of sales.

Good suburb vs Bad suburb

You could be placed in a bad neighbourhood with a cheap host. The internet as a whole is quite unsecure, cheap hosting companies can attract many people doing malicious/dodgy activity and because of their lower prices there’s often no monitoring of the accounts to keep an eye on who’s doing what.
Whereas the more expensive hosts usually limit the number of accounts they can have, and are monitored actively to ensure no suspicious activity is going on. Going on this analogy of a bad neighbourhood, the more expensive company can be seen as a gated community with around the clock security patrol.

Setup/Config

The cheaper companies often require you to do all of the configuration and setup yourself. While the initial pricing point may be cheaper, any support required (beyond a link to an article or a video) will incur costs to get their tech team involved.
Most agencies on the other hand will have their sys admin or tech team assigned to your account so there is no additional costs if you ever need to access your config settings.

Upgrades

The cheaper alternatives do not include upgrades such as important patches for security. In many cases security is an add-on feature with an additional cost, whereas this service is usually inclusive with the agencies.

Quantity over quality

Cheap hosting is cheap because they put hundreds/thousands of sites on the same server, charging each one a tiny amount that adds up to profit. The agency model is different in that they tend to focus on quality over quantity.

The takeaway

In summary, by the time all the extra necessary add-ons are in place for the cheaper host, the agency pricing often ends up cheaper & much more reliable in the long term. However not all agencies are the same so it’s important to ask details about their hosting environment when shopping around.

If you need assistance with looking for a good host for your website we’re here to help.