Free hosting companys, is it worth it?

[[JSH]John]

I've been thinking about starting up my own free host as I've seen a lot of interest in free hosting companys now, before I do start a one I was wondering... is it worth it? I mean.. does having ads on your customers site help you pay most the costs of running your company?

[xd3vilx]

If you are looking to earn money from free web hosting, I would suggest NO to setting up a free hosting company. Whether it can cover your overall cost, this have to depend on your plans and business plan etc. But don't always expect ads to cover your cost. Free hosting company should be treated more like a hobby than something for gain.

[ahnzet]

Running free hosting doesn't give you much money. It's just a hobby not a serious business.

[franky77]

As for me I don't think anybody runs a serious business being on a free hosting.

[danosd]

It is not worth it.

Starting a free web hosting business will require a lot of work and dedication on your behave. You will have to not only promote your business in a market filled with competition but also fight spam on a daily basis. The business model is also an issue, since users don't longer like web hosts that put ads on their pages.

[JonnyH]

Just do free hosting as a hobby, ADS can get you abit of cash but not much.

[AMC]

I know thats true, but i mean what do they expect, hosts have to live to.

Free web hosting is not prophitable in most cases however if run correctly alongside paid services, it can be quite affective.

Think of it this way. say 100 people signup to your newly created free hosting package. After 6 months 10 of those sites have made it big, and they need to expand, because they have reached that size they are probably willing to pay. and anyone with half a brain is going to see it is easier to upgrade to a paid account on the same host, rather than backup your files look for another host and re upload and re park/point domains. Upgrading can be done on moment of payment causing no downtime or anything.

anyway , im sorry i made little sense but an investment in a small free hosting sector to be run alongside paid hosting will open you up to a new market and allow faster expansion. it does make economic sense, even if its just to brake even at first

[TaiLZ]

Well i started just over a month ago, and i earn $35 dollars per week now, not bad for just over a month, covers costs. It is worth it, and i started for the fun of it :)

[AMC]

that is quite a lot from free hosting... nice one.

[Starcraftmazter]

Not if you have to pay for a whole server, or more, plus WHM/cPanel -=/

The thing is, once you start off, say on a reseller, your costs will be low. Then they will get higher, as you get more customers, and the trick is increasing the money you make from ads throughout.

I would suggest it is more of a hobby than a serious business, because for it to be a serious business, be prepared to work 9-5, like a real job, to make yourself better than the rest.

[ReyRey]

It doesn't earn me a lot of money.. not even close enough to cover the costs of my server.. it would take about 4 months of ads to cover the cost.

[NWH Networks]

Okay well my hosting company is free and all that but FREE Hosting companies isnt like a hobby...It is just like a Paid Hosting company you still have alot of things to look out for and control...On mine to get 3gig extra of space they must pay so much...and to remove ads off their control panel they must pay so much so yeah its worth it

[MattGe]

Earlier I was engaged in a free-hosting. Certainly it is not high-grade business and enough of money on a free-hosting service to not earn. But if it not start of any big paid project or if you not have the original fresh commercial idea.

[ddt]

I have no idea.
Good luck!

[James]

You need a strong source of continuous income to have the allowance to run a free host.

[AMC]

you want a previous investment really, you want to save up enough for say a year, and then start, once you do that, youve got to concentrate on how to make your money back

[tesla3]

What about the hosts who give lot of space/traffic/features and does not require posts or adds. (and a lot of them are much better than lot of paid hosts)

How they survive? :/

*Big respect to them, im just curious

[Starcraftmazter]

They have funding from elsewhere, that's how.

[J J]

What about the hosts who give lot of space/traffic/features and does not require posts or adds. (and a lot of them are much better than lot of paid hosts)

How they survive? :/

*Big respect to them, im just curious

Or they simply use money from there own pockets. ;)

[James]

Like me.

[fireshark]

Or they pretend to have said amounts of space.

[zcoder]

The best way to do it is to do something like I am doing.
for starters I don't rent a server I don't even rent my name
servers, I host all that my self by building my own data center.

Then to pay for the cost of all this I sell my cPanel Clone script
on another completly different site.

I wrote a cPanel Clone and I give free hosting accounts away so that my
members as they use the cPanel can post in the forum about any bugs they
may find, then I fix those bugs, which makes my cPanel more stable.
All this is worth me giving out free hosting just for the testing.

The users pay nothing. not a dime, and most of them don't even know
about my other site where I sell the script.

I also sell paid hosting for anyone who needs some real serious hosting.
other then that, I don't think you can offer free hosting and last verylong
if you don't have a product to pay for it all on the side.

And I did a test with ad's and it's not anygood. I had google ad's
on one high traffic site to test it out, I got $1.23 for 5,000 Unique
hits. that was the first week. thats not much and not even worth
the traffic I was giving them. and you have to have $100.00 to get
payed. so thats 81 weeks it will take me to get paid. LOL


Zcoder....

[Blade1941]

What about the hosts who give lot of space/traffic/features and does not require posts or adds. (and a lot of them are much better than lot of paid hosts)

How they survive? :/

*Big respect to them, im just curious

ads* A.D.vertisementS. (A.D.S or ADS)

[TSO]

John;790896']I've been thinking about starting up my own free host as I've seen a lot of interest in free hosting companys now, before I do start a one I was wondering... is it worth it? I mean.. does having ads on your customers site help you pay most the costs of running your company?

For us, yes it does pay off. You just have to execute it right. If you're going to jump in, I'd suggest doing it fairly soon, as the market is beginning to become rather crowded.

[fireshark]

@zcoder: and where is this datacenter of yours?

[James]

I think there's a niche market in the free hosting that not many hosts actually even explored yet.. I'm trying to develop on it.