60 or less

November 14, 2008 9:46 AM

I need to register a domain name and get hosting services for $60 (or less)/year. Very specific details follow.

So I need to register a domain and host a site for something like $60 (Canadian!) a year. I found this thread helpful but my situation is a little different.

This was originally supposed to be $50/year but I'm beginning to think that's impossible. In addition to the domain name, I need PHP, MySQL, webmail (at most, 10 addresses or so) and enough memory/storage to run the groupware we're using. The site is very low-traffic and we aren't storing much data or anything.

So far the only host I've found that comes close to meeting these requirements is 1&1 (mostly because of the free domain registration and maintenance). Recommendations?

posted by scribbler to computers & internet (11 comments total)

I pay more or less that, through namecheap + mjzhosting (sadly, currently on invite-only mode).
posted by Memo at 10:02 AM on November 14, 2008

Have you looked at asmallorange.com? I just switched to them , and so far they've been great and very responsive. Their tiny and small plans might work, because they're giving 2 months free when you buy a year. Add on a domain for what, $8 to the $50 'small' plan and the total is $58 USD.
posted by cgg at 10:04 AM on November 14, 2008

I've got 4 sites (soon to be 5) at GKG.net. The economy plan meets all your requirements and is about $40 US annually.
posted by COD at 10:22 AM on November 14, 2008

If you host the webmail using Google Apps for Domains, you can host the site using NearlyFreeSpeech.net. If you have a low-traffic site, you can expect to spend just a few dollars a year in hosting as they just charge you for storage and bandwidth with no monthly fees.

nearlyFreeSpeech is just a webhost though, so you WILL need to use something else for your webmail. My company has been using this setup for two years and are very happy. Domain registration and web hosting has cost about $15 a year for us.
posted by lockle at 10:36 AM on November 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

I've used Modhost for awhile...I use it to park a (sadly out-dated) portfolio site, and not a whole lot else. I believe the cheapest package is USD 4 a month; domain extra.
posted by Bron at 11:09 AM on November 14, 2008

i would recommend going over to WebHostingTalk... check out their Hosting Offers forum and be sure to search for comments about any of the hosts you're thinking about using prior to signing up!
posted by hummercash at 11:36 AM on November 14, 2008

Vidahost has a starter package for £29.99/year (+/- $CAN 55) which includes one free domain on sign-up (registered in your name and contact details).

The package includes PHP, MySQL, 25 email accounts, 5 add-on domains, etc.

I've had 3 accounts there for a couple of years now and highly recommend them on super-fast, helpful support and almost constant uptime.
posted by ceri richard at 12:08 PM on November 14, 2008

Thanks all, I'll be doing more research.

Lockle: I originally floated nearlyfreespeech.net (using gmail) but this was nixed sort of over reasons I'm not quite sure about (but I wasn't really going to push the issue). Good suggestion though.

And I meant to ask in the original question - does anyone know what the taxation situation is on this, i.e. living in Ontario and paying a U.S.-based company for hosting services?

Thanks for all the suggestions!
posted by scribbler at 12:39 PM on November 14, 2008

Taxation? You'll only pay GST if you use a Canadian webhosting company. I've never paid sales tax to a US company.

I used to like asmallorange.com - however I have a few clients who were unlucky to have repeated outages or heavy loads on their server. (With shared hosting, you never know who you're sharing the box with.) But $5 USD is inexpensive and their support is responsive.

For your budget, nearlyfreespeech is the way to go. They charge $0.01/day for mysql (plus $0.01 for innoDB). So that $3.65 for the year. Assuming you have 50 MB of data (that includes db, logs, your web app, actual files, etc.) that will run you $6/year. A GB is $1/month. So, for the year you are looking at $21.65.

Personally, I've given up on shared webhosting and have switched over to a VPSes. Not for everyone - you basically are your own sysadmin - but $20/month and I can install tons and tons of little sites and side projects. The cost stays the same.
posted by kamelhoecker at 2:10 PM on November 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

How about ASmallOrange's Tiny Plan? They came highly recommended by members of my LUG and after two years of using them for my personal site and email I definitely agree. You get occasional outages as with any shared host, but their support team usually fixes them before I finish filing the ticket.

I've also used nearlyfreespeech.net for a couple projects and been impressed. It's hard to beat their price for a low traffic site, but you won't get email service.
posted by PueExMachina at 4:09 PM on November 14, 2008

Everything people have said about NearlyFreeSpeech.NET above is true; I've used them exclusively for all my projects in the last few years and they've been fantastic. You'll need to do email through Google Apps for Domains, as lockie noted, but it's REALLY easy to set up.

Would be interesting to know what specific problems your coworkers had with it.
posted by limeonaire at 1:36 PM on November 15, 2008