There is a fine line between playfulness with the truth/truth inflation and deception, is DreamHost crossing it? In 2006, DreamHost generated revenue of $13.1 million and has no doubt increased in recent years. Surely a company of this magnitude has a responsibility to avoid the sales trickery that they’re currently utilizing. Firstly you’ll notice the offer of unlimited everything, which is a matter in itself, but it isn’t that which has caught my attention. It’s the hidden costs and unreasonable numbers used. $5.95 is the monthly cost advertised on the homepage.
Navigating to the purchasing stage, you’ll find that you actually need to spend $714 for 10 years of web hosting to gain that stated homepage figure. If you wish to pay on a monthly basis then a setup charge of $49.95 is required, plus a monthly fee of $10.95. There is the argument that the asterisk stating, “depending on pre-payment” makes this completely acceptable practice, but it just feels wrong.
I run the risk of excessive self-praise, but at PinchHost we don’t have any hidden costs or setup fees and the prices stated on the homepage are the most that you’ll pay. We’ll be the last web hosting company to move to unlimited plans, we just don’t believe in overselling and unattainable promises.
As a web host, we endeavour to communicate everything that is relevant and give a sense of who we are, primarily through the homepage. Having personally put my faith into hosting companies and being disappointed I don’t want PinchHost to be a profit hungry unethical company. Our profit margins are actually relatively low as a new entrant into the market, we do understand why it might be tempting to exaggerate, but in all sincerity, we would rather be an honest company in a sometimes-misleading industry.
[...] business is gently swaying from jovial to unprofessional. I previously wrote a post, ‘Honest practice‘ talking primarily about how a number of web hosting companies advertise a certain price, [...]
I just moved from DreamHost as the hosting company I use. When I first signed up 2 years ago, they did not have just one unlimited plan, they had about 5 different plans you could sign up for. Now they only have one unlimited plan and with that plan you get crappy service (unless you want to pay them for service and than they are more than happy to help you). I signed up for a 2 year plan and doing that I saved some money and they promised me that I could leave at any time with in that 2 years and any remaining money in my account they would refund me. 2 weeks ago with 5 months left in that 2 years and $50 in my account, I left because their help website said one thing but their support was telling me another and they really were no help. When I left they did refund the $50 left in my account but not to me. They keep it and told me I could use it when ever I wanted to come back and use them as a host. After spending a day yelling at them, not on the phone but through tickets (and we all know how annoying tickets are for big issues where you need to talk to someone), they finally actually refunded the money to me. I will never go back to DreamHost for having crappy service and shady practices and I will not go back to HostExcellence for having no security (my website with them got hacked 3 times and they said there was nothing they could do about it).
Thanks for posting your experiences Brian. Well done for getting your money back!