It's been a while since I researched what other companies are charging for webhosting, so I decided to spend the last couple of hours searching for as many other Christian web hosts as I could find. If you're in the process of looking for a Christian based web host to serve your church, ministry, or Christian business, be prepared to spend some time researching your options.
In this post, I'll answer some of your commonly asked questions about MB, GB, storage and transfer, and I'll also provide you with the prices that I found during my searching. My intent is not that you would just "take my word for it," but that this information would provide a starting point for you as you search for the host that will best meet the needs of your church or Christian ministry.
What is MB and GB? MB stands for Megabytes (or megs), and GB stands for Gigabytes (or gigs). These are units which measure the size of your files. There are 1024 bytes in a Kilobyte, 1024KB in a Megabyte, and 1024 Megabites in a Gigabyte. Each week I upload a 20 minute sermon audio file that utilizes about 10MB. The old floppy diskettes held 1.44MB, a CD-ROM holds 700MB, and a DVD-ROM holds 4.7GB.
What is storage? Storage is the amount of space you have available to you on the server. Whether these files are linked to your website or simply stored there to be accessed by FTP, whenever you upload files, they take up some of the space in your account. Our economy hosting plan includes 5GB of hosting space.
What is data transfer, traffic, or bandwidth? Different hosts use different words to refer to the same basic concept. Data transfer refers to the amount of data that can be moved to or from your server during a given month. For example, if I have 1,000 downloads of a 10MB audio file during a month, then I've used 10,000MB (or 10GB) of data transfer. Our economy hosting plan includes 250GB of data transfer each month.
How much storage and transfer do I need? Every ministry is going to have different needs, depending on what they plan to do with their website. If you're primarily going to host text, then you don't need as much space as you would if you plan on hosting photos, audio, or even video. Consider what you plan to have available on your website, and start tallying how much space you think it will need. Then, consider how many visitors you hope to have each month, and what percentage of your site you expect them to download, and then you have a bandwidth projection.
What sort of prices did you find in your research? I'm glad you asked! To be honest, while I knew that we offered an affordable hosting package, I was somewhat surprised to see that we were among the least expensive Christian webhosts that are operating today. In fact, during my search, I didn't find any other Christian web hosting company that offered more space & transfer for less money.
In the following comparison chart, I list one plan for each host. In each case, I picked the hosting plan that I felt most closely matched our "economy" hosting plan in regards to space and transfer. In fairness, it should be noted that our "economy" plan is a very robust hosting plan, and few other hosts match it. In other words, I found that I was often comparing our least expensive plan with their most expensive plan. Consequently, if you don't need as much space as we provide, you may find that a smaller plan offered by another company would be cheaper and still suit your needs.
* - indicates that the webhost does not state their data transfer limits. This may be due to a "soft limit" model in which the bandwidth is monitored but not limited unless it becomes excessive. If you are considering a host with a "soft limit," be sure that your questions about limits, throttling, and overage charges are explained to your satisfaction.
There is one anomaly in that chart that deserves further exploration. ChristianWebHost.com offers a very robust plan with 40GB of space and 150GB of data transfer. Instead of comparing it to our "economy" plan as I did in the chart above, I really should compare it to our "deluxe" plan:
As you can see, if you are needing more space than our economy plan (5GB), then our more robust plan (100GB) is still extremely affordable.
Information in this post was accurate as of March 11, 2007. I have presented monthly costs if you were to purchase your hosting by the month. Some discounts may be available for annual purchases. Also, just as
YourChurchWeb.net runs sales and promotions, I assume that the other hosts referenced here have sales and promotions as well, which are obviously not reflected in the pricing chart.
You'll also see that I've listed domain prices when available. However, some of the hosts listed above do include domain registration with their hosting plan. Please read carefully the terms and conditions of included domain registrations--you want to make sure that the domain is registered in your (or your church's) name, and that you can take it with you if you ever move to another host. One of the hosts above will pay for your domain as long as you are their customer, but it is stipulated that they own the domain, and that you can't take it with you. Most churches I know would rather pay the $9.00 a year, simply for that added flexibility.
By the way, even if you choose one of these other hosts, we'd be happy to serve as your registrar. You'll see that our domain registration prices are among the lowest that you'll find.
If you own or operate one of these hosting companies and feel that I have somehow misunderstood or misrepresented your hosting plan, please
contact me so I can correct this post. And, if you'd rather not be listed here at all, just let me know and I'll be happy to remove your company's name and information.
Obviously, I want to serve your church or ministry. I'd also like to help you save money, which you can use to help strengthen your other ministries. I'd be more than happy to help you transfer your website to our servers, or to discuss other options with you. Please don't hesitate to send me an email:
sales@yourchurchweb.net.
Grace and Peace,
Jonathan Twitchell
YourChurchWeb.net
Labels: domains, hosting, prices
