For the past few days I’ve been looking into paid web hosting. If you guys don’t know, I’m being hosted for free by SiteFrost. I absolutely love their free hosting service. But I was interested in finding something more…. Official, I suppose the word could be!

I thought, “I can just find a hosting plan from a long-time, reliable host for maybe $5 or $6 bucks a month. cPanel, nice bandwidth, the works”. Well, call me Martha and give me a spanking! Nothing could be further from the truth.

What the Hell happened to web hosts? The big name brands like Dreamhost, or iPage? Even Hostclear is a bugger. And, of course you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about fees. Hidden fees. Fees they don’t mention at all, on their main website, or the front page.

I’m using big, popular names to present the problem I’ve been having. But I’ve checked numerous other hosts with the same problems. In Hostclear’s case, they list a low “monthly price” of $3.95 a month. Lo and behold, I talk to live support, and they tell me if I want to pay month-to-month, guess what? $7.95 a month + $20 setup fee. This was similar with a bunch of other big name hosting sites. If I wanted the “Monthly price” featured on the front page, I’d have to pay 36 months of hosting in one go. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t have that kind of cash laying around.

I just about flipped my kite over this. I was positively livid.

I looked at over twenty big name hosting providers, and almost all of them had this sort of set up. What exactly is a “Setup Fee” when we’re talking about shared hosting?

An excuse to charge you extra.

I have some web hosting experience from a company’s perspective. It does not cost you a dime to create a new account for someone. Or almost any effort. A few clicks of the mouse, type in some text, you’re done.

What the Hell happened three, even four years ago to these hosting providers, that they changed to dirty tactics? Most sites were WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I’m just incredibly thankful I didn’t sign up for any of them, and talked to live chat before I went through any sign ups.

In fact, the ever popular Dreamhost doesn’t post prices on their plans on their website at all. They list the add-on prices, but not even the plan prices! After a few days of being treated like an idiot through live support and ticket systems, I decided to say “Screw you” to big brand name hosts. Not that paid fledgling web hosts are of much better morals.

I’m staying with SiteFrost‘s free hosting for as long as I possibly can. I’ve had no downtime since I’ve been with them. I have good bandwidth and cPanel. That’s all I need.