Meet the New FastCloud Hosting Plans and Pricing
This month FastComet turns 5! We believe this is an important milestone for our company that evolved so much through these years and thus introducing the FastCloud Plans. From a humble beginning with a team of four people and an ambitious project, it’s been an incredible five years. It was a truly rewarding experience to see FastComet grow into an indispensable service for more than 50,000 clients with the help of 70 employees.
At the beginning of June, we introduced our new company branding and vision on how FastComet will evolve and develop in the future. We created our new platform to represent better everything that changed at FastComet for these years and all the powerful technologies that make FastCloud service unmatched.
What changed
Today, we take most of the features of our service for granted, but they are actually a result of the company development. Heading toward our first aim, being technologically advanced, we have achieved a lot, and we have re-defined what security and speed mean in the hosting industry. FastComet was one of the first Shared Hosting companies to completely abandon the bare-metal infrastructure and move to SSD-based, fully-redundant cloud infrastructure. We were also one of the first to migrate from the Vanilla CentOS to CloudLinux on such an environment and provide cPanel cloud-based hosting on all plans.
We added fully-managed Cloud Virtual Private Servers and Dedicated CPU products to our portfolio. We did this to help our clients scale by building a unified platform. This way, when their websites grow, they wouldn’t have to sacrifice performance, security, or any of their favorite features. Our clients’ growth and support have always been our first priority, and it always will be.
We made security and performance our top priority by introducing BitNinja Security, SpamExperts, Cloudflare CDN, Free SSL for everyone and free off-site backup for all clients.
An in-house built monitoring system was introduced that created a whole new way for handling incidents, account optimization, and resource monitoring. Up to this day, we are still the only hosting company that does not suspend clients’ accounts for resource over usage but works with them to optimize and fix things.
We never compromised on support, and we scaled our team with our growth to make sure you always receive the same level of superior customer service.
What Has Not Changed
We would like to create a unified hosting platform on which every website owner, despite the size of their business, can take advantage of our platform and scale seamlessly. We feel the value of our service is in our ability to help you and your customers to have:
- a more performant site; a secure and reliable environment;
- tools that make it faster to create rich experiences;
- insights into how to improve your website;
- integrations that make it easier to extend your site;
- all backed by the world’s independently acknowledged leading support organization.
Through the years we improved and changed almost every aspect of our service for good. The one thing that hasn’t changed over this time is our plans and pricing. Today we are introducing our new shared hosting plans to represent better our service by the value it creates.
FastComet updated plans put a greater focus on customization and flexibility while taking advantage of the company’s FastCloud hosting platform. The new plans are meant to accelerate our ambitions to move beyond just cloud hosting. They offer the flexibility for customers to grow on our platform at their own pace, allowing for more agile development experience, and making powerful features such as RocketBooster available. Such features were previously reserved for specific plan tiers. Meet FastCloud, FastCloud Plus, and FastCloud Extra.
Our customers are always our No. 1 priority here at FastComet. Every decision we make is customer-inspired, and customer feedback fuels our innovation. When you speak, we listen; and based on your feedback, we are making several improvements to our entry pricing model.
Additionally, we want to lower the barrier to entry to our service. The number one pre-sales question we got with the old pricing structure was concerning the setup fee of the monthly subscription plan. This was also the most common con described by our affiliates, partners, and referrals. So, we analyzed the needs of these people and found that there is a massive market for people who want our level of hosting, but our setup fee was prohibitively expensive.
Furthermore, we always strive to be as transparent and fair as possible with our clients. We are now offering lower entry prices and flat pricing model per all billing periods with the lowest possible domain pricing.
Ultimately, our goal was to create a pricing model that represents our service by the value it creates. We believe we can achieve this by providing the lowest possible entry price for people to experience our service – a fair price for those that appreciate our work and would like to continue their online journey with us.
How this Affects our Existing Clients
Our existing clients can take advantage of the new plans and pricing right away. If you would like to start a new project or transfer an existing one, you can do this via our website, your FastComet Client area, or by contacting our Sales team via the Live chat.
To complete the unification of our platform and client base, all existing clients will be upgraded to the new plans completely free of charge. Plans will be upgraded so everyone will keep their existing resource quotas and features as follows:
- StartSmart → FastCloud
- ScaleRight → FastCloud Plus
- SpeedUp Rocket Booster → FastCloud Extra
As per the announcement of our new hosting plan structure on April 10, 2017, all Singe Website, Multi Website, and E-Commerce hosting have been moved to a legacy status. On 14 May 2018, existing grandfathered plans were converted to a plan that is the closest equivalent of the existing plan, at the new plan quotas. This also means:
- Former Singe Website →StartSmart → FastCloud
- Former Multi Website → ScaleRight → FastCloud Plus
- Former E-Commerce → ScaleRight → FastCloud Plus
We will initiate the automatic upgrade on September 15, and all hosting plans that are due after this date will be renewed on the regular prices based on their hosting plan when due. This process does not involve any downtime or data migration and does not require any reconfiguration from our clients.
By having your shared hosting plan upgraded to the new plans, you will be able to take advantage of all new upcoming features the moment they are publicly available.
To make the transition more convenient for our clients, all Biennially and Triennially accounts will be converted to our Annual billing cycle. This will be done without changing their due dates. Also, they will keep all the features and free services.
We understand that some of you may want to continue using your current hosting plan, so we are providing a 45-day grace period. During this period, you can renew your hosting service for an extra year on your current plan pricing rate by contacting our sales team via the live chat or post a ticket to our billing department.
Of course, everyone can disable their auto-renewal, change their Billing cycle, or plan at any time by contacting our sales team or by posting a ticket to our Billing department.
Clients on Cloud VPS and Dedicated CPU plans won’t be affected during this process.
Discontinuing the Free Trial Service
As a part of this transition, we decided to discontinue our Free Trial/Demo service. Having one of the lowest entry prices on the market, we believe our service will be accessible enough for people to try and evaluate it now. The Free Trial does not adequately represent our service.
All Free Trials will be discontinued on August 15, and all trial accounts will be permanently removed on September 1, 2019.
When we look back after 5 years in the industry, we are proud to say that, not only most of our employees but also a lot of our clients have been with us since the very beginning. We are grateful for the many clients that use our services to empower their websites. We remain committed to expanding our hosting portfolio to help our customers succeed. Feel free to review our FAQ section on this announcement for more information on the upcoming changes or contact our team 24/7.
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Georgi has a decade of experience as an executive and entrepreneur in the infrastructure and web hosting space. He is responsible for leading FastComet’s evolution of our scalable cloud, powering the business with Big Data, and linking the latest advances in technology to FastComet’s cloud and IT strategy. As a technical guy, he used his expertise to collect the know-how of creating a reliable and customer friendly hosting company to satisfy the increasing demand of clients.
Comments (63)
Guys, the increase in prices is total unfair. You have officially spoilt your reputation which you had build all these years with customers who opted to use your service compared to the other competition out there. I chose the smartstart plan this year and i was happy with the fair amount what was charged, 60$. But now, you are asking me to pay 120$ or buzz off? This is very unfair to customers who are using your service from a long time. I must say i will not be renewing the subscription anymore and will start my search to migrate out of fastcomet soon.
@others , if you find any other better service which is not a rip off, then pls let me know here. Would be happy to move out.
@fastcomet thanks for the service until now.
Only the first year of hosting comes with the advertised price, then it will increase by 80%!!! I will definitely leave this hosting provider. Be careful they are try to trick you!!!
Existing customers have their hosting account due dates grandfathered. In other words, you would not lose any prepaid amount and this also means that the promotion is valid for the billing period you have signed up for.
I just don’t get it…
I’m a freelance translator and I was paying something like $40/year for a relatively simple (static) website that generated minimal trafic but allowed me to just be ‘visible on the web’ (which is all I need, and I was totally satisfied with their service… even recommending it to fellow freelancers!).
How can FastComet expect me to suddenly pay $120/year for a similar use?!
It’s almost 3x times the former price…
(I can understand a yearly increase of a few %, but *that*… is unacceptable)
Are they trying to get rid of small websites to focus on big businesses?
I have been with FastComet for over 3 years now and I am aware of the recent system upgrade associated with the increase in prices. At first I was p*ssed off but decided to do a little more reading from both the FastComet team and customers and also do some window shopping for other hosting companies before making a fair judgement on this scenario. At the beginning I was paying around USD $59 / year for hosting for my single domain name, on the SmartStart plan, and now I am being charged on a new billing cycle of USD $119.40 on the FastCloud plan.
Looking at GoDaddy it is apparent that they charge USD $10.95 / month (basic package) after the introductory discount year, which is USD $4.50 / month.
Looking at FastComet it is apparent that they charge USD $9.95 / month (basic package) after the introductory discount year, which is USD $2.95 / month.
In my case I only need the basics but a reliable service. I hopped onto the live chat on GoDaddy and was put into a Que for several minutes, ok not too bad. I then asked a simple question regarding the currency used to display their packages. It took me another several minutes to ask the same question again, after which I was advised to create an account with GoDaddy to have my question answered via a pin verification. I immediately left the chat. By changing the country, I managed to confirm the currency displayed on the Australian GoDaddy site to be is US dollars. I remember the very first time I used the FastComet live chat and it was amazing. I had all of my questions answered very professionally and swiftly, which encouraged me to go with FastComet.
Yes, the price has increased, but in comparison to other hosting companies and customer service, FastComet has my back. I have been satisfied with FastComet’s level of customer service via my 22+ support tickets. It is above and beyond. I get the feeling that the FastComet team genuinely cares. Many times I was stuck with issues beyond my expertise and within a very short span of time the issue was resolved by a staff member. I am aware that FastComet started of with four employees and grew to a total of seventy employees over a short period of five years. Just think for a moment all the overhead costs involved; relocation to a new building to hold these seventy employees, insurance, electricity and also the employees wages. At coffee cup prices per month, FastComet will be financially driven into the ground head first. I am a mining engineer and we engineers deal with multi million dollar machinery, so it is a crucial factor in determining the financial outcome of a mining operation.
I am not working for FastComet nor am I paid to write this message. I have taken the time to write this message because the FastComet team have always been there for me. As a suggestion, perhaps FastComet can do something to minimise the disappointment many of us customers have experienced.
I do appreciate your consideration. Thanks and may you all be well and happy.
Hello Mike,
Thank you for the time you took to check and summarize the information behind our decision.
We will continue our best to evolve our service, improve our support and make creating and maintaining projects online easier.
Thank you for your continuous support and the trust you have put in our team.
You are most welcome Antoniy.
Wow, great way to keep your current clients satisfied… I would not mind a fare increase, 10% – 20%. But just doubling the prices, like in this example, is mad:
E-Commerce Hosting – webshopboumans (22/09/2018 – 21/09/2019) $83.40 USD
And now:
FastCloud Plus – webshopboumans (22/09/2019 – 21/09/2020) $179.40 USD
We are an agency who uses your services for over 80 clients, and can not just ask our clients to increase prices with 110% (!). Its not our standard to just ask these kind of price increases.
I can fully understand your new pricing model for my new potential clients. But for my existing ones this is just wrong, really wrong. Hope you will come with a professional solution for our current plans.
This what we signed up for.
Again I fully understand your new pricing model for my new clients, its up to them to choose. But I just can not simply ask these massive price increases for my current clients.
Dear Willem,
FastComet managed hosting platform comes fully packed with benefits that help agencies like you thrive and grow their businesses, without dealing with administrative details or technical support.
We understand how the pricing model change might have changed expectations for you. But you, as a successful business owner know that rate fluctuations naturally follow a company’s growth plan. You can’t grow by staying static
All of the pricing changes we have performed reflect our belief that fiscal responsibility is as much of moral duty as it is an economic concern. Decisions must be made beyond the needs of the present so that we can face the challenges of tomorrow, with the responsibility to our employees, clients, and partners.
Due note that none of your prepaid plans due dates change. In other words, we are not forcing you to accept our updated renewal terms mid-contract.
We are so full of gratitude for the tens of thousands of people who have thoughtfully chosen us to host and handle their websites. You inspire our work, shape our product roadmap, and have made FastComet one of the most trusted brands in the hosting industry.
I really need someone to explain how I went from this:
New Account Information
Hosting Package: ScaleRight
Domain: ********************
First Payment Amount: $90.63 USD
Recurring Amount: $95.40 USD
Billing Cycle: Annually
Next Due Date: 9th Jan 2020
To this:
Reoccurring Amount: $179.40
According to PercentageCalculator this is an 88% increase. Let’s be honest… that’s absolutely crazy.
DONT TELL ME ITS GOING TO BE 95.40 IF ITS GOING TO 179.40. That’s like raising rent mid contract. At least adhere to what you SAID the reoccurring amount is…
Dear Micah,
Please let me clarify our pricing concerning renewal and initial signup for a hosting account. You would not lose anything you have prepaid, your hosting account terms keep till your Next Due Date: 9th Jan 2020. In other words, we are not forcing you to accept our updated renewal terms mid-contract.
I can see that you have been a client of our company for around 2 years already. This means that you may have noticed that we have improved our shared hosting environment a lot during that time. Even though we kept developing the service by adding technology, features and security enhancements, the pricing remained the same since the beginning. Given the improvements introduced, however, we had to adjust the cost, which will not only allow us to keep offering the same outstanding service but to further improve it as well.
Thus, as a valued customer of ours, we offer you early-bird 20% discounts on advanced renewal payments submitted prior
September 30, 2019.
Offer me 40%, it will take me back to where I more anticipated. Cause this is really bogus. 88% is absolutely madness.
Don’t worry that will happen too, because it’s not -like- they will raise your price mid-contract, THEY WILL CHANGE YOUR PRICE MID-CONTRACT. Just happened to me tonight and they held me hostage with a downed server until I paid.
OK for anyone wondering how much of an increase this is here is how it punched me in the gut when all I need is a domain, one email address on said domain, and a tiny bit of online storage. I don’t even have or need a website.
Previous plan: $59.40 per year.
New plan: $119.40 per year.
I asked about the increase in chat and they gave me a 20% discount (I assume for renewing early for the year?) but even then it’s still $95.52.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with the services here. They beat the heck out of GoDaddy which is who I had before. Unfortunately now the price is about the same so my initial enthusiasm for finding such a great provider at such a great price has understandably waned.
Why is there no option for what I need? Why do I have to have all these “features and tools” bundled in and charged for that I don’t need or even want? Imagine buying a car and the dealer forces you to get the luggage rack, chrome rims, heated leather seats, etc etc. that you don’t even want and then doubling the price of the car with no option to the contrary and then telling you to shut up and be happy about it.
I initially decided on FastComent for two reasons: Price and simplicity. Now it looks like they are doing the same thing GoDaddy is doing and bundling in everything under the sun as justification to jack up the price. If I used half of the “features” I’d probably be OK with it. Unfortunately I don’t and never will so count me as a rather miffed customer right now!
This is a joke, they mention that its a FREE upgrade, but there is no difference in the plans other than increased pricing and no longer offering a free domain for life. This is an about face on everything that Fast Comet stood for with transparent pricing that didn’t change and now ALL customers, not just new customers are affected. You will be losing business on this not gaining profits. Maybe one cycle into this everyone will see that their plans have increased by 200-250%. Sorry Fast Comet but you have lost my vote for best web host. Now you have no weight among the competition.
Dear Jeremy,
All of our existing customers have free domain name registrations grandfathered. Our values for transparency have not changed as well – we are offering a flat pricing model per all billing periods. All of our sales pages clearly display both the promotional and regular prices for each of our plans. And yes you are correct that our price is the market price – most of the serious hosting companies in this segment offer similar pricing model. We do not differentiate with a low price from our competitors, but with our high quality of service.
Ugh. Disqus ate my reply.
This is a disappointing price increase. I signed up for a three-year hosting plan and it stated on the website that the renewal monthly price would be the same monthly price at the end of the initial 3-year term. Looking back, I guess it just wasn’t realistic. I’ll probably sign up for an additional year as I’ve been relatively satisfied with FastComet and its hosting plan.
I understand that FastComet feels they are providing tremendous value in their hosting packages, and hence, the price increase. I feel that this is somewhat mistaken. FastComet operates in a competitive marketplace, with many different kinds of companies offering different kinds of hosting plans and at differing price points. Value is only relative here, as compared to other similar hosting plans with similar price points. FastComet will find out how competitive their hosting plans truly are…
When my term is up, I’m not sure I’ll renew, given that monthly price increase. I’ll definitely shop around and look at FastComet’s competitors.
Dear Todd,
I am glad to hear that you were a happy customer, as providing a quality service has always been our main goal.
The real cost of all the services you are have been benefiting from, however, is far above the promotional rates, this is why the renewal rates now come at the regular rates.
All these changes are announced with a focus on long-term sustainability to make the lives of our customers better and support for their issues even faster. The roadmap of technology is littered with companies that couldn’t maintain profitability and went out of business, and their solutions were no longer supported. That’s not our business model, and we want to be there year after year for you. FastComet company has the responsibility to be around a long time.
We would hate to lose you over this, especially feeling pleased with our services. Be sure to contact us over our LiveChat to discuss these matter thoroughly.
Ouch! That’s a big price increase.
I have to say the FC hosting has been excellent. Anyone who has experienced bad hosting, will know what I mean!
I also like the fact you are switching us to the latest tech. My former hosting company who I won’t mention (okay it was GoDaddy!) had my sites languishing on some old non-cPanel proprietary thing for god knows how long. Then said I had to pay to be transferred to their new platform. So I appreciate you guys auto-upgrading everyone.
But this is a really steep price increase – you need to do something to sweeten the pill. Very tough to swallow right now or maybe you have factored in the customer churn!!
Dear Steve,
Thank you for the appreciation and positive evaluation of our efforts throughout the years. Of course, I do understand your concerns regarding the updated renewal pricing model.
The circumstances prompting this update are compelling. In order to provide the services that our members rely on, and so that we may continue to evolve and excel, we must take meaningful steps to scale growth. As I am sure you will agree, when it comes to a promotion it can not last forever and the renewals are based on the real value of the service, which is the regular cost .
We’re excited to create more value for your customers by using our combined resources to innovate the next generation of products and services that will help you grow your business.
I would like to stress that we offer a lot of incentives to our existing customers throughout this change – make sure to contact us directly via the official channels.
I hope they saved chat that I had with fastcomet people just before I bought hosting plan from them. My main question for them was “is there going to be any price changes on renewal?”, three times I asked them, and three times they made me sure that price is flat, not going to be changed. I had hosting plan before, and I was sick of changing prices every year, and that was the reason I decided to go and why I chose fastcomet. Turns out they lie just like everyone else, I am really disappointed. And this is not just 10 or 20% price increase, they almost doubled the prices.
Hey Senad,
You have been with us for more than a year already and have had the chance to evaluate the service. As I understand from your chat and ticket archives you are satisfied with us, and hopefully, we have shown you how much we care about our customers.
I have personally checked your Sales chat with our team that dates back 22 November 2018. Back then you have specifically complained by the “as low as” pricing model and the period of time discount. Following yours and other customers feedback, we are now offering lower entry prices and flat pricing model per all billing periods.
Indeed, your renewal rates have changed after more than 5 years of no price change. In 5 years time, the demands from customers also change, price should also reflect that. It is also correct that this decision wasn’t taken overnight, but I can personally assure you that at the time of purchasing your hosting account it was not part of the business development plan.
We would hate to lose you over this, especially feeling pleased with our services. Feel free to reach our team so they can check your account and give you the best renewal option.
I understand you, I am in the same situation! Really disappointed from this hosting! They lied about the price, because I don’t think it was planned in 1 week this price increase and it is impossible to propose their price to clients. I asked if they are having reseller program for shared hosting and they say that they have it only for VPS. They are helping most of us to look for an alternative because you can’t trust them anymore, no matter that they are trying to recover by offering 60% discount, for repairing to their damage, it is too short term look, the second year you will pay full ammount. Did you find any alternative?
You’ve now effectively doubled my rate without asking for permission. And, as near as I can tell, you are effectively making all of your current Customers pay for the removal/reduction of future Customers’ startup fees (which I’ve already paid of course) and by “creating a pricing model that represents [your] service by the value it creates”. Sorry. Not buying that. I cannot justify a doubling of my rate when what I had before/now is fine (and overkill probably). Sadly, because I don’t wish to, I’ll need to move off your platform before my next billing cycle.
Dear Bill,
We checked your case and we would like to add some clarifications to your comments. We can see that you are set on an Annual billing plan with us, that does not include any setup fees.
Indeed there was a price change earlier this week after years of no price increase. The change wasn’t whimsical but was made after months of service evaluation.
We disagree that we do not value our existing customers. We continuously work to improve our clients’ experience with the service by adding new tools and features. We do not charge you additionally for these enhancements, as our goal is to deliver high-quality service and top performance for your website.
We would hate to lose you over this, especially feeling pleased with our services. Be sure to contact us over our LiveChat to discuss these matter thoroughly.
Best,
FastComet Team
You do not value existing customers when you increase the prices by such a large amount. The majority of your customers may not even use these “new tools or features”. It would have been better if you created new plans with the new features you are mentioning.
Majority of our clients enjoy the added features and they like them so much that they even think these should be mandatory for each hosting provider. That is why they transfer all their accounts that they have with other hosts to us. Charging $90 for website transfers, supporting outdated PHP versions, unable to support Let’s Encrypt or forcing upgrades to next tier plans for more than 3 databases are just some of the common practices that make all of these customers choose us.
Indeed, you may have point that some of the customers might never ask for the brand new features and extras we have added along with the plans, but certainly demand a secure and reliable environment, one built on the latest technologies and premium network, that would ensure the top performance of your website. A faster site results in a lower bounce rate, higher conversion rate, better SEO, and more revenue for your business or your customers’ business. This way, when your websites grow, they wouldn’t have to sacrifice performance, security, or any of their favorite features. We do not charge you additionally for these enhancements, as our goal is to deliver high-quality service and top performance for your website. We disagree that we do not value our existing customers. Our clients’ growth and support have always been our first priority, and it always will be. Our aim is long-term relationship with our clients, based on mutual respect and satisfaction.
@Elena: try, for one second, to put yourself in the shoes of one of many (I insist: MANY!!!) customers who were perfectcly satisfied with FastComet services until now, and didn’t need any of those useless ‘extras’…
As a customer, would you equate an increase of 250% with ‘respect of the client’?
A: Yes
B: No
C: Get out of jail free card 😉
Simply put – Yes. This, of course, is based on my personal experience as someone who has been in the web hosting industry for more than 12 years and has a Bachelor degree in Economics. Thus I presume my opinion may still be qualified as biased. We truly wanted to postpone discontinuing our “same renewal” offering as long as we can. But the time has come, we cannot maintain it forever.
Still, it got me thinking if you truly understood the economics of web hosting companies and how they really operate, would your expectations change? You qualify $2.95 per month (which equates to a cup of coffee) for a web hosting a reasonable price. Everyone who has been in the web hosting industry long enough knows that this is not a reasonable price for a web hosting company, but rather a promotional one. Our hosting product is much more than the bare servers under it. If you estimate the hosting costs based on 2 or 3 years, you’ll get a more accurate view of your true hosting costs.
So I will try to explain and cover your main point regarding those “customers who were perfectcly satisfied with FastComet services until now, and didn’t need any of those useless ‘extras’…”
1) Those customers were perfectly satisfied by being assisted 24/7 by just clicking a button and getting Technical support assistance in less than 10 minutes. The very same customers kept requesting having chat support that would provide them even faster assistance. So here we go, we now have Technical support assistance over the LiveChat, that according to our Internal Rate system has more than 96% satisfaction ratio. To keep the high level of service, with the increased number of customers, this, of course, required hiring, training and retaining a great number of new people. So we grew and we are now more than 70 people. Hosting companies are for the most part largely like others, where gross profit determines how many people they can staff for support among other things.
2) Those customers required having fast websites and insisted on page speed numbers. This involved keeping our hosting infrastructure up to date (premium tier network) by constantly upgrading it and adding the latest speed technologies. This, of course, involved not only the human factor but also higher costs for upgrading the environment.
3) Customers like you were super happy for getting a totally free domain name, while other companies charged more than $15 per year for such.
4) Majority of our customers are actually transfer customers, unhappy with their current host for an endless list of reasons. These customers already have a website or two which needs to be transferred away. For the sake of their convenience and website health, we offer absolutely free managed website transfers, performed by our Technical support team. Usually, you would be charged round $70-$90 for this service, as it involves manual work and usually lots of troubleshooting. This service is absolutely free with us.
5) We have segment customers who have no previous experience with building a website, but still, need to create one. We have added free Drag and Drop Website Builder absolutely free of charge along with our plans as a value-added extra. For budget-oriented customers, this is a great option to avoid paying high freelancer developer’s fees and be able to go on your own.
6) In June this year, cPanel announced that they are changing their entire pricing model. This announcement caused quite the stir within the hosting industry as it would drastically increase expenses for providers, shared, VPS, Dedicated, and reseller users.
Lots of companies decided to take a new direction and ditch cPanel. We would have never offered sub par products and would not risk with going for a control panel with suspicious reputation. Although the cPanel price spike surely affects every provider, we at FastComet have decided to keep it absolutely free for our customers and even lowered our introductory rates. We wish to continue allowing potential clients to test our service at a small fraction of the price, so they can have the freedom to decide if they wish to commit to our hosting in the future.
Certainly, not everyone can afford hundreds per month for hosting, but the reality is that costs fluctuate over time and the fixed renewal pricing model cannot last forever. Building a successful company isn’t just about growth – it’s about scale. Yes, we are growing. FastComet is now 5 years old. But in order to scale we need to refocus our pricing strategy.
I am truly sorry to hear that the only reason for being happy with FastComet has been the fixed renewal rate, we believe we offer much more value than that.
So much bad faith in this answer, it’s unbelievable…
So if you go to your usual market and the tomato guy tells you:
– Dear Elena, they’re 3 times more expensive than yesterday.
– But… why???
– They have a pyramidal shape now.
– B… but…… I don’t need that!
– I know… but I needed a reason to make more benefits 🙂
> That’s exactly what happened!
I think I do now… it’s like in many other areas: they just try to take advantage of the customer.
(it’s not a good excuse, though… and fortunately there are still honest people/companies in this world!)
I used to think FastComet wasn’t part of those sneaky companies… I’m sad to see I was wrong.
Too bad as the service was good…
Had you been reasonnable (e.g. a 10% increase… even 20%!), I’m sure most of us would have taken it.
But you weren’t… 🙁
*gluttony*
So much bad faith in this answer, it’s unbelievable…
So if you go to your usual market and the tomato guy tells you:
– Dear Elena, they’re 3 times more expensive than yesterday.
– But… why???
– They have a pyramidal shape now.
– B… but…… I don’t need that!
– I know… but I needed a reason to make more benefits 🙂
> That’s exactly what happened!
I think I do now… it’s like in many other areas: they just try to take advantage of the customer.
(it’s not a good excuse, though… and fortunately there are still honest people/companies in this world!)
I used to think FastComet wasn’t part of those sneaky companies… I’m sad to see I was wrong.
Too bad as the service was good…
Had you been reasonnable (e.g. a 10% increase… even 20%!), I’m sure most of us would have taken it.
But you weren’t… 🙁
*gluttony*
No, customers transferred to you because you didn’t have the usual bait and switch pricing structure. Now you are like all the rest. Pity indeed. A slight price increase would have been much better than conforming to the industry standard. It’s what put you ahead of the pack…sadly it could/will be Fastcomet’s undoing.
We truly wanted to postpone discontinuing our “same renewal” offering as long as we can. But the time has come, we cannot maintain it forever. The same renewal pricing is anything but safe in the long run. It simultaneously erodes a company’s potential profitability but, at the same time, it reduces the brand’s incentives to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction amongst the existing customer base. Everyone who has been in the web hosting industry long enough knows that our advertised rates in the Fixed renewal rates promotion are not reasonable prices, but rather promotional ones. Our hosting product is much more than the bare servers under it. If you estimate the hosting costs based on 2 or 3 years, you’ll get a more accurate view of your true hosting costs. So for the renewal, we have not increased the price, but we started to charge the regular rate for the hosting plan without the discount. Charging the regular price allows us to continue to deliver high-quality hosting and develop new features to add value to our customers. I am truly sorry to hear that the only reason for being happy with FastComet has been the fixed renewal rate, we believe we offer much more value than that.
I definitely agree with this.
With such an outrageous increase, I’ll have to change of host.
… and I will probably lose the domain name, unfortunately 🙁
Dear Bill,
We checked your case and we would like to add some clarifications to your comments. We can see that you are set on an Annual billing plan with us, that does not include any setup fees.
Indeed there was a price change earlier this week after years of no price increase. The change wasn’t whimsical but was made after months of service evaluation.
We disagree that we do not value our existing customers. We continuously work to improve our clients’ experience with the service by adding new tools and features. We do not charge you additionally for these enhancements, as our goal is to deliver high-quality service and top performance for your website.
We would hate to lose you over this, especially feeling pleased with our services. Be sure to contact us over our LiveChat to discuss these matter thoroughly.
Best,
FastComet Team
Hello,
We have been exploring FastComet for a while with a view
to moving our website on to it when the renwal comes up in a few
months. But now we find theat FS is falling into the same trap as most
others by abandoning their flat renewal rates (our present host still
does as it did when we signed up). It is silly to jack up the prices and
make you believe that they are offering great discounts and hit you
hard at the renewal time. I am really sorry to see this. If the price
hike is really warranted, then why not build it into the same flat
renewal policy?We will have to stay with our present host or look elsewhere, I suppose.
Hey there,
Thank you for your interest in FastComet. Happy to hear that you have evaluated us as a future home for your website.
The reality is that the “same renewal policy” can not last forever on this market but we wanted to postpone it as long as possible. We had two options, either we could lower our standards and provide a sub par product like the others, or we could stick to our goals, and continue to deliver high-quality hosting and develop new features to add value to our customers.
However, we have determined to keep our introductory pricing as low as possible. We wish to continue allowing potential clients to test our service at a small fraction of the price, so they can have the freedom to decide if they wish to commit to our hosting in the future.
We looked at a lot of things before we decided to implement these changes, we wanted to lower the barrier to entry to our service. The number one pre-sales question we got with the old brand and pricing structure was “why do we apply a setup fee” and “why do our start-up pricing varies per the length of the selected billing period”, so we analyzed the needs of these people and found that there is a huge market for people who want our level of hosting, but our pricing was prohibitive. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible with our prices.
Together with updating the cost, we’re also doing our very best to increase the value that you’re getting. If you give it a second thought, you’ll notice that there’s a benefit for you as well. When you trust us for yearly renewals, you know that we’ll fight to make you happy.
If FastComet isn’t a fit for you because of our pricing or any other reason, I get it. You choose who you partner with to serve your business or your customers’ businesses. Our objective is to be the best cloud platform at helping you and your customers grow. Being the best doesn’t mean we’re looking to find ways to do less for our customers to charge less. It means finding ways to do more at helping our customers and agency partners create rich, performant, and secure experiences that drive revenue.
Regards
Thanks for taking the time to respond – we certainly appreciate it. Our only hope is that there will be some positive outcome latyer -a middle ground may be.
Regards,
Nikhil
Thanks for taking the time to respond – we certainly appreciate it. Our only hope is that there will be some positive outcome latyer -a middle ground may be.
Regards,
Nikhil
PS: I had problems posting this on the forum after several tries – hence the mail.
Hello,
Sorry for the slow response to the comments and questions on this blog post. We’ve been working internally via our help desk to answer a lot of the question raised by customers.
To all who don’t want to leave, but feel compelled to do so, first of all, I appreciate your hesitancy to leave us. You like us, and you think we provide you with a valuable service. I also understand how the sudden change in pricing changed expectations for you.
We disagree that we do not value our existing customers. We continuously work to improve our clients’ experience with the service by adding new tools and features. We do not charge you additionally for these enhancements, as our goal is to deliver high-quality service and top performance for your website
We switched to this new pricing model after doing extensive research on existing and potential new customers. We looked at a lot of things before we decided to implement these changes. They will allow our company to grow while still offering the same level of great service. The “same renewal policy” can not last forever on this market but we wanted to postpone it as long as possible. Charging the regular price allows us to continue to deliver high-quality hosting and develop new features to add value to our customers.
We would hate to lose you over this, especially feeling pleased with our services. Thus we offer a lot of incentives to our existing customers throughout this change:
– If you are budget-oriented you and would like to preserve your current renewal price for 1 more year (on any of our legacy StartSmart, ScaleRight or SpeedUp plans) and renew your hosting account in advance, this option will be available from 1 August 2019, until 15 September 2019. Simply contact our Sales or Billing team for further assistance.
– Existing customers will have free domain name registrations grandfathered at that time.
– Many of you started using our services precisely because we’ve been using cPanel all these years, so we would like to assure you that cPanel is here to stay.
Again, we appreciate you sharing your feedback. And please let our team know if you have any additional questions. Be sure to contact us over our LiveChat to discuss these matter thoroughly.
Admittedly I have enjoyed my service with Fast Comet, it has been functional and fairly priced, but now it is difficult to see myself continuing with you as the added benefits and value that you claim is reason enough for us to stay, just doesn’t justify increasing my plan’s pricing by 250%.
Take a look at these top 10 web host lists:
https://www.cnet.com/news/best-web-hosting-providers-for-2019/
https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/best-web-hosting-service-websites
https://hostingfacts.com/
https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/316108/the-best-web-hosting-services
Fast Comet isn’t listed on any of them. I didn’t choose you guys because you were the best of the best, but because you had almost unbeatable pricing. This is not the case any longer. If you guys haven’t gotten on a top 10 list with your low pricing and “new features and tools” what makes you guys think you’ll be more receptive when you are charging the same price or more than these top 10 competitors? Raising the prices on existing customers was a mistake.
Hey Jeremy,
You have left us few comments here, which clearly shows your involvement in this process. Of course, I appreciate you sharing your frustrations and concerns as it helps us continue to improve our service.
You like us, and you think we provide you with a valuable service, fair enough. At the same time, you qualify $2.95 per month (which equates to a cup of coffee ☕) for a web hosting a reasonable price. Everyone who has been in the web hosting industry long enough knows that this is not a reasonable price, but rather a promotional one. Our hosting product is much more than the bare servers under it. If you estimate the hosting costs based on 2 or 3 years, you’ll get a more accurate view of your true hosting costs. So for the renewal, we have not increased the price, but we started to charge the regular rate for the hosting plan without the discount. Charging the regular price allows us to continue to deliver high-quality hosting and develop new features to add value to our customers.
This price is the market price – most of the serious hosting companies in this segment offer similar pricing model and rates. Certainly, not everyone can afford hundreds per month for hosting, but on the flip side, you should also set your expectations for cheap hosting companies accordingly. One is that they try to make a lot of money on upselling and hidden fees. On things like priority support, website migrations, SSL certificates, ad revenue from price per additional email accounts, databases dedicated IP addresses, etc. The main difference between cheap hosting service and quality hosting service is reliability. It’s up to you to decide which matters the most. FastComet is putting a lot of effort to maintain a constant quality of service for the sake of customer satisfaction. And we definitely prefer not to be associated with the “cheap hosting” reputation.
Hello.
>>>
-if you are budget-oriented you and would like to preserve your current renewal price for 1 more year (on any of our legacy StartSmart, ScaleRight or SpeedUp plans) and renew your hosting account in advance, this option will be available from 1 August 2019, until 15 September 2019.
<<< I contacted Sales about this recently. I asked if I could lock-in renewal pricing for one more year on my current hosting plan at the old monthly price (ScaleRight). The sales rep said it wasn't available? She was able to offer a 20% discount on the current renewal price.
Dear Todd,
I was able to track you in our system and from what I can see your hosting account is with due date 01/09/2021. You would not lose anything you have prepaid, your hosting account terms keep till your next due date.
We’d be happy to jump on a call with you to see what we can do to make sure you have a happy partnership with FastComet for many more years.
Shame, just joined and paid for a years hosting. Now I discover that when I come to renew my cost will increase by 80%. When I signed up I was also given the impression that this cost would not change. Such a shame that I now have to start looking for a new host.
Wonder what the retention will be like when people come to renew.
@disqus_zNbKFQwvJF:disqus @disqus_EDuJqLIBfY:disqus @de_mote:disqus
Most of our customers are trying to optimize their site for speed which improves conversion rates and SEO. If getting higher conversion rates don’t make up the cost difference and the ease of use of our platform doesn’t reduce your operational costs, then certainly providers that focus on providing the lowest cost along with a sub par product would be a better fit.
Sometimes getting the lowest cost is the primary driver for a business, and that’s okay. Our goal is to help you succeed. If our platform or plans don’t meet that goal, then that’s a decision you must make and one we certainly respect. However, if you find something that works for your business, there is no reason to change.
That was patronising enough, thanks.
No real data backing up the claim that the speed/conversion rates will double to justify the doubling of prices on shared hosting plans. I see the very same specs.
I bought your plan a few months ago on the premise that renewal would cost a certain amount. This “guarantee” has proven false, so, yeah, I will reconsider when my bought plan expires.
I want to say that I understand the concerns posted in this thread and appreciate the impact our pricing and platform has on your business. We always try to be super-efficient and affordable but quality comes at a price and I believe our regular prices are actually lower than the competing good hosting providers.
For the renewal, we have not increased the price, but we simply charge the regular rate for the hosting plan without the discount. We have updated our regular rates to reflect all our efforts and investments we’ve made to provide high-quality hosting to our customers. We have not changed our prices in the last 5 years while we continuously worked on improving the service by adding the latest technologies to our servers like HTTP 2 support, upgraded infrastructure to all SSD drives, integrated free SSL certificates, free BitNinja brute-force protection, free SpamExperts, Observer Monitoring, free cPanel, and many other customizations and updates were made to improve the functionality of our service. Customers can choose from 9 different (and 10th coming on its way) server locations at no additional cost. We provide free managed website transfers while others charge you with $90 per site. We always strive to be as transparent and fair as possible with our clients. Charging the regular price allows us to continue to deliver high-quality hosting and develop new features to add value to our customers.
There never was a promotional/discount pricing before. It was always the same price to renew as it was to sign up. So yes, you have increased the price.
If you were wanting to be fair to your customers you would grandfather in the existing customers with discounted plans. Instead you have increased the pricing by 200-250% for shared hosting customers and this is shocking and wrong. No customer is going to look at this insane price hike and think, “Wow there must be some value here” especially when there is no difference in the features of the old and new plans. Maybe if you increased the plans incrementally over a period of years, but instead you guys decided let’s force many of our customers to find alternative plans.
Not every one of your customers are hosting their websites with the intention of earning money or increasing visitors. Many customers have small personal websites, especially those using shared hosting plans. This is a slap in the face to all of them, including me.
Hello,
I see your answer “we simply charge the regular rate for the hosting plan without the discount” and I would like to point out that at the time of the purchase there was not shown any discount and the price shown for the renewal was the same of the regular price.
I was thinking to propose your hosting plans (especially FastCloud Extra) to my clients but with this price increase it’s impossible, I’m speaking about the old SpeedUp Rocket Booster now called FastCloud Extra.
From 119.40/year + taxes we stepped to 239.40/year + taxes, more then 120$/year + taxes more.
Do you have any convenient solution because what you offer can be purchase from people that are working on the field (developer, web designer etc) but it is impossible to propose to normal clients?
Do you propose some reseller hosting service like Siteground is doing with stable prices?
Thank you
Best Regards
Yes, that is correct and the screenshot is a legit presentation of our former hosting plans. As we mentioned, the adjustment in the value-based pricing model was introduced last month.
Same Renewal Price (Fixed Price) was part of a promotion that is no longer available, and the original hosting plan is no longer available. We reserve the right to discontinue any promotions or services under special terms.
We do not have reseller plans, however, you are welcome to evaluate our Cloud VPS offers and resell them at any price. You will have access to create and manage multiple cPanel accounts which would all benefit from the services provided in the hosting plan like SSL protection, Spam and Malware protection, Firewall and anti-brute force logins etc.
The prices were increased because for the last few years we improved the services that we offer. Exactly because we value our customers and we respect them, we do our best to provide the best service and features, the latest hardware and software updates.
Can’t agree more. Fast Comet has been a huge disappointment. Their support is fast, but very unhelpful and in general compared to any other company I deal with (e.g. SendGrid, CRMs, etc etc) Fast Comet’s inability to communicate or honor the snake oil sales commitments they promote deceptively, this 5+ year customer will be migrating my servers and site over to Digital Ocean. They are a company you can rely on and that will take care of their commitments.
de_mote, you got the impression that the cost would not change? Well, I got more than impression. I was assured, more than once, that the renewal pricing would be the same. Now it is time for me to renew and the price is more than doubled. Shame on fastcomet!
You people decide to increase you plans from $12.4 to $19 yet you people didn’t increase your bandwidth of 90Gb which couldn’t hold standard blog. You people might just force us to move to another host
I was not able to find an account with the name you have listed here so I am not able to provide more details on the case. If you are managing a personal or small business blog, it is unlikely that you will run into resource usage issues.
We do not set limits on the amount of visitor traffic a website can receive in any given month. However, like all resources bandwidth is not infinite, so we monitor our shared servers for excessive use and abuse to ensure optimal performance for everyone. Based on the evaluation of more than 10 000 accounts per hosting plan, we have determined the quoted average Bandwidth usage per month. 90 GB of traffic is a way over the “typical website/blog” though.
We believe that we offer reasonable values that would ensure the smooth performance and healthy environment of the hosting account. However, without the proper expertise and experience, it’s a common occurrence for allocated shared environments to degrade in performance based on the misuse of resources. So in a efforts to assist our customers with the growing amount of bandwidth consumption we have released tons of useful information on how to optimize the bandwidth generation of your account and which are the best practices to achieve:
https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/bandwidth-optimization/
https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/bandwidth-optimization/best-practices
https://www.fastcomet.com/blog/make-the-most-of-your-web-hosting-bandwidth/
We remain at your disposal to help with any further requests or questions.
So, prices for renewal have practically doubled for those of us that trusted you and bought the 3-year plans.
Too bad, I became a customer under the premise that what you pay the first time is what you pay next time – no excessive discounts on signup which converted to outrageous pricing at renewal.
Sad day ☹️
Really disappointing. Chalk me up as another person who got their 3-year plan. The nice thing is I have until 2021 to find a new host. Disappointed it won’t be FastComet.
Yeah, me too. And I thought I had finally found a decent host with sane pricing…
And those one-year only contracts probably mean there will be more surprises to come until 2021.
@disqus_zNbKFQwvJF:disqus and @FoRealz
Most of our customers are trying to optimize their site for speed which improves conversion rates and SEO. If getting higher conversion rates don’t make up the cost difference and the ease of use of our platform doesn’t reduce your operational costs, then certainly providers that focus on providing the lowest cost along with a sub par product would be a better fit.
Sometimes getting the lowest cost is the primary driver for a business, and that’s okay. Our goal is to help you succeed. If our platform or plans don’t meet that goal, then that’s a decision you must make and one we certainly respect. However, if you find something that works for your business, there is no reason to change.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I just found out that FC will increase the price of your plan at their discretion smack in the middle of your pre-paid term, and they will take all your sites down until you pay more. I just had this happen to me tonight and you can rest assured we will act just like the rats they treat us like and jump off this sinking ship asap.
Dear Jaden,
I have personally checked your case thoroughly (including your complete ticket history), and I would like to address your concerns accordingly.
None of our hosting plan rates will be increased mid-contract. What is more, there is currently no planned price update concerning the Cloud VPS / Dedicated server renewal rates.
The whole industry has been buzzing about the cPanel license updates that became effective September 1, 2019, for months. A lot of companies took emotional decisions by stating that they would be abandoning cPanel completely going with alternatives such as Direct Admin or their own custom builds. Others stated they’d be discounting their reseller hosting packages. There also those who have decided to increase their web hosting rates. It is important to look at the situation at hand with a clear mind. Regrettably, when you rely significantly on a third-party then you need to be prepared for the consequences of that third-party doing everything – from changing their software and pricing, to even going out of business. And whatever they do that could potentially affect your business and you have no choice but to accept it.