Thought I'd start a new thread with this info/questions since there might be some useful info for the masses and having it in it's own thread would make it easier to find.

I sent out emails to 5 different hosts I have some contact with to varying degrees on a daily basis. HOST1 only deals with dedicated service. This host is the tops really. They are located at the Terramark building - NAP of the Americas in Miami, Florida. I've toured this place with this host and I felt like I was walking through NORAD or something. Totally impressive. They have a top notch service with tier 1 bandwidth. Too bad they only offer dedicated plans. But I sent them an email anyway just to see what their entry package might be. I'm waiting for their response.

Host2: I'm leaning towards this one as they have been reffered to by Host1 for VPS solutions in the past. Host1 also colocates many of this hosts boxes at the Terramark building in Miami.

Typically our shared or VPS servers run at less than 50% at peak usage.

Depending on your bandwidth requirements, we can get you into a nice VPS that meets the scripts requirements for as low at $38.95 per month. We also have a nice migration path for when you are ready for your own dedicated server! All of our VPS solutions include the following:

100% FULLY Managed
Most Software preloaded:
- ffmpeg
- mplayer
- mencoder
- AND More!!!
FREE Commercial Control Panel
Host unlimited domains and manage them under one Control Panel!
Full root access
FREE 24/7 Support (Email, Phone, ICQ)
99.99% Network Uptime
State of the Art Tier IV Data Center
NOT Oversold!!!
Awstats & Webalizer stats
FREE Site Migration Assistance
Proactive Server Monitoring!
NO Contract and NO Setup FEE!

Host3:

Our entry level "Baby VPS" starts at $34.99 per month, and would be very well suited for the needs you have, while your traffic is still in its infancy.

The Baby VPS includes:
- 20GB of storage
- 512mb of Dedicated RAM (with burst RAM of 1024mb for the times you need that extra "umph!")
- RedHat Linux
- full root access
- unlimited domains, databases, emails
- A1WS custom DirectAdmin control panel
- hotlink protection
- Installatron® Easy Script Installer
- AWStats, Webalizer, and MRTG server stats
- Zend Optimizer
- Secure PHP patch

Our VPS servers all use either Quad Core Intel Xeon or Intel i7(920) processors (w/ EIGHT core threads), RAID 10 disk arrays for total data redundancy, and a minimum of 16GB of ECC RAM.

While we have several different price points of preconfigured VPS and dedicated servers, we are always willing to work with the client to customize a server plan to suit their needs, and get them the most bang for their buck! (owning the company gives me lots of ability to customize plans)

If and when you find it necessary to upgrade, we do everything for you - all the data migration, DNS setup, etc., - with ZERO DOWNTIME experienced by the client.

You are free to upgrade at any time without any penalty or fees, and any part of the current billing cycle you have not used is automatically applied to your new upgraded plan as a credit.

We offer payment by Paypal, Epassporte, and all major credit cards. Payments can be made monthly (no discount), every 6 months (receive one month FREE), or annually (receive two months FREE!).

We offer a 60-Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee on all of our hosting plans.

Host4:

Starting out I can give you a VPS for $39 a month with 20gb hard drive space and 512mb of ram. If you needed more ram, we can bump that up as needed. The VPS should be able to handle 3200 gigs or 10mbps of bandwidth without starting to hit general bottlenecks. At the point where you need 10mbps or more, you should be looking at a dedicated server.

We can get you on several different options here. First, the *next* level up would be a $99 entry level server. Its a p4 2.x or 3.0 depending on stock. I have a really great deal on a Dual Xeon 2.x for $149 a month and then an even better Dual Xeon 3.0 for $179 a month.

The 99/month comes with 10mbps
the 149/month comes with 10mbps
the 179/month comes with 20mbps

We have more servers but for something affordable these are some really good options, especially the $179 deal because it comes with alot of bandwidth included.

Host5: Still waiting for their offer. They have written back to me and told me I should hear from them within the next 24 hours.

The different prices given haven't exactly made my choice easier as they're all basically the same. Except for HOST 3 who will offer a discount rate for prepaying 6 months or 1 year.

Any thoughts so far? Anything here stand out more than another or something I should be more concerned with?

No red flags or such that I can see. What are the memory/bandwidth/diskspace specs for host 2? I like the fact that they are up-front about not overselling and state their usage averages.

I would next be searching around for customer feedback across the internets on these companies; Web Hosting Talk is a good place to start at, and google follows suite. Look for both the positive and the negative, and see what sorts of issues they have a track record of falling short on, if any, and evaluate how big a hit such issues would be if you were the unlucky one at some future time.

With host 4, the large price bump in scaling upward to the next solution is a bit of a downer there. I'm sure their megaboxes are grand, but you don't want to be paying for too much overhead. Also, make sure they are reasonably upscalable without server migration (as that's always a pain in the ass). VPSes generally are so with hosts who don't cram, and hosts who cram tend to move you to the next box that isn't crammed yet if you want to double your specs. (That's also a clue there as to what their actual overselling policies might be, in contrast to what they may tell you.)

I just got an answer back from Host2 - OK, so they're off $1 between emails... could be a typo - lol But I can still live with it.

For the $39.95, we can get the VPS setup with 20G of Space, 300G of Monthly Bandwidth and 512MB of Ram Guarantee!  Our VPS's are powered by Virtuozzo 4 (the Leader in VPS Software Technology!)

What about the bandwidth side of things with the rest of them? Does host 4 really allow you to max out the 10mbps pipe for $39/month? Host 3 offers how much bandwidth?

Also remember that depending on how much your traffic peaks, and what sort of media you are serving out, 10 users watching or downloading a 1000kbps encoded online video at the same time = 10Mbps maxed out, videos start to buffer and downloads start to get slower.

Also if I'm here on a 10Mbps broadband connection myself, I could max you out myself! Better have a 100Mbps or a gigabit port for your traffic, as then it's guaranteed to be at premium speed assuming the host's general internet connectivity can handle it. (And so be sure to also check what sort of internet pipe they are sitting on, and how many they have for redundancy.)

If your stuff starts getting more mission critical and your business booming, you should also look at uptime guarantees and track record, as well as the general datacenter redundancies with power management and the rest of their infrastructure.

Not like with the other guy back in the days who sold me a basic dedicated for $49/month, and forgot the box in the trunk of his car for a week while he was doing a "datacenter migration" (presumably from his grandma's basement to his brother's garage) but had to leave town in between "for a funeral" or whatever. Ah, memories!

Host2: All the VPS servers are on "Gigabit port, utilizing the extremely reliable 70G+" at the Terramark Datacenter in Miami.

Host5 did get back to me with the following:

Our VPS servers are connected to a 100Mbit Full-Duplex burstable connection.

However, you definitely do not need to start a site with such a big commitment. We could offer you a dedicated server with a 100Mbit connection for around $600.00 monthly, but, it's not necessary to start with such a large expense. You're better off upgrading according to your sites growth.

And remember, even though your plan would include 1,000GB monthly bandwidth, that is fully burstable. If your site needed 100Mbit overnight, it would be available for you to use, with overage of course.

Our VPS 1,000 is a good start for you. It includes the following:

1,000GB Monthly Transfer (.20GB Overage)
10GB RAID Storage
1GB Dedicated RAM - Burstable

We can discount that plan and offer it to you for $39.99 monthly with no setup fee and fully managed.

Keep in mind the .20GB overage cost per GB goes down as you reach the next plan.

Assuming you used 1,500GB instead of the 1,000GB, overage could come in at $100 for the month. .20 * 500GB overage. However, we would simply bill you for the VPS 1,500 at $79.99.

Oh and by the way I did finally hear back from my present host. Their email simply said:

Your current account should be able to handle the site with no issues. If the site starts getting more traffic than the current package allows it is very simple for us to upgrade you to a dedicated server that will handle the load. In the beginning I do not see any reason why you would need to upgrade your account.

Interesting since the first thing I asked them about was upgrading to PHP5.x and they said they couldn't because the whole server would need to be upgraded and the other people are not likely comaptible with PHP5.x. So to me the basic need is attainable with my current service and they can't up it, but still tell me I'm fine for now. LOL But we can give you a dedicated when needed. Sure... It took over 2 weeks and a couple of extra emails asking for a response to get THAT response.

Okay, so that's all music there from host 2. (And some serious grind punk from your current host!) Reasonable bandwidth overage costs and a retroactive upgrade option in case of overages that seem like an emerging pattern is great.

You definitely don't need to start with a 100Mbps dedicated connection, the speed just has to be burstable for peak traffic times. As in the example of the 10Mbps maxing out I noted before; you definitely don't need that on an ongoing basis, but you will need it for that hot new feature release week to make sure your site usability doesn't suffer due to congested traffic.

Ok - Final decision made... I went with host 2 from above. We're migrating the sites over now. Staring with my Wiccle project, which will have it's own IP. The dozen or so other sites I have will be on another IP.

WooHoo! Now I'm ready for Wiccle!

.... and a whole lot of paying members

That's grand with the hosting!

Wiccle 1.0 is behind the corner here, I am slashing together the last customer sites in our batch one for our showcase in the course of tonight and tomorrow, and will then bring my attentions to wind it up. We now have an excellent platform with the 1.21 release (and the .1 maintenance release I have here), and tidying it up for release should not pose any major issues, even if I have some more code to hack in.

On your note of paying members, what payment gateway(s) do you plan to be using? We have PayPal out of the box and will extend on a per-demand basis.

I've thought about using Paypal as it's the most widely used. There's also a new company called Saf-T-Pay which has a more secure method of paying in that the purchaser never gives out any of their banking info to them or the seller. It's got some legs in S. America and just starting here in the states. It depends on contracts they have with banks so that would be the limiting factor. But those that have access to it's use are likeing it.

But I'm not sure doing it all myself is the best way in the long run. I was thinking of using a processor like GTBill or the like. There's only so much I can effectively do so some outsourcing can benefit.

Then of course comes the affiliate program after a bit. I have a number of contacts, as you can imagine, that can send targeted traffic. I know you're planning on adding it into Wiccle. I was considering using NATS4 or MPA3 to run my affiliate program. But in truth while they're awesome products, they're also very expensive.

Problem being in your case that I don't think PayPal's TOS allows for adult website payments. At least I recall reading someone complain along those lines somewhere — never really looked into it myself as I seem to be busy enough keeping the adults visiting this site entertained.

If you have thoughts on how you'd like to see an affiliate program working, please feel free to type up  a feature blog with more detail on your idea of what'd be useful. We fully intend to integrate into Wiccle modules for most common uses that can go head-to-head with their stand-alone counterparts. Just need to know what's wanted and needed, as I need to prioritize what to produce; now I can't produce a module for every damned internet application at the same time, can I! (Wait... Maybe I can! )

What a mad day — whipped up a complete website from a half-ready photoshop template in 2h 20min in between a meeting and while handling a couple of short customer tech issues to have it ready for presentation by another meeting. That was a decent proof of concept of the productivity level of our tools alright! The keyboard was getting a bit smokey though, and my ALT+TAB has definitely seen more peaceful times.

We will be doing some demo videos soon on how our tools are precursors to the emerging Internet Industrial Revolution , paving way for maximum productivity with minimum effort while eliminating redundant work phases that can be easily automated. We're looking at times where web designers and developers need to move on from their archaic ways to keep up with the speed and potential we offer. (Wiccle Dev Conferences in Galway coming up soon.)

Paypal is a little vague in their AUP regarding adult content. What they say is unacceptable is "certain sexually oriented materials or services" - among other things like guns, drugs etc. I would have to email them once the site is mroe solidified for a determination.

I'll more than likely use a third party payment gateway like GTBill, Epoch or Ccbill. Since they also usually handle affiliate payouts. Again... simplifying my life to an extent and allowing me more time to build the overall presence of my site.

Good idea about making a feature blog. I'll get my thoughts together and post one soon.

Okay, so that's great then. If it's worded the way you have it above, it sounds more like their concern is over illegal or borderline adult content.

Whenever your Wiccle project gets to a point where you can get PayPal's opinion on whether they allow their gateway for your site, please check in, and if it doesn't work out, give me a rundown on the alternative payment processors for your industry and your preference there. We need to add in every possible gateway over time in any case, and again I don't want to do them all "just in case" but rather on a per-demand basis to let us focus our development efforts on the ongoing needs of our users.