Making the decision to invest in a cheap VPS hosting plan can be a wise move if you’re currently finding the amount of storage and bandwidth provided by your shared plan is no longer sufficient for your ever-growing website, or if you’re planning on launching an entirely new enterprise full of large files.
Still, as with everything in life, jumping in and snapping up the first thing you come across is rarely a good idea. Sure, you may strike it lucky once in a proverbial blue moon, but chances are that if you buy the first Virtual Private Server, you’ll find out later down the line that you could have gotten a much better deal elsewhere.
To stop that happening to you, we’ve put together the following brief guide of the top things to consider before buying a cheap VPS hosting plan.
Short-term plans for your VPS
First and foremost, it pays to look at the current situation regarding your website. If you’re on the most expensive shared hosting plan you can find and the vast amount of storage space or data transfer allocations still isn’t sufficient to serve your website to visitors quickly and smoothly, then it goes without saying that the first thing you should be looking for is a VPS that offers more of those resources than what you’re using at the moment.
Alternatively, if you haven’t yet launched your site, try and set some realistic expectations as to the disk space you’ll need and the level of web traffic you should expect to bring in over the first twelve months.
Get a better idea of your immediate, short-term needs, and you’ll be able to weed out those that just won’t be suitable.
Long-term goals and business growth
So, now we’re left with some VPS hosting plans that are ideal for getting started, but what if you only run into the same problem when your site grows to an even greater extent?
Again, this is about setting some realistic expectations. Look at your marketing and business plans, think sensibly about where you expect your site to be six, twelve and even eighteen months down the line. If you’re making an investment in a VPS plan now, it pays to ensure you’ve got one that’s already set to cope with that growth so that you don’t have to repeat this whole process months down the line.
Pricing
Budget is always a factor in making any purchasing decision, so have a clear idea in mind of how much you’re prepared to pay for a Virtual Private Server, and whittle down the list of contenders to eliminate any that are over the top end of your budget.
A hosting comparison site like Cheaper VPS Hosting can help you out here. These sites often include easy-to-follow breakdowns of first-term pricing, along with a comprehensive list of included features so that you check out the best deals at a glance without the need to flit back and forth between different companies’ sales pages.
Ease of use
One that’s especially important if you’ve never used a VPS before is just how easy your new hosting solution is going to be to set up and maintain. As you might expect, the greater flexibility and control you get with a Virtual Private Server requires a little more back-end management than your average shared plan, so check to make sure you’re not going to be way in above your head when it comes to getting your site launched on a new VPS.
Reputation
Having read our last point, you’re probably wondering how exactly you’re supposed to know whether a VPS is easy to use or not without, well, actually using it. Here’s one way; check out independent reviews and online articles by genuine customers of the host you’re thinking of signing up to. Not only will they help you answer such questions, they’ll also do much in telling whether or not your potential new host has a reputation for delivering what they promise.
If every review you read tells you that Hosting Company A isn’t up to scratch, it may be time to look elsewhere. If, on the other hand, they get enough glowing testimonials among the inevitable smattering of grumblings, it may well be worth looking into even further.
