Crystone is one of Scandinavia's leading web hosting service providers. Headquartered in Sweden, Crystone also has branch offices in the US and UK. Crystone offers Windows and Linux shared web hosting, virtual private servers, reseller hosting, SEO hosting optimization, domain names and an affiliate sales program.
Review
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Sales
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Crystone answers sales calls by live chat and telephone. If you’d rather not wait for someone to answer your call at Crystone, you can also leave your name and phone number with Crystone and they’ll call you. A nice touch!
I contacted live chat and telephone support. Both sales reps I spoke with seemed attentive and intelligent, but much of the information I was given conflicted with what was on the Crystone website. For example, I asked for details about the shared hosting money back guarantee and was told that Crystone honors a 14-day guarantee. On the Crystone website though, the uptime guarantee is said to be 45-days.
Crystone has an FAQ section on their website which serves as a sort of knowledge base, answering basic hosting-related questions. Several of the links on Crystone’s website are non-functional. For example, potential clients are invited to try Crystone’s control panel before purchasing a plan but the link to demo is broken.
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Setup
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Account sign up is done from Crystone’s website and the process takes just a few moments to complete. I received an invoice and welcome letter within a few moments of paying for my hosting account, and my new account details were in my inbox a few moments later. Smooth!
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Billing
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Crystone accepts Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. The billing department is open during business hours on weekdays. My hosting bill was always correct, and I was able to cancel my hosting contract with ease.
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Pricing
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Crystone has a wide array of Linux and Windows hosting plans to choose from. I purchased the smallest shared hosting plan, Mini, which afforded me room for one domain, unlimited space and bandwidth, and $100 in Google Adwords credits for $66.72 a year. Crystone advertises monthly hosting plans, but every shared hosting account must be paid for at least one year in advance. Taking this into account and also some of Crystone's pricy extras (domain names run $25.99), their pricing structure is about average. Reseller plans start at $19.96/month and dedicated servers are $99/month and up.
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Reliability
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One month into my stay with Crystone my email server went down and never came back up. Crystone responded to my calls for help within a few days. I was told the hard drive on my server had failed and Crystone replaced it within a 36-hour window.
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Help & Support
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Technical support is available by telephone, live chat and an online help desk. Simple tickets are responded to within 24 hours by help desk and are generally easily answered by telephone and live chat, though wait times through both of those services average more than 30 minutes. More advanced tech support is only available during business hours.
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Uptime
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My uptime monitor indicated that Crystone maintained a 99.98% uptime rating over one year.
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Guarantee
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14-day money back guarantee.
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99.9% uptime guarantee.
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Terms of Service
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Crystone’s Terms of Service can be viewed in full on their website. Highlights include:
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Account cancellation must be done in writing three months prior to contract end.
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A 2% interest rate shall be applied to late payments.
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Clients solely responsible for performing server backups.
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Bottom Line
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Advantages
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Mature company.
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Owns their own data centers.
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Honors uptime guarantee.
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Good affiliate program.
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Decent server specials.
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Disadvantages
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Wait times for live chat and telephone support are at least 30 minutes.
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Complex technical support only available during business hours.
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Pricey options/extras.
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No true month-to-month shared hosting plans available.
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