Germany headquarters: +49 (431) 729 8523
London office: +44 (20) 8 1234 790
NY office: +1 (347) 223 5853
Host-ed is a Germany based web hosting company offering free and paid shared web hosting plans, in addition to virtual private servers. Host-ed maintains more than 50,000 client websites and operates from a data center in Kiel, Germany.
Review
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Sales
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In need of a shared web hosting account, I turned to Host-ed to learn more about their offerings. Host-ed takes sales questions via email, telephone and live chat. I plugged into live chat and was immediately greeted by a friendly sales team member who gave me all the information I needed to feel confident in choosing Host-ed as my next web hosting company. Perfect!
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Setup
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I paid for my shared web hosting account online with PayPal and my account was instantly activated. Within moments of signing up, I had a welcome email in my inbox that detailed my purchase and laid out the terms of my hosting plan, as well as gave me all the information needed to get my domain online. Again, perfect!
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Billing
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Host-ed offers several different billing solutions, ranging from paying a set fee every three months to paying as long as three years in advance. I chose to pay bi-annually and was billed correctly, never being charged for services I had not ordered. I was also able to cancel my Host-ed web hosting account without any difficulty.
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Pricing
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Host-ed offers three shared hosting plans, including a free option, personal plan and business class hosting. Host-ed’s personal plan comes with 120 gigabytes of space and 2,000 gigabtytes of bandwidth, which makes Host-ed a price leader in the industry.
It’s worth noting that Host-ed’s free hosting gives users a generous 200 megabytes of space and 5 gigabytes of ad-free bandwidth per month—by far one of the best free hosting plans online.
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Reliability
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I was pleasantly surprised to find Host-ed extremely reliable. There were no issues to speak of during my stay with Host-ed; the server hardware functioned as it should and my website was never offline.
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Help & Support
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I had occasion to contact Host-ed’s support department twice; once to correct an error I’d made with a database and once to inquire about their affiliate program. Host-ed gives support by email, telephone and an online forum. While I found the email and telephone support to be superb—with operators able to address and answer my question within 10 minutes—the link to Host-ed’s forum support on their website did not function properly and there is no live chat support available at all. As for the actual support I did receive, it was top notch. The average wait time for an email answer is under five minutes and it takes approximately 5-10 minutes to connect with telephone support personnel.
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Uptime
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I use a premium service uptime monitoring tool and did not experience any downtime during my stay with Host-ed. Additionally, my website always loaded as quickly as I expected and there wasn’t even a minor hiccup in service to report. Excellent!
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Guarantee
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99.9% uptime guarantee
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30 day money back guarantee
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Terms of Service
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Host-ed’s Terms of Service can be read online. Highlights include:
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Warez and adult sites prohibited.
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Strict anti SPAM policy.
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Copyright infringement claims will be investigated.
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Bottom Line
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Advantages
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Superb free web hosting plan
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Free domain name when paying by the year
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Extremely reliable
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Great customer support
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Competitive prices
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Excellent affiliate program
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Disadvantages
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No monthly plan available; customers must pay at least 3 months in advance.
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No live chat support.
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Link to online forum not working.
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