Wistia.com is professional video web hosting company. Based in Massachusetts, Wistia offers video hosting, video marketing and video analytics.
Review
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Sales
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Sales questions are answered by email at Wistia. There is what appears to be a live chat link on Wistia’s homepage, but I was never able to catch anyone manning that chat app. When no one is around to chat, your questions in the chat app go directly to Wistia email support. I fired off a few questions early on a Monday morning and heard back from Wistia the following afternoon. The sales team was helpful in answering my questions and also linking me to a few tutorial videos, though answers were a little slow in coming.
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Setup
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Wistia offers both free and paid accounts. I originally signed up for a free account, which was no more complicated than giving Wistia my email address and waiting for a confirmation email. Seconds after signing up I received the expected email and was uploading my first video. A welcome letter arrived a few seconds later that linked me to video tutorials on Wistia’s website. Quick and easy!
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Billing
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Wistia accepts all major credit cards and the billing department can be reached by email. I was able to easily upgrade to a paid account through my user control panel, and account cancellation is handled the same way. My bill was always accurate and I had no issues here.
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Pricing
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There are four Wistia video hosting plans to pick from. The smallest plan, Free, affords users space for three videos and five gigabytes of bandwidth. Paid plans run from $29/month (six videos/25 gigabytes of bandwidth) to $299/month (unlimited videos/one terabyte of bandwidth). All Wistia paid accounts feature 50 gigabytes of storage space. Additional space is one dollar per gigabyte and bandwidth overages are billed at $0.30/gigabyte. Wistia offers a great service for a good price, and new clients can get in on a 20% discount by paying yearly.
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Reliability
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My hosting server hardware was 100% reliable.
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Help & Support
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Customer support is offered by email and live chat. Wistia’s online video tutorials and help files were so thorough that I really had few reasons to reach out to the support team. When I was interested in upgrading my account I did contact the support team. As with my sales experience, I was not able to raise assistance via live chat. Even so, support was quick to respond to my emails.
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Uptime
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My uptime monitor indicated that 3dcart maintained a 100% uptime rating.
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Guarantee
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Terms of Service
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Wistia’s Terms of Service can be viewed in full on their website. Highlights include:
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Customers must be at least 18 years of age.
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Only one free account per person or per business.
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Hosted content may not infringe upon any patent, trademark or copyright.
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No refunds or credits given for early contract termination.
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Bottom Line
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Advantages
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Fantastic user interface.
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Slick video analytics.
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Great playback quality.
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Excellent integration.
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Free hosting available.
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Videos work on many devices and operating systems.
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Helpful documentation and video tutorials.
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Disadvantages
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Live chat hard to reach.
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No telephone support.
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No uptime guarantee.
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Cannot measure video performance on sharing sites and networks.
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