Pacific Host is a full-featured webhost that caters to small and medium-sized businesses, and they provide a wide array of ancillary services, including website development and unique ecommerce solutions. What grabbed my attention, however, and what has garnered Pacific Host the most press, is their basic webhosting plan, which clients can purchase for the phenomenally low rate of $2.49 per month. That price is simply unheard of, even with an extended commitment, and perhaps too good to be true, so I set out put the service through its paces.
Value for Money
There is a tremendous amount of value in the most basic webhost at $2.49/month, which amounts to less than $30 per year. With that level of overhead, a webmaster can get a website out of the red quickly and easily. There are no setup fees or hidden costs, but Pacific Host requires the client to commit to 36 months (3 years), which is $89.64 upfront. It is still an excellent bargain, but it may be too much commitment for the individual or small business.
With a 2-year commitment, the rate is $2.99 and the upfront total is $71.76. With a 1-year commitment, the rate skyrockets to $4.99 per month with an upfront total of $59.88, and with a 6-month commitment, the rate is $5.99 with an upfront total of $35.94. At any rate, the package includes unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, support for five domains, a 99.9% uptime guarantee and a 45-day money-back guarantee. It also includes cPanel, 25 MySQL databases, 25 email accounts, broad language support, one-click deployment of popular apps and much more.
Pacific Host has a 99.9% uptime guarantee for shared/reseller accounts, which includes the $2.49/month plan. Note that Pacific Host has a more elaborate solution in place for clients with dedicated servers. At any rate, Pacific Host promises to achieve 99.9% uptime, or they provide clients with a month credit upon request. The good news is that historically, Pacific Host lives up to the 99.9% uptime promise, and I experienced no issues during my test period.
The bad news is that a month credit for each client any time service dips below 99.9% is simply not practical, and thus my unchallenged presumption is that they do not honor this guarantee for minor downtime. However, Pacific Host offers a 45-day money-back guarantee with no questions asked, which I took advantage of at the 30-day mark for the purpose of this review, and in that instance, they lived up to their obligation and treated me well throughout.
Support
I communicated with Pacific Host sales and technical support three times: pre-sale, after setup and during opt out. Each time, the representatives were extremely professional and knowledgeable, but more importantly, they demonstrated genuine helpfulness, which I appreciated because I review many hosts, and this usually isn’t the case. To test support fully, I called them immediately after setup, and asked a series of increasingly difficult questions.
First, I asked the rep what his qualifications were, and he rolled with this question like a pro. For the second question, I asked him to put the unlimited bandwidth aspect of the plan into language that was easier to understand. He did, and I was reassured that there weren’t too many caveats involved. Lastly, I asked him to walk me through the process of installing the WordPress and phpBB scripts, and the rep went above and beyond working with me.
• Live Chat
• Helpdesk
• Email
• Phone
• Fax
Note: Phone/Fax support are Mon-Fri 10am-6pm PST only. All other support is 24x7x365.
Ease of use
Pacific Host is yet another host that has chosen cPanel as their weapon of coice. And that’s a good thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re setting your first website or if you’re an experienced webaster – cPanel is a great tool. Very user-friendly.
We like
• The price is simply unbeatable considering all the features packed into this plan.
• Customer support goes above and beyond for a hosting plan at this price point.
• The control panel is powerful, well-optimized and well-organized.
Important to know
• The terms of service for Pacific Host is elaborate, and you should read it all prior to committing.
• The uptime guarantee is “too good to be true,” and I’d prefer a prorated reimbursement.
Summary
Overall, I was quite impressed with Pacific Host, but in the
spirit of full disclosure, I went into this review expecting
Pacific Host to be terrible, at best. This is in large part
because of the $2.49/month rate, and because of a number of
negative reviews. Let me speak to those negative reviews for
a moment: After having read many of them and having
experienced Pacific Host myself, I can’t help but think
that those reviewers had unrealistic expectations. This is a
$2.49/month service. If you expect that, you’ll be
impressed with how much service you actually get.My
conclusion is that Pacific Host is an excellent choice for
personal and small business websites. If you plan to run a
blog, you probably can’t do much better than this package.
PacificHost
Overall, I was quite impressed with Pacific Host, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I went into this review expecting Pacific Host to be terrible, at best. This is in large part because of the $2.49/month rate, and because of a number... Read full expert review of PacificHost