We’ve recently revamped our WordPress website hosting packages, with new plans introduced that are tiered to the requirements of our different customers.
This autumn, here at Primary Image, we have made our largest-ever investment in the hosting infrastructure that runs our customers’ websites. Over the next few weeks, the process of moving all our customers from our previous Leeds-based server centre, to a state-of-the-art facility near London, will be completed.
The quality of our website hosting is something we believe passionately in. With so many budget web hosts, downtime is regular occurrence and they cram their servers full of websites, meaning everything runs slowly, but this is an area we’ve never compromised on. Our latest investment means our customers will benefit from some of the most advanced web hosting technology in the UK.
The Centro facility, in Hemel Hempstead, we’re now using (credit: Google).
It’s also, quite unbelievably, the first time we’ve reviewed our standard hosting prices in over five years. That seems a long time ago! In recent months our own costs have significantly increased, so we’ve needed to review our prices and make them comparable to what other companies are charging. We know that our packages, and all the extras that are included, still represent really good value for money when compared to what other companies are offering.
What website packages do you now offer?
We now offer our customers more choice, because we know a one-size-fits-all policy doesn’t work.
Also, we have taken the decision to only host WordPress websites from now onwards, which is the web platform that we specialise in.
- Personal plan: great value hosting for low traffic websites, with your website fully managed by Primary Image and free support.
- Business plan: more powerful web hosting for business-critical websites, with priority support, guaranteed uptime and security padlock included.
- Enterprise plan: web hosting for high-traffic websites, with a guaranteed Service Level Agreement, extra security, and a package tailored to your exact requirements (such as design work being included).
These packages include Primary Image handling the technical maintenance for you, which ensures your website runs well and is kept secure, so it’s a fully managed service (not just the web hosting). You can read more about this on our hosting page. We also offer unmanaged hosting if requested too, which is for customers who have technical experience and do not need our fully managed service.
Due to the number of support and work requests we receive each day, and to keep our costs competitive, we will now only be offering telephone support to those on our Business and Enterprise plans. This is similar practice to many other hosting companies. However, we will be launching a new online support system in the near future (details to follow soon).
We are also making some changes to how we provide mailboxes, with each mailbox now having an increased storage limit.
You can compare the benefits of each of our plans on the hosting page.
Why are your web hosting prices changing?
It’s not a decision we’ve taken lightly, but we’ve had to review our prices because:
- Our costs have risen considerably in recent years, particularly with our recent investment in new web servers.
- This is the first time in over five years that we’ve increased our standard hosting price (which is a very long time!).
- Some websites require more power or storage space to run, so it’s only right they have plans priced more appropriately to their needs.
We’re starting to use a new facility, on the outskirts of London, which has a very strong reputation for their hosting infrastructure. This doesn’t come cheap, but we wanted to find the very best home for our customers’ websites. This transition process will be completed over the next few weeks.
We know, for a fact, that our prices are still very well priced compared to other managed hosting providers. Unlike most other web hosts, who just provide you with some disk space and hand over all responsibility to you, our approach has always been different. We take care of the technical aspects of running your website, which does involve a lot of time (and cost).
It’s not just the physical web server that is working continuously to run your website, but it’s also about the invisible work that we do every month to keep your website running. For example, we pay for a health check service to monitor your website every two minutes and get proactively alerted if we need to take any action. Every night your website gets copied to a backup drive. About once per month we manually install software updates and security patches for your website, then manually check your website is functioning ok after the installation, which involves a fair amount of time. We also provide support time when dealing with any queries you might have when using your website editor, which most web hosts won’t do.
Even with our new prices, we’re still extremely competitive. Other WordPress managed hosting companies, such as WP Site Care, WP Maintainer and Total WP Support charge around $100/month and that’s only for the maintenance of your website, not for the actual website hosting (which you have to pay for first).
From when will the price changes apply?
The new prices will apply from your next renewal date. Until then, you will receive the benefits of our new hosting plans at no extra cost.
Can I get a discount for having more than one website?
Yes! To thank our customers who have multiple websites with Primary Image, from January 2017 we’re now offering 25% off for your second (or additional) hosting plans. See our Terms and Conditions for more info.
What’s improved with your hosting plans?
- All our customer websites are being transferred to much more powerful web servers, located on the outskirts of London.
- Our automatic health check system now checks your website every two minutes, rather than every five minutes in the past.
- Your website files will now be stored on ultra-fast SSD drives, which are a vast improvement on traditional hard disks.
- Our security protection systems have been upgraded, which will help keep your website safe from ever-increasing online attacks.
- Our new web servers are ready for the next generation of web technology, such as HTTPS/2, PHP 7, and more.
Got any more questions?
Please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
Mike founded Primary Image in 2010. He specialises in the WordPress website platform and speaks regularly at national web design conferences. Mike became a member (MCIPR) of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in 2015.