Cost of Web hosting/maintenance

Dante79

Hi,
My father had a website designed a few years ago for our family business. We are happy with the site but every year the design company has invoiced us a bill, this year of €299 for hosting and maintenace, although our site hasnt changed since it was created.
In the current financial climate we have to justify every expense as business is slack.
So my question is, is this a valid charge or is the design company pulling a fast one with these charges every year?

cormee

Depends on the hosting package/resources. What sort of maintenance do they do? Is it a brochure site or is it database driven, is it shared hosting, or a virtual server, etc. etc.

Paste the package details here (without including the hosting company details) and we could let you know.

Dante79

cormee wrote: »

Depends on the hosting package/resources. What sort of maintenance do they do? Is it a brochure site or is it database driven, is it shared hosting, or a virtual server, etc. etc.

Paste the package details here (without including the hosting company details) and we could let you know.

I don't have the hosting details at hand as I'm not directly involved in the running of the company, its just a basic 6 page site nothing fancy, not database driven and the site has barely changed over the years except to advertise a new product.
I will ask the design company for a breakdown of the invoice and see what they come back with

mneylon

You'd need to provide more detail on what is covered
A lot of designers and developers provide technical support and updates etc., for their clients on an annual basis and for €299 that's not expensive if you're getting a few hours per year plus the hosting + domain..

tommycahir

What does your contract with the service provider say?

as it says "hosting and maintenace" you have to remember that there are multiple different types of hosting available as cormee pointed out and that maintence is more than just content but actually applications of security fixes eg the possible update of site due ot heartbleed bug or other security holes found either in coding or underlying systems.

Dante79

tommycahir wrote: »

What does your contract with the service provider say?

as it says "hosting and maintenace" you have to remember that there are multiple different types of hosting available as cormee pointed out and that maintence is more than just content but actually applications of security fixes eg the possible update of site due ot heartbleed bug or other security holes found either in coding or underlying systems.

Ok i will have to find out from the company, all I know is that there has been no contact or changes with the company that designed the site for the Last two years

Dante79

tommycahir wrote: »

What does your contract with the service provider say?

as it says "hosting and maintenace" you have to remember that there are multiple different types of hosting available as cormee pointed out and that maintence is more than just content but actually applications of security fixes eg the possible update of site due ot heartbleed bug or other security holes found either in coding or underlying systems.

Ok i will have to find out from the company, all I know is that there has been no contact or changes with the company that designed the site for the Last two years

hatchmedia

On average a basic hosting package from an Irish company costs around €60 per year and .ie domain name renewal €25 per year. If you have large volumes of traffic coming through the site you can expect to pay more per year for hosting.

If the design company are running the latest updates, taking backups, providing support or doing other routine maintenance work then they will charge you extra for these services.

mneylon

Dante79 wrote: »

Ok i will have to find out from the company, all I know is that there has been no contact or changes with the company that designed the site for the Last two years

But are you paying for updates or other services and simply not availing of them?

Niall OConnor

<Mod snip>

Read the charter please. Thanks.

Kenny Logins

:rolleyes:

MagicMarker

Niall OConnor wrote: »

<snip>

My hero.