Once a month fee...

This is the money we have to spend if we want to operate an online business. Think of it as if you were to set up a business offline, you'll need to have capital. Of course, our costs is much lower than that as compared to offline businesses.

However, you can always use free resources online, such as web 2.0 properties like facebook, twitter, blogger, article directories, etc. Once you've earned a bit of money, then put back the money into the online business.

Hi,

I look at it like it is part of the price of doing business. I mostly use Hostgator for hosting and find their service helpful when I've needed it. Also, I use Go Daddy for most of my domains and also like their service/website.

No.

It's a pretty negligible cost for the platform it gives you. If you can't get your website to cover significantly more than it's hosting fees then you've got some problems you need to work on.

Try getting a plot of land or a premise to do business on in the offline world... it will cost a bit more than $13 a month :

I see your tagline is 'Giant Squid' so I assume you are coming from the angle of someone who has been using Squidoo and are branching out. At that point I can see why you would be frustrated

BUT for me, as has been said, it is a case of 'cost of business'. To do what we (well, many of us) do we need sites up and running. these sites need somewhere to 'live' and hosting is the cost of doing that. You could do it yourself but that would likely take a tech knowhow beyond many of us (myself included) and wouldn't be cost effective.

The fact is that the cost of hosting is pretty paltry. $8 a month gets you some pretty good hosting iirc (I use a higher package for my needs so not 100% sure on that), with a further $10 or so a year for a domain. The advantage of this vs the likes of Squidoo and Hubpages is you are developing your OWN business, not someone elses.

This is important as it allows you to go in your own direction, to have complete control. It also allows you control over the content your site has. Many web 2.0 sites have taken hits in the rankings because Google has got fed up with them over quality, and you have no control over other peoples quality and just have to lump it...on your own site you are able to not only control the look and direction, but ensure it has the qualities needed.

Plus you make sites that convert better

Yes, bills are a pain. But they aren't heavy bills and are easily worth it as the entry cost to doing business. Compare that to starting a business in, say, printing, and the entry levels required are something of a pittance!

Hey ,

It does not really bothers me at all , cause after all this is a business .
you are investing on it , but very little , compared to offline business.

Not at all. It bothers me less than paying for gas to get to a job that I really didn't like all that much.

I never even think about it. I've got about 100 sites on one host for $15/mnth and have some other hosting with a lot of sites on them too. I get more than my money's worth.

Not really as i wouldnt expect it for free. They cant host it for nothing as they a business at the end of the day!

The only way round not paying a monthly fee is paying it upfront yearly, 2 tearly, ect

Nothing worthwhile in life is free, this is the price we pay. You gotta spend money to make money.

Does not affect me till they make me money. In fact, when I have extra resource lying on a dedicated server I normally tend to load up some more high resource sites to utilize it more. High resource sites are not everybody's cup of tea due to hosting costs and so, there is less competition too for some extra resource which would have otherwise been idle.

Nope, I'm good with it.

Between hosting and Aweber I spend about $50 a month but I make much more than that. I honestly can't think of any other business where I could set my own paycheck and only spend $50 a month in overhead

For those of use that don't have a a lot of financial resources I could see where this could be a problem especially when you are just starting out and don't see a lot of return on Investment.But in the long run when you stick to it , ever thing should pay off in the long run.

Are there shared hosting plans to have a different IP for each domain?

It takes money to make money.

Not at all. I have actually looked at this as "what!!! you can actually make money online giving good service without paying tens of thousands of dollars a month!!! This is amazing!!!"

It is all perspective. My monthly overhead for my offline businesses make what I pay to be doing business online look like nothing.

:-)

Its actually quite the opposite. Think about it, is there any business in the world whether it be online or offline that is free of overhead? If there is then its not a business.

My total required expenses are only about $30 a month for IM and I make much more than that. All business have expenses. It was a little tough at first but once sales started coming in it didn't matter anymore.

Thanks. Really awesome.