Where cheap shared hosting is concerned, we have yet to see any one name thrown around more than WebHostingPad. The provider has been giving out cheap and reliable hosting for as long as we can remember, and during that time, they’ve racked up the awards, pushed the envelope, and generally made a lot of people very happy. However, just because we’ve seen loads of favorable reviews doesn’t mean the web hosting provider is quite as golden as we might think. In fact, their paper promises may not be real life gains in the slightest. How’s a burgeoning web master to find out before signing that digital lease? Simple! Read the WebHostingPad customer reviews we’ve accumulated, and then stashed below for safe keeping. Beyond the jump you’ll find a number of categorized and common complaints we’ve received from our users about the web hosting provider, sectioned off for easy reading. However, before we get into the gritty details of those reports, why not have a closer look at the web hosting company itself? So without further ado, may we present an appetizer of one, quick WebHostingPad summary!
Who is WebHostingPad?
If you’re unfamiliar with WebHostingPad.com, let us be the first to give you the total rundown. Firstly, the hosting provider offers one of the cheapest plans we have seen anywhere on the net, clocking at just under two bucks ($1.99 per month). That’s a ridiculously low number, even for a shared host. And for that money, you’ll be able to enjoy the full retinue of unlimited options we’ve come to expect from an industry ready hosting company. This includes unlimited bandwidth, disc space, email accounts, and MySQL databases. To top it all off, you’ll also get access to popular hosting services and softwares like Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, PHP, jQuery, Apache, etc. All of these are represented, and at that price, it looks like a bargain that’s hard to argue with.
However, what do our reviewers have to say about the company? To find out, just head on down the break to view our categorized and common complaints about WebHostingPad.
Sales Complaints:
SSL Ain’t Free: Apparently, though their website states otherwise, you won’t be looking at a free SSL-enabled server with WebHostingPad. In fact, the company will charge you an additional $70 a month just to have access to this kind of much-needed security. This has been reported by multiple users, so we’re inclined to think it’s more than just a case-by-case basis. If you’re in desperate need of a secure access method, we suggest you maybe look at a different budget web host.
Auto Renewal Issues: We’ve seen this kind of complaint from multiple web hosting providers, but never quite to this extent. Apparently, WebHostingPad makes it quite hard to turn-off or otherwise disengage the automatic renewal of your website lease. Not only that, but if you refuse to pay for the services you don’t want, WebHostingPad will actually send a collection agency after you. This is really quite troubling, and if it’s as common as we think it is, a tremendous notch in the WebHostingPad getup.
Tech Support Problems:
Disappearing Tech Reps: In an interesting (though horrifying) display of what’s possible with shared hosting tech support, it appears that quite commonly a WebHostingPad tech support representative will announce that the problem is on the servers, and then close the live chat window without any further instructions. Considering tech support is the last line of defense between your website and endless downtime, this is really quite a troubling pattern. All in all, we’re willing to bet that you can’t quite bank on WebHostingPad tech support to get you through a server-hosted crisis.
No Depth At All: This is a first for our complaint compendiums, as we haven’t seen it anywhere else with any other web hosting provider. Apparently, WebHostingPad is occasionally speedy with their tech support responses, though the answers given are typically not very deep in any satisfactory sense. What we’re assuming is happening is that a tech rep will give a user an answer as to why the problem exists, though an answer that does nothing to fix or address the problem. Obviously, this doesn’t make matters worse, and it doesn’t give us much more confidence in the tech support WebHostingPad is offering.
Slow Ordering: Interestingly, we’re also hearing that ordering new services with WebHostingPad is quite a slow and painful process. We’re surprised to hear this as, typically, this is the area in which web hosting providers are quickest to pony up and take your money.
Functionality Problems:
Unlimited Isn’t Quite: We’ve seen this at several other web hosts, and to be honest, we aren’t quite knocked off our rocker to see it listed here. As is par for the course, the so-called unlimited options offered by WebHostingPad don’t quite stack up to the promises. As it turns out—or at least in our reader’s experiences — WebHostingPad starts out each new account with a 10% total space cap, limiting the amount of performance and bandwidth the user can access to host their site. This is an understandable way of doing things, but not when an unmetered limit is advertised.
Steady Downtime: In a pattern that reminds us of World of Warcraft, it appears that WebHostingPad’s will go down for maintenance (or various other reasons) with some frequency, and at usually the same intervals. It appears that every two weeks or so the servers will disappear for a few hours, leaving our reviewer’s sties in the dark. This is really quite a disturbing trend, as the continual downtime of a company’s servers hardly does any good as far as establishing their functionality and stability.
