This site is a free online resource that offers valuable content and comparison features to consumers. To keep such resource 100% free for consumers, Consumer-Rankings.com receives advertising compensation from the companies listed on this page. Such compensation impacts the location and order in which such companies appear on this page.
In addition, the factors listed below
impact Our Ratings on this page.
NetFronts Overview
NetFronts has a fairly interesting approach to selling their service that is so basic it may actually be brilliant. Quite simply: they offer simple plans with robust features at low prices. Their website is easy to navigate and you can see all of their prices right up front without any particular sales gimmicks trying to trick you into a bait and switch. Instead, they seem willing to stand by their product, a pretty refreshing approach in a world of pop-ups, Flash animations, and hidden fees. What may make NetFronts unique is how very standard it is.
Ease of Use
The first thing that’s easy to use with this service is the website itself. You should have no problems actually finding the type of hosting that will work for you and purchasing it. Unlike a lot of sites that try to hide a dearth of value by squirreling all of their plan details on different pages, you can quickly get a good summary of every plan with only one click, then an additional click to get the details. It’s all very simple to use and follow, as well as to compare plans without having to create your own chart.
The interface for the hosting is pretty standard, but again that’s the point. It’s not flashy and confusing; it’s easy to use and gets the job done without much fuss. I would still recommend using an FTP client in order to manage your files, but that’s only because they’ll be quicker than any Web-based interface just by the nature of the way they’re constructed. If you don’t want to learn a new program or can’t access one for some reason, this is a perfectly simple way to make sure all of your files get where they’re supposed to go.
Features
The basic hosting plans are all reasonably priced and there isn’t really a whole lot of difference between them. If anything, what you’re looking at as you move through the plan list is just an incremental increase in the scale of several of the features. In other words, there are no plans where there is zero of something on that but a given number on a different one.
Plans start at 1500 MB of storage and 22.5 gigs of transfer per month and go up all the way to 5500 MB of storage and 110 gigs of transfer. The leveling system is good and provides valuable steps from one to the other as your needs change. The biggest drawback is that if you want to host multiple domains from a single hosting option, you need to buy one of the top two plans in order to do that, and only the very highest one will give you the option for three. This feels unnecessarily restrictive since it has very little effect on them how many domains I host with that same space and bandwidth.
The number of email accounts is excellent, though confusing. I can’t imagine needing 50 email accounts for a website that gets less than 22.5 gigs of traffic per month. Not that I’m complaining; it’s a very generous apportionment, especially combined with unlimited forwards, but it just seems a little odd.
Customer Support
This is where I think NetFronts really went the extra mile by employing common sense, if that is even possible.
First, they provide multiple avenues for contact. While I would like there to be more hours for their support phone number on the weekend, but it makes sense that they would limit during those times and the email support tends to be quick and comprehensive.
But more than the ability to contact them, they have provided one of the most useful FAQs I have ever seen, some excellent tutorials both in text and video, and a list of common settings to accomplish various tasks which is remarkably far-sighted of them to include prominently on their page.
Even starting as early as the sales staff, I felt like they were genuinely there to help me and not try to push product. This should be emulated by more companies when they’re training their people. The old tricks no longer work, people can see through them now. Instead, the best way to make a sale is to provide the right product or service for a reasonable price.
Pricing
Speaking of pricing, NetFronts has four plans at various pricing levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum and they run the pricing gamut from $9.95 a month if you prepay for the year to $32.95 a month for the same. While I can see what they were trying to do by giving discounts for paying either annually or quarterly, there isn’t enough of a difference to really make the sale. If people pay less frequently, it will likely be more out of convenience than price.
The Good
Simple offerings for good prices make this hosting well worth it
Customer service is top-notch.
The Bad
There isn’t enough of a discount for paying annually or quarterly. They need to sell this better
The Ugly
Within the limits of my storage and bandwidth, I should be able to host as many domains as I would like with my space. The limitation is artificial and unnecessary