Setup fees

10th December 2001

Are they a good idea and do they put customers off

M@tt · 10th December 2001

From my experience, they just put customers off - although if you offer a 30 day money back guarantee, and the client cancels on the 29th day, then you will have lost the money for that month, yet had to pay bandwidth fees for that client, so setup fees are often used to counteract this.

Regards
Matt

netsolutions · 10th December 2001

Ya but if you offer a 30 day money back guarantee you should give ALL the money back

Cyber · 11th December 2001

Setup fees do not need to be refunded even if you offer 30 M.B.G... if its stated in your TOS.

Its a great way to deter frauds and 'host hopers', which are simply testing out different hosts, or are trying out a host for their host review site, or whatever.

Setup fees are also a good way to attract REAL customers. Anyone who knows anything, will know if the price and service is good, then you dont mind paying a small, one time setup fee... right?
Would you pay a setup fee? You would if you were serious about your hosting.

I am totally for setup fees, as you can probably tell

netsolutions · 11th December 2001

You know this is the type of topic that we could debate for days. The fact is that hosts that charge setup fees are going to be for them and the ones that don't are going to be against them.

jonny_b · 12th December 2001

I think setup fees are a must!

Especially on dedicated servers, the time it takes to prepare a dedicated machine, allocate a switch port, add the graphing to MRTG and get a few IP's sorted justifies it alone

If nothing else, it helps pay for the price of hardware that much quicker!

Cheers,

Karl · 12th December 2001

Yeah, for dedicated servers they are a must (For some reason when I first read this thread I just assumed you were on about vhosting, didn't see the forum it was in).

So yes they are a must, puts people of asking for a server, then backing out two weeks later so you are left with hardware to shift (not that it should be too difficult).

edb49 · 17th August 2002

Absolutely, you can offer customers a lower monthly price if you charge them a setup fee, which will be more attractive to them.

What about setup fees on colo?