Resolved Thinking About Premium (Have Questions)

[bringabi]

Hello, I've been a free user for over a year and am thinking about switching to Premium Hosting. I had a few questions I'm sure someone can quickly answer:

1) Is there still a 30 day log in requirement?
2) Can I stack multiple 3 year terms if I pay in advance?
3) I see websites go down as a free user that requires free user intervention (user level maintenance or initiating a ticket) but do premium users also need to do this (does X10 staff occasionally review paid websites to ensure they're up and running)?
*It might be silly but 2 & 3 are aimed at continuing the website for a few years after incapacitation or death.
4) Does Premium Hosting still use cPanel or DirectAdmin? Is there a choice?
5) Do Premium Hosting users have the same volume of connectivity issues as free users (ie. the current Connection Refused error)?

Thank you in advanced to whoever my respond.

 

[Anna]

1. Of course not, you're paying for the service, that's all that's needed to keep the account active
2. I would think it is possible, but since I'm not part of the premium staff I can't say with 100 % certainty.
3. You'd still need to keep an eye on your site and if needed submit a ticket, we do not have the manpower to regularly check every site for being up (there are several monitoring services that can keep an eye on the site though and inform you if it is down).
4. Right now it is only cPanel to my knowledge, though they did talk about starting to offer DirectAdmin as a choice as well.
5. Premium servers are generally more stable and the service does come with a SLA Guaranteed 99.9% Uptime. In the event of any server wide issues premium services have priority over free hosting when it comes to support resources, so response times, and solutions, are a lot faster there.

On the premium order page there's a form for contacting the sales team for questions prior to purchase, if you feel my answers isn't enough you can contact them for a more precise answer: https://x10premium.com/order (it's in the upper right area and the link says "Have a question or concern? Please ask!", it's an overlay so can't link the form directly.

 

[garrettroyce]

You can also ask questions on our Discord server, if you'd like. A few admins hang out there. If you tag me (@schizzor) I can answer some questions. I've had x10premium for maybe about 5 years and an x10VPS for about the same.

 

[bringabi]

I appreciate your responses Anna and Garretroyce. A couple of days ago I had sent the sales team an inquiry via "Have a question or concern? Please ask!" but haven't received a response. I've checked my inbox, spam and trash folders.

 

[garrettroyce]

I'm not sure why that would be. Emails from .x10hosting.com could get caught by the spam filters and never delivered from ancient times, but I thought that was all fixed. Also, the Covid-19 thing has really screwed some stuff up. Not a real great introduction to the service, unfortunately.

But, I can answer just about everything about it except for anything billing related if you'd like. You can send me a PM here or on Discord (@schizzor).

I think a fair assessment of x10 is you're getting pretty much the same user experience here as anywhere else with cPanel. What is nice is that there are basically no restrictions on shared hosting and it's guaranteed 99.9% uptime. The client area is decent; it's easy to set up automatic payments and change your cPanel credentials automatically without making a ticket. The ticket response times are good. Usually I hear back within a few hours and the staff know the system pretty well. It's nice managing your domain name from the same system and the free privacy protection is nice too. If you sign up, definitely take advantage of the 3 year plan (if you think you want 3 years) because you get the free domain name and SSL certificate. It's not a huge benefit, but SSL certs are kind of a hassle and/or expense and nowadays, visitors look for the little lock icon even for the most basic sites.

I wouldn't say x10 is the perfect webhost, but you get a really solid feature set and a good price. The servers aren't overly crowded and the uptime is pristine.

If I missed something, let me know and I'll personally corner an admin to answer your questions.

 

[bringabi]

I just checked my inbox, spam and trash. Still nothing. Upon second glance, it would seem some premium members are using the free forums for support. The free service is great and was thinking about pulling my other domains in via a premium account but it seems too risky, now. Or, maybe someone's not checking the mailbox belonging to the sales team mentioned above?

 

[Anna]

Premium users may chose to ask non account related and coding related questions here, I have not seen any questions from a premium user in weeks however.

I'll have a word with the admins about you not getting a reply, maybe something is broken with the form.

 

[Anna]

What email address did you use on the form? There is no recent mails received in the past days that correspond to the email address you use for the free hosting.

You can PM me the information if you don't want to post it publicly.

 

[bringabi]

Hi Anna - Thank you as usual for your responses.

You were able to clear up most my questions. I mainly sought clarification on the following:
1) Whether stacking subscription periods was possible on accounts (not interested in doing this any longer).
2) Whether downtime and technical issues mirrors the free accounts.
3) A free domain's listed for the 2 and 3 year plans but the purchase screen seems to indicate it's $9.95 annual when the 2 and 3 year plans are selected.

The premium inquiry I saw yesterday on the free forums:
https://x10hosting.com/community/threads/x10-hosting-domain-is-gone-from-my-upgraded-account.207979/

 

[Anna]

That is not a premium user, the user refers to the move to DirectAdmin as upgraded rather then migrated. Premium does not have DA.

1. Ok.

2. The downtime and technical issues does not mirror the free accounts. The most recent issues with free hosting has been related to the migrations to DA and premium hosting never did this migration.
In general there is also fewer accounts on each server, though that does not automatically equal fewer domains/sites as premium users can add unlimited domains to their account.
Free hosting is more prone to abuse, intentional and unintentional, which from time to time does cause an issue before the user is suspended, and while we have several tools to do this automatically as well as manual reviews it may sometimes go undetected for a period of time.

3. The cost is indicated but is not added to the total as seen on the right side. It's there as information and that part of the form is the same even if you chose a one year or monthly plan.

 

[garrettroyce]

@bringabi Do you have any more questions? I'll close this issue out if you have everything you need to make a decision.