Frequently Asked Questions

The NearlyFreeSpeech.NET FAQ (*)

General (*)

What's the most important thing to know about your service?

What's the most common mistake people make while signing up for NearlyFreeSpeech.NET?

Why do I have to enter my real/legal name when creating a membership?

Can I beat your pricing if I get my own VPS?

Do you provide email hosting services?

Is your service easy to use?

Do you provide DNS hosting services?

How many web sites can I host with a NearlyFreeSpeech.NET membership?

Do you register domain names?

How will I know if my account is about to run out of funds?

Why do you only offer prepaid service?

My web designer says I should use somebody else instead of you. What do you say?

Do you price-match your competitors?

No.

Our pricing plan is designed to be fair to you and fair for us. It represents our actual cost to provide the service. In the case of resources, for instance, this is literally true: all revenue from resource charges is channeled directly into the acquisition and maintenance of hosting hardware. And by "hardware" we don't mean a Hummer with a sexy custom "NearlyFreeSpeech" wrap on it.

Our pricing plan is simple and straightforward as well as very competitive. You pay for what you use, and you don't pay for what you don't use. That's all there is to it.

Prices that appear better than ours fall into two categories: big bundles and temporary loss leaders. Our thoughts on big bundles are detailed elsewhere. As for loss leaders, as long as the hosting business exists, there will be somebody offering free or below-cost service because they think adding customers is more important than building a sustainable service. Competing on price with every free-today-gone-tomorrow hosting provider that comes along would simply guarantee that we'd lose what really makes our service the best deal: its simplicity, honesty, and sustainability.

How can you make money at these prices?

What is the minimum deposit?

Will you design my web site for me?

Do you offer collocation, dedicated servers, or VPS services?

What happens if I get slashdotted/reddited?

Are you about to pop up a "chat now with sales!" ad on me?

What if I want to set up a web site but don't have a domain name / don't want to fool with DNS?

Why don't you have a free tier?

What's the difference between bandwidth and storage?

Why doesn't your website look like other hosting provider sites?

Are your domain registration services intended for general-purpose usage?

What if my web site gets attacked?

Is your service only for controversial or extreme websites?

Should I set up my new small business website at NearlyFreeSpeech.NET?

Will you pre-approve my web site content or proposed use of your service?

How much will my site cost to host with you?

What kind of uptime can I expect with NearlyFreeSpeech.NET?

Is this cloud computing?

Where are you located?

Do you offer telephone support?

Someone else uses your service and wants my help with it. How do I help them?

Should I use NearlyFreeSpeech.NET or a VPS?