Understanding the real costs of hosting and domain bundles

We noticed Crazy Domains and HostPapa trying to sell you bundles of low value services claiming to offer a suite of features that you didn’t know you needed.

From Crazy Domains's “Domain Guard” to HostPapa’s “PapaCare”, our competitors are bundling packages of vaguely described services with quirky names. These bundles are deliberately designed to be difficult to compare to any other retailer’s offerings.

They just want your monthly payment

Some Web Hosting and Domains retailers can give the industry a bad name by operating with a shocking lack of transparency.

We understand that the whole point of using a Web Hosting provider is to get services from a team that understands the technical stuff that you don’t want to worry about. Unfortunately some retailers choose to exploit that knowledge-gap.

It’s not too different from when you go to a mechanic and they diagnose your car with faults and repairs you’ve never heard of before. As the customer, it’s not your job to know everything. You shouldn’t necessarily need to know what is and isn’t a genuine concern, but you should be able to trust that your hosting provider does.

Every PapaCare subscriber is effectively paying for features that are WordPress specific, whether you’re using WordPress or not.

Unlike a mechanic, retailers like Crazy Domains and HostPapa are doing this to justify a recurring monthly fee.

To make matters worse, some retailers even automatically add these kinds of bundles into your cart, or aggressively label them as “necessary” or “highly recommended” services, when that isn’t the case. If a feature was truly essential, wouldn’t they always be included in the service?

These bundles are usually upselling one core service with a collection of lesser services that you didn’t know you existed, and are unsure if you need.

Paying for stuff you don’t really need

Even diligent and attentive consumers will struggle to find exact and specific details of what each small “necessary” feature inside a bundle actually does. We put quite a bit of effort into working out what the different bits of Crazy Domain’s Domain Guard do, and we still don’t know.

Sometimes bundles include services that would be otherwise included for free as part of a regular web hosting service (like backups and 2FA). We can't speak for the whole industry, but this is stuff that we include because we think it ought to be standard.

And sometimes the services in these bundles are so unsubstantial that they wouldn’t normally be worth mentioning. By putting them in a bundle, the retailer is trying to make these low-value features look more important than they really are.

When you’re paying for a bundle, you’re paying for all of the features listed by the retailer. Whether you want them all or will use them all, that’s another story. If there’s one useful feature and four that you don’t need, you still need to pay for them all. It’s like paying for the whole suite of Sky TV channels when really you just want to watch the rugby.

The bundles are simply value padding, a distinct effort to make a product seem more valuable than it really is to customers. It’s particularly malicious when it’s targeting customers who are new to web hosting or registering their first domain.

We didn’t plan on writing this article, but when we were looking at Crazy Domains to update our MyHost vs Crazy Domains comparison page we found something that surprised us.

Domain Guard: What is it really protecting?

One offering that really popped out to us was the Domain Guard bundle from Crazy Domains.

Domain Guard is the Crazy Domains upsell version of ID Protection, but bundled with three smaller attachments. The complications of Domain Guard are two-fold.

ID Protection is a useful service that we recommend, and usually sells for $10-15. It serves an important role, hiding domain holder contact information from being publicly displayed in the WHOIS database. It prevents a lot of spam, phishing, and other unwanted emails from hitting your inbox.

But when it comes to Australia’s .au domains, ID Protection isn’t available—the .au Domain Administration forbids it. Crazy Domains still sells Domain Guard at the same price for .au domain holders as it does for any other type of domain. You’re paying ~$10 a year for a bundle that usually comes with ID Protection, which is worth $10 a year, except you’re not getting the valuable part of that package. You’re just getting the other three features in the bundle, which are the lesser add-ons.

We tried to understand what you’re really getting in the bundle outside of the key ID Protection. Turns out that’s no easy task. The malware scanning, blacklist monitoring, and email alerts promised in the Domain Guard bundle are all features that you would either expect to see included in your regular domain services, or so vaguely described that we can’t determine what they really offer.

If the team at one web hosting company can’t tell what another web hosting company is offering, then we don’t expect the average customer buying their first domain to know what’s going on.

And then on top of that, if you’re an .au customer with Domain Guard, you’re paying full price for the bundle, but you’re not getting the most valuable feature in it.

Make sure you want and need a bundle like Domain Guard before blindly paying for it, especially if you’re an .au domain customer.

PapaCare: Overwhelming list, very little information

Crazy Domains aren’t the only company out there with bundles to be sceptical about. HostPapa caught our attention too, primarily with their PapaCare packages.

PapaCare is HostPapa’s take on managed web hosting and support services.

Like Domain Guard, inside the bundle there’s an element of a useful product. Quality support is always something to look for when choosing a hosting provider. At MyHost we have expert support on hand 24/7, and offer Managed Services for those who don’t want to deal with the stress of day-to-day server maintenance.

If you’re specifically paying for extra support, you’re probably looking for support when issues pop up, or for help with specific web hosting challenges.

The PapaCare bundle claims to include a lot more than that, listing 15 different services. Some of these services may come in use, but the majority wouldn’t be applicable most of the time you’re paying for them.

As the customer, it’s not your job to know everything. You shouldn’t necessarily need to know what is and isn’t a genuine concern, but you should be able to trust that your hosting provider does.

Unsure if you need to pay for all these features? Consider that every PapaCare subscriber is effectively paying for features that are WordPress specific, whether you’re using WordPress or not.

If you’re on PapaCare, you’re paying for all of these services regardless.

PapaCare relies on overwhelming customers with a platter of features that they try to make look important. They don’t want you looking into each feature’s worth, they just want you to think “oh I need that, it sounds important” and buy it.

They use words that stir emotions in users, like “security”, “privacy” and “exploit”, without elaborating much further about how these services are presented to the user.

It’s difficult to image exactly how features like “Third-party theme recommendations, i.e. WordPress themes” play out for users. Even if you wanted to know more, there’s no information on their website explaining how it works.

Customers are presented with a lot of services that PapaCare claims to cover. HostPapa is hoping you get overwhelmed, and instead of doing more research just jump in and subscribe to the bundle.

If it seems confusing, that’s probably by design

If you’re shopping for Web Hosting or Domains and something seems confusing, remember that it’s probably intentional. Shop around and see if similar add-ons or features are offered elsewhere. If they aren’t then that’s a hint that they aren’t what they seem.

If you don’t understand what a retailer is offering you, ask us what’s going on (we’ve investigated confusing package pricing before).

Or for a starting point, check out our Web Hosting 101 which explains the basics of Web Hosting, and covers lots of the most frequently asked questions.

Domains and hosting, without the trickery

Shopping around for domains and Web Hosting can be a lot trickier than it ought to be. We think shoppers should be able to easily compare ongoing domain and hosting prices without any surprises.

It’s up to you who you register your domains with. We just recommend that you choose someone who has honest pricing and is upfront about their features.

Photo by Carl Tronders on Unsplash