Features
A Small Orange offers a good variety of hosting services, such as shared, VPS, reseller and dedicated, but it is their business-centric hosting solution that should cater to the needs of small to large companies. Of course, you can go with their VPS solutions immediately, but their business hosting plans are a good place to start nonetheless.
All of A Small Orange’s business plans are primarily built to handle eCommerce, which means that they can perfectly handle websites with high traffic. In order to achieve this, their plans include enterprise-grade hardware, as well as industry-standard database management features, and are run on PCI compliant servers with lower customer density and a lot of headroom.
4th Place8.8 out of 10They also do not implement limitations on server functions so you can maximize the potential of your hosting plan. In addition to unlimited email accounts, databases, subdomains and parked domains, you also get unlimited mailing lists, unlimited forwarders, unlimited addon domains, and unlimited FTP accounts. You also get daily backups so you can have some peace of mind that your website has a safety net in case things go awry.
A Small Orange also throws in 1-click installation via Softaculous, so you can easily install a wide array of scripts to extend the functionality of your website – from blogs like WordPress and b2evolution, to eCommerce shopping carts like Prestashop, osCommerce, and beyond. And as if those were not enough, they also sneak in a free SSL certificate, which is worth $39.
Pricing
A Small Orange’s business hosting plans come in three flavors: Startup, Business, and Enterprise. The Startup plan provides 40GB disk space and 600GB bandwidth, and will cost you $20 per month for the month-to-month billing cycle. If you choose to go for a 1, 2 or 3-year cycle, the price will go down to $16.67 per month, regardless of which you choose. Take note, however, that the renewal price the 1 year term differs from the other, as it will set you back $18.34 per month, while the 2 and 3-year terms stay at $16.67 per month. All in all, this plan is actually a better deal, feature-wise, compared to their base VPS plan which offers lower bandwidth and storage for the same price.
If you need a bit more than what the Startup offers, A Small Orange’s Small Business plan might do the trick. You get 50GB of storage and 800GB of bandwidth, for only $40 a month. If you want to go for the longer terms, it will cost you $33.33 per month. Again, like the previous plan, the renewal rate for the 1-year term differs from the 2 and 3-year terms, making you pay $35 per month.
Finally, if you are looking for something a bit more robust, the 60GB storage allocation and 1TB bandwidth of the Enterprise plan should be able to handle the demands of your website. This will cost you $60 monthly, or $50 per month if you choose the longer terms. Yet again, if you go for the 1-year term, the renewal rate will be slightly higher compared to the 2 or 3-year terms: $51.67 per month.
Add-Ons
As previously mentioned, A Small Orange offers optional add-ons that can enhance your business website. While the added cost can be expensive, these are still worth considering if you want to get the most out of their services. For instance, if you would rather build your own website than hire an expensive website design professional, A Small Orange’s optional drag-and-drop website builder, at $11 per month, could be a more cost-effective route. Take note, however, that there are other hosting services out there that include an easy-to-use website builder with their plans, free of charge. If you don’t have the time to build your own site, you can also purchase a custom WordPress site that includes 5 pages. This will cost you a one-time payment of $799.
You can also avail of SiteLock, which starts at $20 per year, in order to enhance the security of your website. And, finally, you can also avail of managed pay per click services, and managed SEO services to improve the visibility and marketing efforts of your website. Managed pay per click services start at a hefty $250 per month, while managed SEO will set you back at least $99 per month.
Scalability
If your business grows to the point that A Small Orange’s business hosting plans cannot cut it anymore, the company vows to help anyone migrate to a higher, more suitable hosting solution. For small businesses, their VPS hosting services should be more than enough. The base configuration starts at $20 per month, with 30GB of storage, 1024MB of RAM and 500GB of bandwidth. And if you need more than that, they have a wide array of configurations to choose from, with the highest one offering 250GB of storage, 10240MB of RAM, and a whopping 5TB of bandwidth. It will cost you $150 per month.
Customer Support
A Small Orange’s customer support is quite good, though it lacks the much-coveted phone support. Still, you can contact them quickly via 24/7 live chat and email, and their representatives are pretty responsive and helpful for the most part. They also have a deep knowledgebase in case you prefer self-help options.
What's the Verdict on A Small Orange?
A Small Orange SMB Hosting Review 2020 – Conclusion
While A Small Orange may not the best choice for hosting websites for small businesses, it does a pretty fine job. Their business-centric hosting solution offers really compelling features that ensure your website performs well, is online all the time and that it is secured. And the best part is that most essential features are not locked behind higher plans – the only differences between plans are the sizes of storage and bandwidth. And although the add-ons are quite expensive, and some features are lacking compared to other hosting solutions, A Small Orange is still worth looking into if you want a stable, scalable hosting plan for your business.
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