5 things to consider when choosing web hosting management software

After a lot of long nights and working non-stop for months, your web hosting company is finally up and running. Now it’s time to get customers in and money back in your bank account. But with so many different and competing Web hosting billing and management software providers out there, how do you know which one is the best for you?

Unfortunately, there isn’t one right answer; it all comes down to what works best for your business. In saying that, however, there are 5 things you should consider when making your decision to choose a web hosting business.

Easily Accessible Support

We all know that feeling when you find you are stuck or lost inside a new product you just bought or started using. This is usually followed by having to spend great amounts of time googling for a solution or waiting for the products support team to get back to you. This process can consume a lot of time and resources that you can’t afford to lose.

This is why it is important to scope out what levels of support are available when choosing which provider to go with.

You want to go with a provider that has a very strong internal support base. Providers with a Success Community or Knowledge Base can help you quickly find How-to and Set-up guides.

For bigger issues that might come up (errors and bugs), you need to make sure you can contact a representative of the company in a quick and easy manner

Look for web hosting management software companies that have an online chat and official company social network page (Facebook, Twitter or Google+) listed on their website. This tells you that a human is looking at and aware of your issue.

Does the software link to your payment gateway?

You handle the web hosting, and the web hosting management software you choose handles customer relationship management (CRM), but who handles the payments?

Your payments will be handled by your payment gateway, but for this to work you need to make sure your payment gateway is integrated or at the very least available as an add-on for your web hosting management software.

Without this working, you won’t be able to take or receive any payments from your customers.

Do They Offer Flexible Plans?

When you start out you may only have 10-20 customers, but after growing your brand awareness and gaining market share that number could increase rapidly.

You need to make sure the web hosting management software you choose can grow with you. Because there’s no point signing a 5-year contract on their base plan with a customer limit if you’re planning on growing your customer base above that number in the future.

Look for providers who offer pay per month or easily upgradable plans to make sure you don’t limit your future customer base by choosing the wrong plan at the start.

Is It Customisable?

You may be lucky and find a web hosting management software that seamlessly blends into and matches your website design and needs. For everyone else you need to make sure it’s customisable enough to suit your personal wants and needs. For example, if you’re selling to customers all over the world, you need to make sure your web hosting management software supports all the languages that you need. Nothing looks worse than a poorly translated page full of basic grammar and spelling mistakes.

Is there a Free Trial Or Testing Portal Available?

The best way to make sure you pick the right web hosting management software is to test it out first.

Look for providers that offer free trials or testing portals, as this will allow you to give it a full test run and see if it handles your requirements and meets all your expectations.

A Final Thought

Choosing the correct web hosting management software is going to be one of the most important decisions you make when deciding to take your business live. Don’t settle for a provider that doesn’t meet your expectations or needs, instead choose one that you’re comfortable having a long-term strong working relationship with.