Redstation

[Scooby]

My Mum is involved with a charity that is having troubles with their website. It is run by one of the guys who 'knows what he is doing', although he sounds like a bit of a monkey to me.

Anyways he has come back to them saying that payment is due for hosting etc, which seems to be very high...

So this means that if the Norfolk Lupus Group wants to continue to have an online presence on the internet, then this years renewal, forwarding and hosting costs will have to be paid for from the groups funding.
 
The hosting, domain registration and redirection are all handled by one of the UK's largest companies in this industry, RedStation (www.redstation.com), and the costs involved are as follows.
 
Domain renewal for norfolklupus.co.uk.............£7.90
Domain forwarding for norfolklupus.co.uk..........£10
Hosting package for norfolklupusgroup.co.uk....£59
 
That comes to £76.90, and when VAT is added, the final total is £90.36

I've never heard of redstation, bit that seems a lot for a little charity site with a piddly little bit of scripting and a forum that doesn't seem to be used.
On there site £59 is the charge for basic hosting, but... i've used many a host that don't come anywhere near that and as for £10pa for domain forwarding....

So, is he taking the piss / misguided or a numpty that doesn't know any better, and has anybody heard of redstation as a host?

[Rosco]

If he's small and simply setting up and managing the hosting account on behalf of your mum's charity then I don't really see the problem... I charge more than a normal host to web design clients as they regularly don't have the first clue where to start when it comes to domain registration and hosting, so they pay for me to take this learning curve off their hands... they would also come to me for any support before thinking of contacting the host so I might as well do that and charge for it too.  Like I tell my clients, your mum can save money on hosting and domain registration by sourcing and managing these services herself, and simply passing on the FTP details to the designer once thats done.

[Chris H]

Would be a lot higher if he was 'taking the piss'.

Seems reasonable to me to be honest.

[Jeewhizz]

It doesn't seem OTT, however you could get it for about half that from other decent hosts

[vee]

As Rosco says - if they do it all themselves it would be cheaper - but they are paying for someone else to do it.

I would be more expensive than that.

If anything we have been putting up our fees for hosting for clients as we end up spending so much time supporting e-mail set up etc for most of them.

Although I do host my daughters school site for nothing.

[Scooby]

Sorry if i've misled... the guy is not being paid to do anything... he is part of the group, and sorted the hosting with this 'redstation' company....

for the hosting / domain reg they need, i was wondering if it was a bit much.... and if anybody had heard of redstation in terms of how they compare to other hosts...

[Rosco]

Ah sorry, thats different then... yeah £59 for entry level hosting is a bit steep for the package they offer, you should recommend they shop around a bit

never heard of redstation, but thats not to say they're rubbish

[Whatever]

Redstation have advertised in .Net for as long as I can remember

[Jeewhizz]

Redstation have advertised in .Net for as long as I can remember

So have fasthosts and 1&1!! Doesn't mean they are good!

Jee
Tars with the same brush

[JasonD]

It's never lupus.

[Whatever]

Redstation have advertised in .Net for as long as I can remember

So have fasthosts and 1&1!! Doesn't mean they are good!

Jee
Tars with the same brush

Well those 2 certainly ain't any good!

[sarahA]

Just out of interest, why would a domain require forwarding if they're hosting the site for it? That's like saying 'we'll buy/renew your domain but it won't go anywhere, you have to pay more for that'.

UK domains can cost around £7+ depending on who you use. I used to charge £15 to cover admin expenses, domain maintenance (forwarding, dns setup, nameservers etc) which I felt was pretty fair.
Forwarding is usually free, and if it costs then it's an admin charge by the registrar, not required by nominet.
Entry level hosting can cost around £25-30, if they're not that technical then maybe look for a host that offers account admin support too, although the developer can usually factor this into their cost and deal with it, depends on how much account admin would be needed, new email accounts etc.