Campaign Monitor has the features enterprises want

10-second breakdown:

Campaign Monitor comes with tons of high-level features wrapped up in a user interface that doesn’t take a masters in IT to understand. There’s a lot to love here, that’s why Campaign Monitor is one of the best email services around for big business.

Campaign Monitor is used in medium (51-1,000 employees) and enterprise companies (1,000+ employees).

The good:

Many beginning users will love how easy to use Campaign Monitor is. With a slick user interface and intuitive design they allow you to get your email marketing efforts underway.

Lots of unique features that you won’t find with other providers such as drag and drop templates for mobile-friendly emails, nine templated workflows, and detailed analytics.

While more expensive Campaign Monitor’s premier plan adds an email design consultant, online training and onboarding, as well as dedicated customer support making it work your money.

The bad:

Campaign Monitor does not offer and form of live support. They do have email support and a searchable help section to cover common questions.

Lack of integration with third party platforms hinders your ability to quickly upload contacts directly into Campaign Monitor.

How it works:

Right out of the gate Campaign Monitor impresses with its clean and extremely user-friendly interface. Everything is only a couple clicks away and straightforward to navigate. If you’re new to email marketing or not as tech-savvy it’s no big deal, you’ll still get everything done in a timely manner. Campaign Monitor went out of their way to make the interface as clutter-free and downright intuitive to use as humanly possible.

All of the basic email marketing features are here like designing and sending out emails, personalized emails, tracking and reporting with the nice bonus that all of them have the same friendly, inviting feel to them.

All of the system analytics continue the user-friendly trend, they are easy to access and run. You can get a birds eye view of open rates, clickthroughs and unsubscribes as you would expect, but Campaign Monitor makes it easy to drill down to a personal level as well. You can see what a lead has done with your email, and even when. If they opened it up before dinner, put it away, then opened it up again before achieving it, big brother Campaign Monitor watches every step.

If you want to get creative, Campaign Monitor added their high level of polish to A/B testing as well. You’re limited to splitting an email two ways on the subject line, sender, or content but it’s streamlined and very easy to get your tests up and running.

Campaign Monitor understands that mobile is the future, so they designed their email builder to be forward thinking. Whenever you build a new template email, Campaign Monitor will automatically insert optimizations for smaller device screens as you go. It doesn’t matter what size screen your clients have, they’ll get your message loud and clear.

One thing to note, if you tend to heavily rely on software support departments, the lack of support options for cheaper pricing options might be a little concerning. Only the most expensive tier gets phone support, the others can only email in and live chat is simply not available. On the bright side, Campaign Monitor’s email support is open 24/7, so if you’re up late trying to get this newsletter out before tomorrow, they can still help guide you through it.

Campaign Monitor’s pricing is similar to the industry average, they offer three different plans and the price for each varies depending on the number of consumers in your email list. Their free trial works a little differently than the competition, you get the full featured product and you don’t have to pay until you actually start sending out emails.

It’s a little lackluster considering that completely free accounts with emailing are the norm for tiny lists of a few hundred people, but at least you get the opportunity to take it for a spin before making your decision.

Campaign Monitor’s first option is their ‘Basic’ plan. At 500 members on your list, it costs $9 per month and scales up to $299 per month for 50,000 people. Basic comes with all of the core email marketing features, but only gets email support and the number of emails you’re allowed to send out per month is limited.

The ‘Unlimited’ plan costs between $29 and $699 per month based on the size of your email list and allows you to send out an unlimited number of emails per month. It comes with everything basic offers and includes priority email support for faster replies, access to specially trained ‘deliverability experts’ who will assess your emails to make sure they don’t get blocked by spam filters and unlimited spam testing – you can send test emails through popular spam filters to see if they make it through.

The third and final plan is Campaign Monitor’s ‘Premier’ package. It costs between $149 a month and $899 for 500 up through 50,000 people and like Unlimited, you can send out as many emails as you desire. It comes with everything Unlimited offers and also tosses in your own customer success manager, online training and access to their email design consultant.

What if you only send out a newsletter every few months, or maybe even once a year for the holidays? Campaign Monitor offers a unique ‘pay per campaign’ plan instead of the monthly ones listed above. You are only billed when you send out an email blast, and it’s $5 base for the campaign with an additional $0.01 per recipient.

As of this review Campaign Monitor is one of only a handful of companies to offer a feature like that, if you have a larger list that won’t fit into a free plan on a competitor’s program and you only want to send email blasts a few times a year, this is a perfect fit.

With tons of premium features and powerful email templates, Campaign Monitor is a great choice for medium and enterprise clients looking to step up their email marketing or any sized business that has an email list but only sends out blasts a few times a year.

http://authority.org/email-marketing/campaign-monitor/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150529141497

MailChimp is one of the best low cost beginner options

10-second breakdown:

Synonymous with ‘free emailing,’ MailChimp offers great email marketing features for small and medium sized companies. Perfect for bootstrapped businesses or soloprenuers.

MailChimp is used in small (0-50 employees), and medium companies (51-1,000 employees).

The good:

MailChimp has a free plan that is a great starting point for any small business. The Forever Free plan lets you send 12,000 emails/month to less than 2,000 accounts.

MailChimp offer lots of features such as alerts for pay-as-you-go customers, Inbox Preview, chat support(paid plans) and campaign reporting. There are also no message limits on paid plans.

MailChimp is one of the few email marketing providers that integrates with third party platforms, such as FreshBooks, Google Drive and Salesforce, allowing you to automatically download your contacts fast.

The bad:

There is no live support offered. You can contact customer support through email and there are plenty of tutorials, guides, and knowledgebase articles to help answer your questions.

MailChimp doesn’t take paypal as a form of payment which may hinder many small businesses.

How it works:

MailChimp provides everything you need to get started sending out email campaigns, they include a visual drag and drop editor for your emails, you can make custom forms to encourage users to opt-in to your email list, automate emails to go out when you specify, and have all the analytic tools you might want. The entire program is kept very simple and clutter free, all sorts of organizations and businesses use MailChimp so they focused on making it as accessible as possible.

Although it’s not available on the free plan, MailChimp offers some world class analytical tracking. They provide you with interactive graphs to view all email activity. They include the usual open rates, click through rates, bounces and more, but MailChimp steps it up a bit by including more details like open by location, unsubscribe rate and more. They also integrate with Google Analytics to give you even more insight into your campaigns and allows you to see how much revenue each campaign is bringing in.

MailChimp’s mobile app offers a couple unique features too. It covers all the basics like viewing how your campaigns are doing and keeping on top of social media, but also allows you to add new subscribers in right from the app. If you’re hosting a booth at a trade show you could bring a tablet and get email signups right from your table.

Getting started isn’t difficult with the help of MailChimp’s free learning resources. They include video tutorials on how to perform certain functions or run specific reports and even a few ebooks you can download and keep. The really cool part about their learning library is that it extends further than just technical support. There are guides for things like getting the most out of your marketing campaign and how to write emails that boost your clickthrough rates.

One thing to note, MailChimp doesn’t offer any kind of design or spam filter guidance. Many competitors will include access to professionals, at least on higher paid pricing plans. MailChimp’s email editor is robust and there are templates, but if you’re looking for a professional opinion you’re out of luck.

While MailChimp might be known as the ‘poor man’s email service’ with its attractive free tier, they also offer a few paid tiers that come with enough perks to potentially sway your decision. There are three in total – ‘Forever Free’, ‘Monthly’ and ‘Pay As You Go’.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, although it might be limited in features, MailChimp’s free plan is famous among small businesses and penny-pinchers alike for how easy it is to set up and the generous amount of emails you get to send.

The ‘Forever Free’ plan gives you up to 2,000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails a month. There’s no contract, and no credit card required, if you try to go over the limit they’ll simply prompt you to upgrade to a new plan.

There are a few notable features missing for hardened email marketers like autoresponder capabilities and tools to make sure you pass through spam filters but overall its earned its reputation for one of the best free plans in the industry.

MailChimp’s Monthly plan is their full-featured email service, filled with the features missing from Forever Free. It ranges in price from $10 a month for 500 or fewer contacts all the way up to $475 for email lists 100,000 long. If you have a larger list than that, MailChimp recommends you give them a call for a custom consultation to get set up.

The Monthly plan includes all of the basics that Forever Free promised, and rounds out your package with email automation, delivery by time zone and support through email and live chat. MailChimp offers a ‘Pro Package’ you can tack onto the monthly plan if you’re a power user. It costs a flat $200 per month in addition to your package and gives you fifty additional merge fields to use in your emails, predictive demographic charts, A/V testing up to 8 different versions and priority support.

Pay-As-You-Go gives you the freedom to only pay for what you need, rather than a monthly fee you pay for ‘email credits’ up front and then burn through them when you want to send out an email blast. For businesses that only send out a few blasts a year, this is a godsend. Keep in mind that it can get expensive fast, prices start at $.03 per email if you buy 2,000, and go down to $.01 per email if you purchase 25,000 or more.

Although it can get expensive if you exceed their sending limits. MailChimp is a great option for small to medium sized organizations who are just looking to collect customer information and keep in contact. Its attractive interface and helpful guidance tools make it easy to operate regardless of past technology experience.

http://authority.org/email-marketing/mailchimp/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150529032307

Get Response take the email marketing cake across the board

10-second breakdown:

Capable of handling any sized company, GetResponse is our number one email marketing choice for its intuitive interface, loads of features and affordable price. Read on to see the full value this email marketing provider has to offer.

GetResponse is used in small (0-50 employees), medium (51-1,000 employees) and enterprise companies (1,000+ employees).

The good:

GetResponse has a free 30 day trial that has all the bells and whistles as the paid version so you can truly see what you’re getting for your money. No credit card required.

Flexible plans and pricing are available to suit your business needs. All of the plans are paid monthly, but if you can afford to purchase a full year GetResponse offers you an 18% discount.

Unlike some other providers GetResponse allows you to import your contacts from other third party services such as Google or Salesforce. This can save you from manually typing in thousands of contacts.

The bad:

There is no money back guarantee. GetResponse doesn’t offer any refunds if you cancel your account which could equal a lot of money lost if you purchased the annual plan.

There is only one payment method available, which is by credit card. Many small businesses and entrepreneurs may be disappointed that PayPal is not accepted.

Some users complain that the UI is clunky or even confusing. Some functionality is missing and it isn’t as intuitive as other interfaces.

How it works:

Using GetResponse is very straightforward and it doesn’t take many clicks to do all of the basics like creating campaigns, importing contacts and checking statistics. One of GetResponse’s best features is their autoresponder customization, it’s one of the most comprehensive in the entire industry.

Your autoresponders can be customized to trigger either from time or specific actions. Time-based followups are fairly normal, you could send your subscribers a message a week after signing up for instance. Where things get interesting are the action based messages. Some common triggers to send out an email are email opens and clicks, purchasing something from your business, a birthday or completion of an online form. You could use it to send out a birthday discount or shoot an email to anyone that spends a set amount of time on your homepage, assuming you have their email.

Setting up the autoresponders is drag-and-drop easy to boot. GetResponse recently released a new beta version called ‘Marketing Automation’ that you can use to create automatic workflows. If you’ve ever drawn a mind-map before, you’ll be vaguely familiar with the process, you can link up actions or times with emails, and even create complicated chains of events.

GetResponse also goes above the competition with their reporting and analytics options. They include all the basics you would expect like open rates, unsubscribes, click throughs etc, but add their own twist as well. They offer a ‘one-click segmentation’ feature that identifies people who didn’t open your newsletter, and puts them off into their own group. You could remove them from your contacts if they are a repeat offender, or opt to send them a different newsletter instead to see if you can boost engagement.

Another handy reporting feature is ‘Metrics Over Time,’ it will analyze when most of your subscribers take action after reading your emails. From there you can modify the time you send out your emails to hopefully boost captures.

The A/B testing is worth a mention as well, GetResponse allows you to split test up to 5 different messages on the same email. That’s more splits than all of the competition, some of which don’t even offer the service at all.

If support is important in your buying decision, GetResponse is definitely worth a second look. They offer the usual chat and email support, and also include phone support – something a lot of competitors in the email marketing space skip. They keep chat support open 24/7 for all of the small business night owls.

GetResponse keeps all of the pricing for its plans transparent, and manages to be competitive at the same time. There’s a handy chart that compares all four of their plan’s features, and even has a few videos describing some of the features. While there’s no free version, they do offer a lengthy 30-day free trial. Each of the plans comes with no contract, but if you’re willing to commit to a longer term up front, GetResponse offers 18% off your plan for a one-year agreement and 30% if you can commit to two years.

The first plan up is GetResponse’s ‘Email’ plan. This plan and all of the others are based on the number of contacts in your email list, it starts at $15 a month for only a thousand contacts and scales all the way up to $450 a month for 100,000 contacts. The Email plan comes with all of the basic features, but is limiting – you can only have one user and 1 landing page at 1,000 views a month.

‘Pro’ is the next plan up, the cheapest plan starts at $49 per month for 5,000 contacts – if you have less than that Email might be the better option. For the extra monthly charge you get up to 3 users, unlimited landing pages with unlimited visitors and A/B testing.

Next up is the ‘Max’ plan, it starts at $165 per month for a minimum of 10,000 list contacts. It comes with everything Pro did, but increases the user count to 5 and tosses in a SalesForce integration, your own custom domain and campaign consulting that you can use to get advice or help setting up your system.

Last but not least is the ‘Enterprise’ level, it’s for lists that are 100,000 strong and beyond. There’s no pricing available on the website, GetResponse wants you to schedule a demo with them before you commit. Enterprise comes with everything the other packages do, includes up to 10 users and tosses in your own account manager, a dedicated IP address, the ability to rebrand their services and a dedicated infrastructure on their servers.

GetResponse has it all, it’s a feature-rich package that manages to be simple to navigate as well. Combine that with the low price point and it’s a clear winner – our number one email marketing recommendation.

http://authority.org/email-marketing/get-response/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150528924587

Firstrade is great for beginners who want to avoid the large fees of other brokers

10-second breakdown:

Beginners who follow the “buy and hold” strategy will find all the functionality they need with an easy-to-use platform inside Firstrade. From signing up all the way to making your first investments, the process is laid out to be as clean and simple as possible.

The good:

The navigation and interface just makes sense to anyone who goes on the site. The process of opening an account stands out from other services and the dashboard just spews simplicity (and it’s not bad looking). Firstrade has really made an effort to push their UX/UI to a whole other level.

The mobile app is one of the cleanest in the industry (no surprise here). Basic, but useful functionality and the whole process just flows together making trading just as fun as on your desktop.

The fees are better than many other flagship online brokers, and the terms are surprisingly simple and easy to understand. You won’t have a problem figuring out how much a trade will cost you, it’s all laid out.

The bad:

Unfortunately, simplicity can also be a negative and most of the tools aren’t as powerful as many other trading platforms out there.

Options trades can be made, but the research and other capabilities aren’t good enough to attract the heavy options player.

How it works:

Right out of the gate, signing up with Firstrade is a breeze. You’ll be prompted and guided through the process in no time flat. No minimum deposit is just another sign of their ease of access. After you get signed in, you’ll feel like you understand everything fairly quickly.

While the fees are far less than other flagship brokers, you will notice that there aren’t as many bells and whistles in the research department. Morningstar research is the only company that Firstrade uses for analysis. While this is plenty of data for your stocks, ETF’s and mutual funds; it’s far less than other platforms provide.

Your client dashboard is just as pretty as the rest of the site and everything is right there for you to clearly see. Your panel is customizable so you can put widgets where you like them, but if you’ve used other brokers in the past it will feel a bit less professional-grade.

Once you get to the actual trading platform, things take a slight turn for the negative. “X-Stream”, as it’s called, tries really hard. You can live-stream up to 20 different stocks and do your trading with the tools and deep-ish research capabilities. However, it’s not desktop-based. This fact wouldn’t be a problem if the web application wasn’t based in the Java programming language and doesn’t work on all web browsers.

Next, the advanced charting has over 30 different indicators, but the average trading software has a far higher number than that (typically above 80). Essentially, you’re stuck with a limited amount of data which makes Firstrade a less than stellar option for the frequent trader. The buy and hold crowd may even want to take notice here. The indicators available are good, but there are many missing to tell you the long-term health of a given equity.

You may notice that there is a paid “advanced” version of the software. Access to this software (also web-based and on Java) will cost you a nominal monthly fee, but as far as we can tell it’s not much better than the original and frequent investors will find better tools included with other software products available (even options with the same and lower trading fees).

Alerting is something that Firstrade has going for it. You can customize the alert parameters to a certain degree to have the platform warn you of certain events including price rises or drops in percentage, trading volume, 52-week highs/lows, ask or bid price has reached the customized amount, among others.

Options traders will probably want to stay clear entirely as the research is just not there. Data is an essential part of any strategy and you will find far more of it in other places online.

There is an app available to do your trading mobile-style, but it’s only on iPhones and Android phones. As you’d expect, it is well-made, easy-to-use, but lacking the features you may want.

It’s a decent stock trading platform. It’s perfect if you want a broker that is as beginner friendly, as say, ETrade and super simple to find your way around. All said, it’s not the most feature-rich option and lacks many capabilities that are typically considered “standard” in a lot of other products.

We aren’t telling you to avoid this option altogether. There is an ideal client for this software. It’s made for the person (or people) who want to do just like Warren Buffet and think that “if you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t own it for ten minutes”. If that quote sums up your investment style AND you’re not too technically savvy, then you’ll feel right at home with Firstrade. If not, take a look at our other top brokers.

For complete rankings of all online trading platforms, go here.

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TradeStation is only for the seriously active investor who wants powerful tools

10-second breakdown:

Not for the faint of heart, TradeStation was made for the diehard investor who has a deep understanding of the markets and portfolio. Lots of advanced tools and a required number of trades to hit in order to avoid fees. A great options for those heavily active day traders out there.

The good:

One of the deepest analysis and research systems in all of online stock trading. Capabilities like chart customization with well over 100 different indicators and charts that can go back up to 40 years on a given stock. You won’t be bored, but you will have to know how to use it all.

The program itself is flexible and allows for certain third party modifications and enhancements to build a system that you can really use.

This tool is made for the professional investor which is a big bonus for someone wanting to avoid the “beginner” style of so many online brokers.

The bad:

Unless you trade a minimum of 5,000 shares per month, or have an account balance of $100,000 you’ll have to fork over nearly $100 each month until you meet those requirements.

Fees are a bit higher than the discount services, but fall in line with many of the flagship brokers.

How it works:

There are so many reasons to love TradeStation, especially if you invest everyday. No matter how diversified your portfolio is, the action can be found with this broker. Again, it’s not for the beginner or even casual investor. The terms are serious business to guarantee only certain people are attracted to the platform.

To get an account started, you’ll need a minimum of $5,000 (the highest of brokers we’ve reviewed) and you’ll need to trade 5,000 or more shares each and every month to avoid the $99.95 monthly fee (you could also have $100,000 in your portfolio to avoid the fee). Much of the info needed is the same and you’ll be guided on a process like opening up other financial accounts.

After you’re approved, it’s game on. Investment options include stocks, options, forex and futures which will appeal to those who love to put their money across multiple opportunities. However, their stock/options trading is definitely the highlight of the company.

Once you’re ready to start your research, you may be a bit overwhelmed. The site itself claims to have “hundreds of products that amplify the power of TradeStation”. That said, you’ll have to take your time going through the list of offerings (many free, but some are paid) to build the investing machine of your dreams.

TradeStation still operates primarily off of a desktop platform. A web-based alternative is available, but the capabilities are bare bones and it’s not what most of their customers use, except in the event they are away from their desks. The desktop version is geared for those who stare at the streams all day and it can be tweaked to allow for a multi-monitor setup.

It’s entirely customizable to suit your needs, and the number of add-ons is daunting to begin with. Give it an honest go and you’ll be giddy by the time you start seeing the potential platform you can create.

Just a few of the add-ons include “Person Pivots Daily”, an algorithm to calculate the projected Daily Pivot Point Support & Resistance numbers (a helpful free tool for highly-active traders), “Eclipse” a tool that helps accredited trading pros recognize intraday trends ($99/mo), and “Ichimoku Indicators” an analysis tool that can spot trends to help refine your plans (it’s free as well). There are literally dozens of different tools, here’s a link to their category page for all the products.

These tools aren’t for your weekend retirement account on-the-side type of investment strategy. Many of the tools attract successful day traders and hedge fund managers, which should give you a clear picture of whether or not it’s for you. We are talking deep analysis capabilities for individuals who understand what is happening to a given equity based on the numbers they see.

To get even more geeky with it, TradeStation has an open-source style (called “EasyLanguage”) to allow third-party developers and users to create new apps/tools to share them with the rest of the community. This sort of creative permission has allowed some of the best charting tools and analytic devices to come about and they are exclusively available through TradeStation.

Side Note: You can even sell your creations in the open marketplace (called the TradeStation TradingApp Store). Although, if it’s that good you’ll want to keep it for yourself, right?

If options are your primary strategy, there is a program within the TradeStation framework that is just for you. It’s called “OptionStation Pro” and will potentially revolutionize your trades. One of the neatest things is the ability to view data in both 2D and 3D (a feature only seen through this broker). The data available is also some of the best around with real-time streaming Greek and analytics that help make the best strategy (like theoretical forecasts, expiration assistance, and customizable data sets).

The last “warning” we can give you is that this platform isn’t for casual investors. Even if you fancy yourself a seasoned, part-time day trader; we beg you to take an honest evaluation to see if you can use the platform to it’s full potential.

If so, there really aren’t any other platforms that speak to the top 5%-10% of self-investors as well as TradeStation does. If you’ve got the ambition (and minimum account opening balance), it very well could be the broker for you.

For complete rankings of all online trading platforms, go here.

http://authority.org/online-stock-trading/tradestation/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150484005412

Liquid Web Review: Everything you need to know

Overview: Liquidweb focuses on medium to large businesses and offers its customers top of the line dedicated hosting with unsurpassed customer service and security.

Pricing:

VPS: $50/mo for VPS hosting

Cloud Dedicated: $50/mo for managed hosting

Managed Dedicated: $199/mo for managed hosting

Ideal Customer: Any enterprise or corporate level business looking for specialized hosting services with fully managed options.

Trends:

Unique Features:

Managed VPS Hosting: Managed VPS Hosting is a special feature from Liquidweb which comes with many other uses and advantages. VPS, meaning Virtual Private Server is a virtualized server which technically mimics both dedicated and shared hosting. Shared hosting is when you share segments of a server with other users, this is useful when you run a small or new website with little traffic. A dedicated server is when you rent an entire server for yourself, and this is useful for much more high traffic yielding sites. A VPS server, however, offers you the benefits of both and if you are considering a dedicated server but not 100% sure, then you should certainly check out a VPS host. A VPS host can provide you with many benefits such as added privacy (as you don’t share your OS with anyone else), an ability to customize (your own OS means all server applications are yours and hence easier to adapt and change), added control (your VPS server can restart without affecting others), and dedicated resources such as RAM available to you whenever you need it.
Liquidweb offers various different types of VPS servers, from the basic 1GB RAM and 50GB SSD disk space (for $50 a month) to 8GB RAM and 300GB SSD disk space for $219 a month. They can however, cover you for much more RAM if you so require.

Included with the VPS service is the Storm VPS Server which provides you with many additional benefits. Firstly, you are provided with Cloudflare CDN. Cloudflare has two distinct features in that it helps secure your site (by acting as a proxy), as well as helping to optimize your site (by optimizing your HTML). Cloudflare therefore allows you to preserve bandwidth and resources by allowing threats to be detected and stopped well before they reach your site. Liquidweb’s Cloudflare promises the following attributes with full site coverage including improved performance on any site, faster page load times, reduced bandwidth usage, server dashboard integration, together with improved SEO and conversion rates. Another benefit of using Storm VPS hosting is the built-in backups. Storm VPS backups can be enabled to allow you to take full server snapshots (including full server backups, on-demand backups, whole serve restoration, and automatic daily backups) and hence provide data recovery as and when you need it. They also provide you with security in the form of firewall protection, server hardening, daily security audits, and HTTP intrusion protection. Another feature added to Liquidweb’s Storm VPS Managed Server is the ability to prevent small-scale DDoS attacks. Comprehensive protection is available for larger scale attacks if required.

Liquidweb’s Managed VPS packages all support 100 percent network uptime, monitoring, and a 30 minute response time guaranteed. Together with this, you also get instant provisioning, real-time monitoring, free incoming bandwidth, API access, free storm firewall, an available Plesk, 5TB outgoing bandwidth, the ability to easily upgrade or downgrade, RAID protected SSD VPS, as well as daily billing available so you only pay for what you use.

Storm Add-Ons: Liquidweb offer Storm Hosting Add-Ons to enhance and improve your Storm Hosting environment. These include Block Storage, Object Storage, Load Balancer, and a VPN. Block Storage allows you to create and move block storage volumes separated from your instances. This makes it easier than ever before to create an exceptional amount of storage space. Object Storage provides you a cost effective way of allowing you to store and access an almost limitless amount of data through a simple API call (replacing the need to rely on additional servers). Object Storage provides you with 3 copy redundancy (3 copies of your data are stored across a distributed system), durable cloud-based storage, and is Amazon S3 compatible. Load Balancer offers you intelligently distributed traffic across multiple nodes (it comes with full redundancy built in, handles HTTP and https traffic, and is fully managed by network engineers). Lastly, a VPN simply allows you to connect across a secure plane of communication to access various geographical areas.

Hybrid Hosting: The power of the Hybrid server was unlocked and discovered when Managed Dedicated Servers were provisioned in conjunction with the new Storm Server. There are many advantages of Hybrid Hosting with Liquidweb. These include dedicated servers with flexible cloud hosting, the ability to directly attach to storage networks, high availability database integration, managed dedicated load balancers, and advanced network infrastructure options.

Pros:

• Customer Service: Response time is part of their uptime guarantee and they have a 20 second response time guarantee on all support calls.
• Uptime Guarantee: A 100% network uptime guarantee for Dedicated and VPS also comes with a 30 minute hardware replacement guarantee and a 30 minute initial response time guarantee.
• Security:Redundantly Built Network with each facility having multiple backup emergency generators, reinforced walls, on-site security, and fully managed facilities have trained technicians on-site 24 hours a day.
• Money back guarantee: Liquidweb offers a 30 day money back guarantee on shared hosting plans.

Cons:

• No shared uptime guarantee: Shared hosting does not come with an uptime guarantee.
• Backups: Backups are an added on cost for Dedicated and VPS. Shared hosting can only do DIY backups through CPanel.
• Higher Price: Liquidweb has a higher price tag than others for shared hosting, but with fewer features and no guarantees.

Summary:

Liquidweb have a well formed reputation for being strong providers of security, but above that, they are strong leaders in client help and support. To illustrate this, their claim of being able to answer the telephone (and live chat) within 59 seconds guaranteed is second to none in the market. They have plans going upwards from $50 a month depending on the store and service you require.

Takeaway: If you are unhappy with the level of support and guidance you are getting from your current server then Liquidweb may well be your solution. They have taken in many customers who were astounded by their swift and knowledgeable support structure. On the flip side however, pricing plans do not start cheap, therefore you will need to determine if you need the level of services they provide for your website and business.

http://authority.org/web-hosting/liquid-web/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150483804397

Servint Review: Everything you need to know

Overview: ServInt prides itself on providing personalized hosting solutions. They offer flexible and customizable options for businesses and developers.

Pricing:

Shared VPS: $27/mo for VPS hosting.

Cloud VPS: $69/mo for VPS hosting.

Dedicated: $239/mo for dedicated hosting.

Ideal Customer: With ServInt’s scalability and premium hosting options they cater more to growing businesses than beginning webmasters.

Trends:

Unique Features:

Cloudflare: Cloudflare is a unique feature available to all ServInt users and setting it up usually takes less than 5 minutes. Once your website is part of Cloudflare it gets passed through their global network, which provides you with two distinct advantages. Firstly, malicious attacks and threats such as comment spam, email harvesters, cross-site scripting, SQL injections, abusive bots and crawlers, and DDoS attacks are all prevented through Cloudflare acting as a proxy between your ServInt server and external visitors to your site. Visitors, crawlers, bots, and attackers all have to pass through Cloudflare’s globally distributed network which then filters out and decides who to let in and block, leaving your site protected and attack free. By stopping these threats way before they actually reach your website, it allows you to preserve your bandwidth and resources for your much needed legitimate website traffic. Another unique advantage Cloudflare provides is optimization for your website. The delivery of your web pages are automatically optimized (allowing for fast page load times for your visitors), and by using local storage on browsers and mobile devices your site is left best rendered. Cloudflare also optimizes your HTML so that even third party resources cannot affect and slow down your page loading times.

Together with the above, there are many other benefits to using Cloudflare. Cloudflare provides the latest CDN technology with a total of 63 data centers worldwide. A CDN (Content Delivery Network) essentially helps you to distribute your content around the world allowing it to be closer to your visitors using geographically dispersed servers (so users can use a network of servers spread around the world, instead of them all overloading your one specific web host server). Therefore by using Servint’s Cloudflare CDN you can provide website load times that are 2 times faster, with 65% fewer requests, and can save you up to 60% of your bandwidth. Another feature that Cloudflare provides is a custom built and fully owned DNS service. A DNS service (which stands for Domain Name System) is a system which contains a database of network names and addresses around the world so when you type in a website into your browser, it can automatically be matched and recognized. Cloudflare has one of the fastest DNS services around and provides a DNS that is very secure, global, and powerful. Lastly, Cloudflare also provides you with site analytics and mobile apps. Site Analytics is a feature not always available on other packages and where you can obtain information about website traffic, visitors and threats. Cloudflare apps allow you to install web apps on your site faster and quicker.

Jelastic PAAS: Jelastic PAAS is a feature available on ServInt designed specially for software developers and ISVS allowing you to deploy a working cloud solution in hours instead of months. It provides everything you need for a turnkey cloud solution. Some of the specific features you can get with Jelastic includes monitoring, provisioning, authentication, billing, health checking and statistics, together with support and maintenance. Some of the advantages of using Jelastic PAAS includes faster deployment (applications can be deployed in seconds), GIT and SVN support, simpler management (with easy to use dashboards), enterprise class availability (isolated containers mean failures do not strike other environments), full elastic scalability (with automatic vertical scalability as well as horizontal scaling, meaning that if application demand shrinks, resources are sent back to the cloud ensuring optimized application density), together with an assurance that almost any application can be supported (with no complex APIs to have to code on any required changes to your application).

Managed Migration: Do you have a host you are very unhappy with but are afraid of the hassle of switching servers? Are you looking to switch hosts but unsure how to migrate all your information and data across. ServInt offers a Managed Migration Service which takes all the hassle and effort out of moving servers. ServInt will move all your files and databases from your current hosting company together with bringing over any custom configurations you require. All you are required to do is create a new account (where you can get ServInt Managed Migration for free) and then repoint your DNS. The services apply to ‘cPanel to cPanel’ migrations as well as ‘Plesk to cPanel’ migrations.

Pros:

• Cloudflare: Acting as a virtual doorman to your website Cloudflare offers a level of security that is not found at many other hosts.
• Customer Support: Their options are front and center on the website with chat, phone number, and email links always at the top of the page. They promise 24/7 chat and online support. Concierge members also have 24/7 phone support.
• Managed Migration: No need to worry about the stress of switching hosts, let ServInt manage the process for you. And the best part is that it’s free when you establish a new account.
• WP Friendly: Servint has special WP hosting for WordPress users and Bloggers. They will install the software for you upon request and even has WP technical support if you need it.

Cons:

• No Uptime Guarantee: There is no uptime guarantee listed on their website however they make a strong case for their customer support to be able to quickly handle any issues.
• Fully managed hosting: While ServInt does have managed options, concierge and premium, you will have to contact their expert team to price the premium option.
• Not for beginners: Servint does have a wide variety of options for businesses, bloggers, and agencies but those new to the web may be overwhelmed here.

Summary:

Starting at $27 a month and going up to $329 a month ServInt is certainly a more upscale and premium product compared to other servers such as GoDaddy and Bluehost. However, they offer a large variety of services in return for this such as Linux, WHM, VPS, CentOS, together with the above unique features described.

Takeaway: The availability of phone support and instant help from ServInt has mixed response reviews, however, there is no doubt that if you are a professional or business looking to scale up your website then ServInt offers ample services unavailable as easily elsewhere. On the flip side, if you are newly setting up a personal blog with little traffic, this premium service may not be suited to you.

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