Business question re hosting & paysites.
 

What type of bandwidth usage does a paysite members area use per month?
Based on a small / medium size membership base with the normal mix of movie & pic content.

I know their are so many variables but some rough numbers would be useful to know.

Thanks for any input from the experts.

At least one reply on subject would be great. :thumbsup

There are a lot of other variables to consider, such as actual movie sizes and clip length. Are you going to have anything to limit downloads? Just as an estimate, take your biggest clip sizes and amount on the site, times them by any number of monthly members, then multiply that by 2.

Are your promo materials on another server? Because MPGs, FHGs and any trailers will burn through a TON of bandwidth, maybe even more than the members area.

Actually, at this point it doesn't really matter. Most hosting companies will make a package that can grow to suit your needs and not penalize you for it.

Thanks for the input...useful.
Not for me in fact (a friend asked the question).

Anyone else have some comments?

Cheers.

Hard to tell. get with a host that will let you start at some minimum and allow you to prepay for b/w at the lower rate once you can tell you are going over.

go with a well known host, natnet, isprime, techiemedia, etc.. premium bandwidth and don't have to worry about slowdowns that webmasters hate

Thanks...yeah I know it`s such an open question I`ve asked.
I`d love to know what a small site owner (say just 30 or 50 members) actual hosting costs amount to.
Anyone?

Thanks again guys for helping a nosey bastard. :)

Hmmm...what type of site? With that amount you probably don't need a dedicated server, though for a paysite it is always a good idea. If you have your own dedicated box, figure about $200 a month. You don't want to be at 30-50 members forever :winkwink:

Actually, i'm sure there's a ton of $99 plans that would work. Would you be maintaining the server yourself?

Ghost, thanks.

Can pass some of this on. :)

Oh, and take my advice with a grain of salt.... i'm not in the hosting business at all. There should be a few reps from some good companies here that can help you more.

If you're going to start a paysite on a virtual hosting account just go ahead and shoot yourself now.

Do you really want your members to have to share resources with every other site hosted on that server?

I agree with you 100%. I'd shoot myself too if I was looking at 30-50 members. :winkwink:

Ab members base of 40, rebilling, plus trial members not rebilling , on a site of 70 gigs of content , will take about 800-900 gigs a month..

THis is from personnal experience.

Thank you.