What type of hosting is good for a successful paysite?
 

What can shared handle( as far a traffic volume, example 300,000)?
What can VPS handle?
What can Dedicated handle?
Do you need unmetered bandwidth?

Depends on the webhost/the servers they use.

there is no "best" hosting, only the best hosting for you

forget about shared or even vps
for paysites you need to have a dedicated server (you can find them pretty cheap this days).
Also, unless you're a system admin and planning to monitor and be available
24/7, you need a managed server where the host will take care of everything
for you and you only work on promoting your sites.

I'll agree with darksoul. A managed dedicated server would be best.

It is difficult to answer the shared / vps / dedicated questions because that is dependent on many factors - is the shared box overloaded, what scripts are running, etc. This is why it is best to be on your own server - and there again, the power needed can very greatly. I have customers running small paysites on a "lowly" Celeron and it suits them fine. Others still are using multiple Dual Xeon configs.

The important thing is to find a host that will allow you to grow as painlessly as possible as you need to.

Regarding "unmetered" bandwidth. Do not confuse that term with unlimited. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. Unmetered is simply a term for a billing method that charges you a set price for a set through-put. ie: an unmetered 5 mbps connection, maxed out, will allow (in theory 1mbps = ~320 gigs / month) for ~1600 gigs of transfer monthly (actual transfer will be a bit less: assume about 70-75% of x mbps x 320). The upside to this is you will have a set, known monthly price. The downside - you will not be able to burst above x mbps.

You would be safe to choose this billing method if your traffic was relatively consistent throughout the day, however, if your day time / night time traffic varies greatly a fully burstable solution may be best. The upside there is that your connection will allow for heavy spikes of traffic. The downside is potential charges for bandwidth overages.

So again, there is no "best" solution for everyone.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

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I think you need dedicated for sure

Dedicated would be good but it depends on what kind of traffic you are getting and what kind of content you have.

If you have a couple of gigs of content and a ton of feeds then you could get away with shared or a VPS as long as you aren't doing more than 25 or 50 sign ups a day. Anything more than that go dedicated for sure.

But let me say, if you are doing that don't do your galleries on the same shared account. The pay site and the galleries should be separated.

I would go with a shared sever.. and then change when you have more users then the server can handle :)

Dear MCRiv, Welcome to GFY and Good luck too!
Good question with good answers!