Pricing & Accepted payment methods
Accounts may be paid monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually except for the WebPro Starter which must be paid annually, and the WebPro Basic which must be paid at least quarterly.

We gladly accept payments via all major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Carte Blanche, Diners Club), online checks, PayPal, and e-gold. For payment instructions, please see the How to Order page.

Number of domains hosted on an account
It does take some technical knowledge to host more than 1 domain on a Virtual Private / Dedicated Server (VPS or VDS) account. For that reason, some people prefer to setup a separate VPS account for each domain name.

The WebPro Starter plan includes 1 domain, and more may be purchased or a larger account may be purchased.

WebPro plans also include 3 subdomains per domain hosted on the account. This means with the base account you can have a total of 4 websites - the first being yourdomain.com, and up to 3 subdomain.yourdomain.com .

Using your own domain name, international domain names, Domain Registration
You can use your own domain name with the hosting accounts we provide (rather than using directory space like http://domain.com/users/~username ). International domain names (for example, .com.au, .es, or .nz) can also be hosted on our hosting plans.

You, the account holder, are responsible for any domain registration fees (including registration renewal fees).

To register a domain name, click here (will open a separate window).

Account Setup

Instant setup
Plesk based WebPro and Virtuozzo based VPS accounts are setup instantly upon payment authorization. All new accounts are subject to verification. Any fraud or misrepresentation of account information will be grounds for immediate suspension of service.

Uptime guarantee
We guarantee 99.99% combined network and node uptime for hwVPS 2009 plans. We guarantee 99% combined network and server uptime or better for older VPS accounts that include an uptime guarantee. If you do not know if your VPS account has an uptime guarantee, please email support@advantagecom.net and ask. We guarantee 99.9% combined server, web service (HTTP), and network uptime or better for WebPro accounts. For low end dedicated servers (non-redundant components), the uptime guarantee is 99.9% network uptime (server excluded). For TDS plans sold after February 25, 2006 (all include redundant hard drives, redundant power supplies, and error correcting RAM), we guarantee 99.9% combined server and network uptime.

By network uptime, we mean that our internal network, switches, and routers are passing globally routed traffic through at least one upstream backbone provider that is fully connected to the global Internet. For instance, if 90% or more the Internet cannot reach systems within our network, that would be considered an outage. It would not be considered an outage covered by our guarantee if a certain limited geographic area cannot reach our network due to an outage outside our control or at a provider from which we do not purchase backbone service.

By server uptime, we mean that the server hardware and base operating system is functional and reachable from the network. Individual services running on the server are not part of the guarantee. For instance, if your email server software crashes, but your server is still pingable and responds to login requests, your server is considered up.

For the purposes of this guarantee, a VPS is considered to be a service running on the server. Any uptime guarantee that applies to VPS accounts covers network uptime and node uptime. A "node" is considered to be the combination of the physical server hardware and the most privileged base  operating system running on that server hardware.

If we are unable to provide the guaranteed level of uptime for your account type during any calendar month period, upon request a credit equal to one month's service will be applied for each calendar month we are unable to meet the guaranteed uptime.

Restrictions: Guarantee is based on uptime calculated from total uptime for any full completely elapsed calendar month period. Uptime calculation excludes scheduled maintenance events. Guarantee does not cover downtime you cause or downtime due to outages on networks that we have no control over. Guarantee is void if billing account is not current. Credits must be requested within 60 calendar days from the last day of the calendar month in which the guarantee was not met and verifiable documentation must be supplied to Advantagecom by the customer. Credits will not be given until the full calendar month in which the incident occurred has elapsed and are also not available for any accounts that are delinquent. Credits will be applied to the invoice following the date of the credit request and cannot be retroactively applied to amounts currently owed or requested after service is cancelled.

90 Day Money Back Guarantee
We offer a 90 day money back guarantee to all new customers. If, at any time in the first 90 days after being setup, you are dissatisfied with our service, simply let us know that you're taking us up on our 90 day money back guarantee when cancelling your account and we'll refund your money - no questions asked.

To prevent abuse of the Money Back Guarantee by unscrupulous individuals, certain restrictions apply. Please see our Terms of Service for full details.

Additional fees paid for add-on services (example: dedicated IPs, live streaming, etc.) are not included in this guarantee. Please see our Terms of Service for full details.

Any setup fees paid for Dedicated Server accounts are non-refundable due to the nature of the service. Please see our Terms of Service for full details.

Datacenter & Network Information
The latest information on our datacenter and network specifications will always be posted at:

http://www.simplywebhosting.com/network.shtml

Daily off-site data backups
Daily off-site data backups are included with some accounts where specified, however, we do strongly recommend keeping a backup of your web files on your PC because the backups we keep are primarily for disaster recovery purposes and individual file or individual web site restoration can be a lengthy process.

Current server specifications

WebPro account server specifications
Contact sales for the latest specifications. Specifications improve regularly for new accounts. In general, servers use fast processors, redundant power supplies, and SCSI RAID for data storage.

VPS server specifications
Contact sales for the latest specifications. Specifications improve regularly for new accounts. In general, servers use fast processors, redundant power supplies, and SCSI RAID for data storage.

***RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks.  RAID 5 refers to a type of RAID that combines a high level of disk redundancy with high performance.

Technical support
We staff our own in house technical support team to provide the best service possible for you. Technical support is available by phone (toll free for U.S. callers), online forum, and by email.

Fee-based pager support is also available during nonbusiness hours. Click here to go to our customer support site for more information. (opens a new window)

For BudgetVPS accounts, technical assistance is only available via our online forum, email or fee-based pager support.

For our office hours and full contact information, please see our Contact Info page.

Web based account administration
All hosting plans we offer include web based administration:

Plesk or CPanel can be installed on VPS accounts, as well as other control panels that will run on Linux.

Applications available for WebPro accounts:

AdvancedPoll: AdvancedPoll is a poll management system
AutoIndex: A Website Directory Indexer
b2evolution: Multilingual multiuser multi-blog engine.
bbclone: Feature rich counter
Coppermine: Coppermine Photo Gallery is a picture gallery script.
CSLH: A multi-user, multi-operator, multi-department Live Help support chat system.
DocFAQ: Simple FAQ system
Gallery: Gallery is a simple and powerful photo gallery.
gtchat: Web Chat
Mambo: Mambo is an Open Source CMS system.
Nexellent_SiteBuilder: Nexellent SiteBuilder is an Open Source CMS system
Openbiblio: OpenBiblio is a nice and powerful web library
osCommerce: osCommerce is an online shop e-commerce solution. Its feature packed out-of-the-box installation allows store owners to setup, run and maintain their online stores with minimum effort.
OWL: OWL is a multi-user document repository or knowledge based system
phpAds: With phpAds you can easily rotate paid banners and your own in-house advertisements. You can even integrate banners from third party advertising companies.
phpBB: PHP BB is a nice and powerful web forum
phpBook: phpBook is an easy configurable and very simple guestbook
phpBugTracker: PhpBugTracker is a small bugtracking system like a Bugzilla
phpDig: phpDig is search system
phpMoney: PhpMoney is a tool to manage bank accounts through a web interface
phpMyFamily: Genealogic system
phpsurveyor: PHP Surveyor is a set of PHP scripts aimed at allowing people to develop online surveys
phpWiki: A WikiWikiWeb is a site where everyone can collaborate on the content
pLog: Blogging platform built with PHP, designed with maximum customizability, speed and ease of use in mind
PostNuke: PostNuke ("Phoenix") is a significant CMS system
Tellme: Small utility for network services
TUTOS: TUTOS is the short name for "the ultimate team organization software"
typo: a professional web content management system
UebiMiau: UebiMiau is a web-interface to your mail
WebCalendar: WebCalendar is a PHP-based multi-user calendar
WebShopmanager: The Web Shop Manager allows you to manage a fully functional online store from a centralized web-based administration system
WordPress: WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability
XRMS: XRMS is a web-based application for managing business entities such as employees, customers, contacts, activities with those contacts, etc.

Web statistics
All accounts include full access logs and web viewable statistics.

WebPro plans: Urchin

VPS plans: SL Web Analyzer

Outgoing SMTP service
Please note that we do not allow you to send outgoing email via our servers using the SMTP protocol. You can, however, use your webmail account to send email. This protects your account from spam activities that might otherwise slow our servers to a crawl.

VPS and WebPro accounts are the only hosting plans we currently offer that allow outgoing mail service. To use SMTP service, pop-before-relay or SMTP-auth user authentication is required. Nearly all email clients support one or both of those standards. This is strictly monitored and any service affecting over-use or abuse of this privilege will result in swift action against your account. All spam complaints will result in the offending account being suspended or deleted, so this feature is not recommended for newsletters or other large email distributions.

Outgoing SMTP service is allowed on VPS plans, however, it is not supported and we will be unable to help you if you have any trouble sending email through your VPS.

Webmail
Webmail is available for all hosting plans.

WebPro: IMP Webmail
VPS: IMP Webmail, Open Webmail

PHP
PHP is supported on all hosting plans. Contact our Sales Department for current version information.

Apache ASP
Apache ASP is supported with the WebPro and VPS accounts. Apache ASP does not allow for Microsoft-style ASP programming. Apache ASP is based on Perl.

Mod_Perl, PostgreSQL, & MySQL
Mod_Perl Apache module, PostgreSQL databases, and MySQL databases are available for VPS plans.

WebPro plans supports mod_perl and PostreSQL.

Real time credit card transactions
You will need a merchant account to be able to accept credit cards. If you don't already have a merchant account, we will be more than glad to refer you to some reputable merchant banks. The ability to process real time credit card transactions is dependent on your shopping cart software.

What is a dedicated IP address?
A dedicated IP address is an IP address unique to the domain it is assigned. A "shared" IP address would be one that is used by 2 or more domains.

Linux knowledge
You will need basic knowledge on how to configure Linux and Apache to get full use of a VPS account. If you have any questions about how these accounts operate, please do not hesitate to contact our sales staff.

Software Development Tools
Software Development Tools are available for the VPS plans. Please see each individual plan's pricing page for any additional monthly fees and/or setup fees for this optional application.

Tomcat, Darwin, JDK, JRE, Zend Optimizer
Tomcat Servlet/JSP server, Darwin media streaming server, JDK, JRE, and Zend Optimizer are available for most VPS plans. Please see each individual plan's pricing page for any additional monthly fees and/or setup fees for these optional applications.

Chili!Soft ASP, ColdFusion MX, Miva, Urchin web stats, JRun4
Chili!Soft ASP, ColdFusion MX, Miva Empresa engine, Miva Merchant, Urchin web statistics, and JRun4 are commercial applications and will require that you purchase a software license.

Urchin is available for the OHP plan for an additional monthly fee. Please see each plan's pricing page for details.

Shell/SSH access
The WebPro and VPS plans allow SSH/Shell access. Shell access is strictly monitored. Any suspicious or service affecting activities (as per our terms of service) will be grounds for account suspension.