Some doubts about the yearly plan...

Well, its my very first thread here.
Id like to get more information about Dreamhost services and the discount codes.
Id like to sign for the yearly plan, and Id like to know if the $97 off discount is valid also for this plan. I mean, if after one year Im not sattisfied, can I just leave Dreamhost without any problem, or should I sign a 2 years plan in order to get this discount?
My other doubt was about my purposes: Id like to host more than one website (right now, two). Small websites, in fact. One of them is a blog, and the other is my portfolio. I dont need so much space, but Id like to know if I can actually use the space they offer (just in case). Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Ferreira Camargo, Hugo.

You can use a discount code if you want only one year.
It will cost you USD 22.4.
Then you can stay on dreamhost or leave, as you want.

And yes, you can host unlimited websites on DH.

It's up to you. Adding years is definitely a better deal, but if I was trying a new host for the first time, using DH prices as the example, I'd probably play it safe and do the one year for $22.40. It's hardly a risk, even without the 97-day money back period.

At the end of the year, or any time before, you can always change the plan and pay the difference, to get the additional savings.

You definitely have nothing to worry about with pre-paying, though. I've been here for years (like many others) and never had any problems. They definitely won't try to throw up any roadblocks if you decide to leave... unless you do something illegal to get yourself booted, then don't count on file access. But that only affects people that aren't smart enough to keep backups.

As far as the space/bandwidth goes, most of us use less than 1% -- but there have been several people that have definitely gotten their money's worth in resources.

You just have to do it efficiently. Sloppy coding, etc... can cause problems in any shared environment.

You can also use unlimited subdomains, like blog.your-domain.com or portfolio.your-domain.com. They've recently restricted using the space for non-web-site-related purposes, and there have been some complaints about overloading servers. For most average, non-slashdotted, sites without too much database usage, you should be OK. If you want to have the 97 day refund option, use the "right" payment method. They'd probably refund you anyway, if you ask nicely.

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To expand on moua's reply, as he said, you can sign up for a year of hosting ($119.40) and take the $97 discount for a net payment of $22.40.

If within the first 97 days of your hosting, you decide that dreamhost isn't for you, you can take advantage of the money-back guarantee to get your $22.40 back. If you use your free domain registration, you'll actually only get $12.35 back because the domain registration isn't reversible. That may sound like a downside but you'll still have your domain registration paid up for a year and can have it transferred to your new web host.

After the 97 day money-back guarantee period, your $22.40 will have bought you the rest of the year (that would be about 9 more months) to decide whether you made the right choice with dreamhost. That's as good a deal as it gets for the level of hosting you have access to here. At the end of that year, you'll have to decide whether to renew at $119.40 a year (or go multi-year for a bigger discount).

But here's the interesting part: if at any time during that first year, if you decide you've fallen in love with dreamhost and think you're in it for the long haul, you can "renew" immediately for a longer term and a bigger discount. Dreamhost will apply the "unused" portion of the remainder of your $119.40 to your new plan. This is what my sister did. She signed up for a one year plan and then after three or four months, decided she was going to stay here for a while and so she renewed into a two year plan. Since she had "used up" four months at $9.95 a month, she paid ($7.95 x 24) - ($9.95 x 8) = $190.80 - $79.60 = $111.20 for her two year plan. (Note that this example uses a plan that doesn't exist any more, but I hope you get the point)

Anyway, the point is that you can get the best of both worlds - a low initial commitment when you don't know whether you're going to know whether you'll like dreamhost and the ability to switch immediately into a long-term discount program when you decide you're going to stay a while. What could be better?

Thanks everybody for the replies.
Well, my intention is not to stay just a year, of course. But Id like to have the option to leave after the first year if I dont feel that Dreamhost is a good webhost, and without complications. Without being billed automatically for the second year, or something like that.
Thats going to be my first webhost, and its so hard to find one...Dreamhost has been my first choice since I began to look after a webhost, but you know, on the internet youll find good reviews, bad reviews. Theres a guy making a campaign against Dreamhost, and it scared me, and thats why I signed up here to see whats the real thing. I know that some webhosts pay those "webhost reviews" websites in order to get a good review, and Im sure that maybe theyre interested even in giving bad reviews to their "enemies". All that makes me really confused. My purpose is really simple, to host 2 small websites (as said before, one personal website, and the other a collective blog), but it may count that Im completely "fresh" to the webmaster thing. Anyway, it should be easy, since Im not into illegal stuff or something like that.
Once again, thanks!

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My purpose is really simple, to host 2 small websites (as said before, one personal website, and the other a collective blog), but it may count that Im completely "fresh" to the webmaster thing. Anyway, it should be easy, since Im not into illegal stuff or something like that.

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To reassure you, there are lots and lots of people who are doing exactly what you're planning on hosting here and who are perfectly happy.

As you yourself observed, there are detractors for every web host and very few completely objective proponents. Even the replies here should be taken with a grain of salt because of the referral situation - though I've mostly found people here to speak the truth because all in all, no one here is making a living off of their referrals. :)

Anyway, like I said in my original reply, there are many safeguards if you initially choose a one year plan and switch later when you know for sure whether you've found a home here at Dreamhost.

Oh, and if you want to register more than one domain, you should consider using a promo code that gives you one or more extra domain registrations.

You are right to be wary of taking reviews in to account. There will be people paid either directly or through affiliates that will give great reviews. As to negatives I feel that people that are unhappy with a service are more likely to be the ones posting everywhere venting their frustrations whereas happy customers are probably less likely to post about how happy they are (some do though).

At the end of the day you have not got a lot to lose trying the annual plan. At worst if you don't like the hosting you would have effectively spent $22 but still have the years domain registration if you take the free domain that you would be able to transfer if needed. Plus for a lot of problems, unless only dreamhost themselves could help, you can usually get help quickly through the friendly people on these forums.

Supernova

In reply to:

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Well, my intention is not to stay just a year, of course. But Id like to have the option to leave after the first year if I dont feel that Dreamhost is a good webhost, and without complications.

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Actually, you still can have 97 days money back guarantee. I think that's quite long enough time for trying DH service whether it is a good host or not.


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