Offer Free Web Hosting?

I know that this is kind of a long shot but still...
I run a free web hosting service (EchoHosting.com) for a while now and currently we were doing so good that we receive 40+ new members/day and we already have over 550. Unfortunately, one of our members spammed somebody, they complained and now my hosting is being shut down by the host that provided us with space and bandwidth (Site5.com) because of that member's mistake even though I canceled his account as soon as I found out about it.

Right now, I have over 550 clients and I hope to get around 2K in less than 1 1/2 months (that's when I'd like to stop accepting new ones unless you'd want me to continue).

Even though I offer 20 megs to each member, we have several precautions that don't allow members to upload large files (ZIP, MP3, EXE, etc), so basically it turns out to ONLY 100KB/member.

I don't place any banners on our users' pages but instead I send them a newsletter every 3 days which contains one sponsors' message (besides everything else like article, featured member, news, etc.) - that's how we make profit.

Usually, we charge 4c/member/issue and we already had several advertisers because the response ratio is usually extremely high: 10-20% (our members are very loyal to us because we don't place any forced banners on their sites and give them a certain level of freedom).

Anyway, here's the deal. Once again, I know that this is a long shot, but still...

I'm looking for a reliable host who's willing to partner with us (EchoWebHQ.com) and host our community on their server.

Even though I haven't reached 2000 members yet and I don't know how much reasources it's going to take, I suspect that we won't need more than 500 megs and 20 GIGs for all of them (for 500 members, we used 55 megs of space and 2.5 GIGs of transfer/month).

In exchange, we can either pay you money (no more than $30/month though) or we can feature you as our partner/sponsor/etc. in every issue that we send to our members.

I know what you will say... if people are already using your free, no-banners web hosting, why would they want to sign up for a paid host?

Here are a couple of reasons:

1. They need more space (20 megs is not that much when you think about it and without FTP it's really a pain to upload large files)
2. They want to have domain name we don't allow it)
3. They want CGI access
4. They want to have more freedom than we allow (for example our upload limit is only 200KB and we don't allow FTP to prevent large uploads).

Also, since they will hear about you 10 times/month, when they or their friends are looking for a paid host, who do you think they will think about first? YOU! They already had some experience with you, they know that you are a reliable host, etc. We will never cover the fact that you provide us with space, bandwidth, etc.

Here's what I'd like to have on my account:

- 500 megs of space
- 20 gigs of bandwidth
- CGI access (just for me, not for our users)
- Subdomains
- FTP access
... and a couple of other small features that almost every host has.

Anyway, I know that this may sounds risky and not every host would want to do that, but if you think about it, it's an excellent way to build your brand and have a contstant, quality, free promotion.

My hosting service was located at http://echohosting.com (by the time, you visit it, you will probably get an error or will be redirected to echowebhq.com - our network's headquarters).

Another thing before I wrap up... we were shut down because one of our careless members spammed somebody else. If this will happen again, we will shut down his/her account as soon as possible. We will try to do everything in our power to follow your policies but sometimes we find out about it a little bit too late and it takes a while to delete their account. I want you to understand that I will cancel EVERY account that doesn't follow your policies as SOON as I find out about this.

We will be shut down today so if you'd like to discuss this please contat me as soon as possible, since I don't want to have my members host-less for a long period of time. If you are interested, please contact me by:

E-Mail: [email protected]
ICQ: 35987813
AIM: master99a
MSN IM: [email protected]

I look forward to hear from you.
Boris