Hosting Project Cost Estimation

They have: 5 posts

Joined: May 2003

I am helping a friend out who is looking to put together a proposal for a project. The idea is basically for a website that will have registered users and non-registered users downloading and uploading large file sizes, mainly music type files.

The question is what would you suggest to figure out a sliding scale cost projection of how much it would cost to host the site based on number of users, bandwidth used per user, and storage used per registered user. for example if we have 1 million users per day (I wish!) downloading x amount file sizes and storing x amount in their registered accounts, our daily cost would be x dollar amount.

I would appreciate any suggestions, referrals or tools I could use to pursue this cost estimation process? Thanks in advance...

druagord's picture

He has: 335 posts

Joined: May 2003

Well that's not as easy as it seems but let say you have 20 users a day downloading 5 songs each and each song is 5megs you already have 100megs per day times 30= 3gig per month wich is more then regular ISP will allow you on a standard package. check with your ISP(internet service provider) for bandwith cost. By calculating this be very careful ISP make a lot af money on people taking oversized package just to be sure and not even using half of it. 1 million user is really a lot!

IF , ELSE , WHILE isn't that what life is all about

They have: 30 posts

Joined: Aug 2003

running a web hosting company of my own, i might be able to shed some light on the problem Smiling

as far as estimates go, druagord was absolutely correct. simply do some multiplication and you will know how much bandwidth and disk space you need. if do not have a slightest idea as to how many visitors per day you might have - get an account with 10Gb monthly traffic. that will cover your first month in any case. then, if your site grows you can upgrade to a bigger package (most hosts allow it no problem).

the good news is the prices for web hosting services are low. there are some companies with VERY low proces (even lower than ours Wink). i think, if you look, you can get unlimited disk space and bandwidth for 5-10 dollars per month. be aware though, those companies do it at the expense of their tech support.

also, whta kind of music are you planning to have on your site? if it's something not very legal - it will be EXTREMELY hard for you to find a company who will host your website. if it is legal - it should be easy.

here's the list of web hosting directories for your reference:
hostcompare.net
hostapproval.com
hostindex.com

Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.