Background
Great web hosting with no bull is how Fat Cow describes their company and we certainly agree with. With more than 50,000 satisfied customers, Fat Cow, which began web hosting in New Mexico in 1998, offer an exceptional web hosting plan. ‘Legendary’ support, ‘utterly’ fantastic features, and even a ‘Minimoo’ service all combine to make Fat Cow a different breed from other web hosting companies. Don’t allow the moo slogans to fool you – Fat Cow provides an excellent range of services. Outstanding in their field, in fact. Here is our Fatcow review:
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What they have!
The company offers the Original Fat Cow Plan, complete with all the cowbells and whistles, which will be sufficient for just about all website owners and which comes with an amazing value for money price tag. Included is a free lifetime domain name, free setup, an unlimited number of email accounts, unlimited storage and transfer allowances, and unlimited domain pointing. Other extras include a range of tools such as web analytics and a free deluxe site builder. Fat Cow also offers programming resources that you won’t find with similar deals from other web hosting companies. These include PHP, MySQL, Ruby-on-Rails, Python, and a full CGI Directory. Sign up now to get a special deal, for a limited time only, that offers free credits for Google and Yahoo Search Marketing. Customer services and technical support are provided 24/7 by the MooCrew via email, phone or online chat.
Price
FatCow often offers promotions, coupons, and special offers to customers during their initial term. You can find these deals on the FatCow site itself as well as reputable coupon sites. All sign-ups come with 24/7 phone, chat, and email support, a free domain registration, and an anytime money-back guarantee.
Its Plans
- 36-Month plan: $7.99
- 24-Month plan: $8.99
- 12-Month plan: $9.99
Ratings:
- Cost: 4/5
- Features: 5/5
- Storage Allowance: 5/5
- Bandwidth: 5/5
- Reliability: 5/5
- Customer Service: 5/5
- Technical Support: 5/5
- Response Times: 5/5
- Overall Usability: 4/5
Total Score: 97%
Should You Trust Them?
Expect little downtime with Fat Cow as they guarantee that your site will be online at least 99% of the time. This is achieved by load balancing on all their servers, meaning a copy of your site is held on mirror servers so that you’re back online in next to no time if your main server fails. There’s no need to worry about the loss of data either as backups are made each day. Ultra-fast email and website speed are ensured with multi-GB connections to the web.
Control Panel
Fat Cow customers can manage their accounts with a range of admin tools by software company H-sphere. Simple to use, they allow website owners to make tweaks and changes without any hassle.FatCow has done everything possible to make website navigation convenient. It only takes a few moments to get all necessary information and a couple of minutes to register and start using their hosting.
Their Original plan includes a customizable control panel. However, there is no free trial before the purchase, and they wouldn’t say what kind of tool you are going to get with your package. Among the features included are web stats, database and domain management tools, email account management, and automated scripts.
Distinguishing Features
‘Great Web Hosting. No Bull.’ – Fat Cow
Host an unlimited amount of domains from just one user account.
‘Udderly’ low-cost hosting plans with massive transfer and storage allowances.
The ‘HeiferCratic Oath,’ a promise of outstanding support and customer satisfaction.
FatCow Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is FatCow’s most talked about feature.
The reason for it being this cheap is because you share the cost (and resources) of a server with many other customers.
They offer you 2 names for shared hosting plans:
- The Original FatCow Plan
- WP Hosting.
About the Original FatCow Plan
The original FatCow plan offers a plethora of features.
Worth mentioning is that one where you are given unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and domains.
Don’t start finalizing things as yet, this doesn’t mean that you can host a million large sites on a single FatCow web host plan.
Is Unlimited Actually Unlimited?
When a host says “unlimited” resources, it does not literally means it. Instead, it means “a reasonable amount that is more than most sites will need.”
If you’re just building a couple of simple sites, you are most likely not to have an issue.
However, if you’re building several large sites on one of these hosting plans, there are two possibilities
(a) either your sites will either load very slowly, (b)or not at all in some cases.
WordPress Hosting
Yes, you get to create WordPress sites using the original FatCow plan.
However, there are 2 other plans under the category “WordPress hosting” that are specially designed to help WordPress users. Depending on the one your choice of pick, it can be even cheaper than the plan discussed above.
You get all the same basics: unlimited bandwidth, disk space, and domains.
THE FLIP SIDE
It’s Expensive
There’s this fact that hosts that are also owned and managed by EIG have plans available for cheaper prices. For example, you can go with iPage or eHost and get the same services for less. It doesn’t sound rational to go with FatCow if you can get the same for less.
However, as you move a bit further, you see that the renewal prices for 1-year promotional contracts may double. The sign-up stage is also not that transparent — you get many additional features pre-ticked for you, though some of them are definitely important. You may run across billing issues because of these seemingly-hidden price tags. In the event that you need to request a refund, expect to run through lots of red tape—even more so if you request a cancellation of services.
Internal up-selling
Yes, you read that right, FatCow engages in internal selling.Upsells are not necessarily a bad thing. They provide cheaper overall prices for most while providing specific services for anyone who wants to pay for them.But upsells can also be a bad thing. Usually, they become bad when they are overly aggressive or when they are added without explicit consent.They offer upsells at checkout and in their backend. Instead of complementing their services, they overlap with key features. Several also come pre-checked
They can also be bad when they confuse customers and devalue the actual product. This point is where FatCow fails.
Once you sign up for a hosting plan, FatCow will try to get you signed up for free software and web application trials. You’ll find these right in your control panel, and they’ll look appealing because they are made to. But once the trial ends, it will demand money, and it is safer to assume that FatCow gets money when that happens. If you forget to cancel your trial, you’re going to end up with charges on your credit card. That’s alarming.
Do They Care?
There’s no bull involved with Fat Cow’s dedicated MooCrew customer service and technical support team. Advertised as having all the cowbells and whistles, they provide expert assistance should any problems occur. Speak to a representative via free online chat or toll-free telephone support.
While you can reach their agents through e-mail, phone line and live chat. The help-desk of this web host works 24/7, which is crucial for quick and efficient troubleshooting. However, there are many user complaints registered on a variety of forums regarding the efficiency and expertise of the support systems staff.
In addition to the live support, FatCow offers you a chance to master some of the web-hosting theory and practice through their extensive knowledge base consisting of articles, 170+ video tutorials, and a user’s guide. A blog launch is in the works—another bonus.
Email help is also provided as is an extensive knowledge base with Frequently Asked Questions. Fat Cow undertakes their own unique ‘HeiferCratic Oath,’ which guarantees free hosting credits to anyone not completely satisfied with their support services.
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