PowWeb Web Hosting Review

PowWeb offers "Perfect Shared Hosting," a single plan billed at $7.77 per month that includes plenty of storage space and bandwidth, as well as MySQL databases, unlimited domain handling, and unlimited subdomains. These services all add up to a great value for the price, but it's in customer support where PowWeb shines, with short hold times, and a knowledgeable support staff. While we'd prefer that they offer month-to-month terms, their quarterly, annual, or bi-annual billing plans are great deals. Read on for the rest of our PowWeb review.

Signup Process - PowWeb Web Hosting

Signup Process Score: 92

PowWeb made the process of signing up for an account extremely easy, and they are up front about their billing procedures, prompting the user to select billing terms before entering any other information.

This sort of transparency is greatly appreciated, as it saves users from wasting time, only to find out later that they do not approve of the billing terms.

Overall, the signup process was streamlined and efficient, and our account was setup promptly. PowWeb meets all expectations in this area.

Quality of Services - PowWeb Web Hosting

Services Score: 88

PowWeb's level of service, overall, was acceptable. Our site was responsive and the hosting was reliable, but we did note a few areas that don't match up to the standards set by other competitors.

The PowWeb control panel, while robust in its level of coverage feels awkward in design, compared to competitive offerings. Still, once one becomes familiar with the setup, the control panel does enable the user to perform most important tasks quickly.

The other concern we had was that PowWeb didn't supply us with the most updated versions of several important software packages. This was most notable for us in the version of PHP that was loaded onto our server. By running version 4.4, instead of PHP5, we were required to adjust several of the scripts we had prepared. This can be particularly bothersome if you desire to take advantage of PHP5's ability to intelligently handle XML processing.

For many people, these differences may be minor, in which case PowWeb's services are still outstanding.

Billing Evaluation - PowWeb Web Hosting

Billing Score: 93

The billing process with PowWeb generally met our expectations.

We tend to favor shorter terms for hosting, as it offers flexibility should we encounter a displeasurable experience with a web host.

PowWeb disappointed slightly here, by offering quarterly billing as their shortest term, and they charged a setup fee for this option. Still, the pricing was fair and accurate when processed. Their control panel allows for a user to view past invoices, update billing information, and to pre-empt a scheduled credit card payment with a PayPal payment, if desired.

Overall, the billing experience with PowWeb was acceptable

Support - PowWeb Web Hosting

Support Score: 95

PowWeb ranks at the top of our support scale for consistently short hold times, friendly and knowledgeable support staff, and providing a product that performed sufficiently well as to merit no real need to contact customer support.

In our testing, PowWeb blew away most competitors in responsiveness, with an average time to reach a live support person of only 45 seconds after picking up the phone!

Better still, we were always able to get our questions answered in a matter of seconds, rarely having to be placed on hold.

In terms of customer support, PowWeb ranks at the top of the list.