CrystalTech — Unsolicited Plug

January 23, 2006

Four or five years ago, I was looking to move my Web site from my next-door neighbors’ Web server (accessing the Web via ISDN — the fastest option in our neighborhood) to a more robust ISP. A friend of mine recommended CrystalTech. I did some cursory shopping around, and it seemed like a pretty good deal — $19.95 a month to host the site, provide support for the sorts of things I wanted to do, and give me plenty of e-mail addresses. I signed up.

The service was great. On the odd occasion that I had a question, they’d get back to me within a few hours, and they always answered my question well. They proactively sent notifications of any maintenance that was going to be performed, and periodically updated their available features.

Then, a couple of years ago, I got a notice that their plans were changing. Normally, that would be code language for, “We’re going to up your rate.” Nope. They’d figured that they were doing well enough and realizing sufficient economies of scale that they could actually cut their prices. Proactively. My monthly bill dropped to $16.95.

But wait, it gets better. A few months ago, they e-mailed me that they had greatly expanded their offering, and notified me that I might want to go check them out, as it might be that I would want to up/downgrade to a different plan.

I’m now paying $2.95/month. Hitting the highlights, that’s 1,000 MB of disk space, 20 GB of bandwidth usage per month, 50 e-mail accounts (and unlimited aliases), and lots of good Web-based tools (I check all my mail via SmarterMail, and CrystalTech’s Web Control Center is very user friendly).

Check them out if you’re looking for an ISP.

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