When you pay for email hosting, you are essentially renting a piece of high-powered, secure digital real estate. But in the world of IT, there is often a blurry line between “keeping the lights on” and “performing custom electrical work.”
To provide the best value to our clients, we differentiate between Core Hosting Services (what your monthly fee covers) and Ad-Hoc Technical Support (specialized tasks billed by the hour).
Here is a breakdown of how we distinguish the two.
1. Core Hosting: Keeping the Infrastructure Strong
Your monthly hosting fee ensures that the “digital building” you are renting is functional, secure, and accessible to the world.
What’s Included:
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Server Availability: Ensuring your email servers are “up” and running 24/7.
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Security Patches: Keeping the core server software updated to protect against global threats.
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Hardware Maintenance: Managing the physical or cloud-based equipment that stores your data.
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The “Pipes”: Ensuring that the basic ability to send and receive data is functional.
2. Technical Support: Beyond the “Building”
Technical support involves specialized tasks that are unique to your business workflow, your specific devices, or external factors beyond our server’s control. These are billed on an ad-hoc basis.
Why is this billable?
Many people assume that if an email doesn’t arrive or a site looks “off” on a specific device, the host is “broken.” In reality, these issues usually involve external variables.
Common Billable Scenarios:
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Deliverability & “Detective Work”: If a specific client can’t email you, the issue is often with their server or a global spam filter. Investigating this requires analyzing “SMTP headers” and “DNS records”—essentially acting as a digital detective to find out where the communication broke down.
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Whitelisting & Security Customization: Manually bypassing filters or adjusting security settings to allow specific traffic is a custom configuration. We bill for this because it requires professional oversight to ensure we aren’t accidentally opening your inbox to security risks.
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Local Device Setup: Helping you sync your email across a new iPhone, Outlook, or tablet involves your personal hardware, not our servers.
The “Office Rental” Analogy
To make it simple, we like to compare hosting to renting a physical office space:
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Hosting Fee: Covers the rent, the electricity, the locks on the doors, and making sure the roof doesn’t leak.
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Billable Support: Is like calling the landlord because you want to move the walls, install a custom security system, or figure out why a specific delivery driver keeps getting lost on their way to your suite.
Why This Model Works Better For You
Some agencies offer “All-Inclusive” packages. While that sounds convenient, it usually means every client is paying a much higher monthly rate to cover support they might never use.
Our Ad-Hoc Model ensures:
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Lower Monthly Costs: You only pay for the “rent” of the server.
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Fairness: You only pay for expert technical time when your specific business requires it.
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Expert Attention: When you do have a complex issue, you know you are getting dedicated, high-priority diagnostic time to solve it correctly.
Questions about your service?
We believe in “Total Transparency” billing. If you ever have a question about whether a request falls under hosting or support, just ask! We’re here to help your business stay connected.
