Writer: Jordan Sprogis
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Cristian Lopez
TL; DR: Struggling with tight budgets? You’re not alone — everyone, especially small businesses, seems to be pinching pennies nowadays. But there’s good news for eCommerce stores: For the cost of two Dunkin’ iced coffees per month, Hawk Host is still one of the most reliable and affordable semi-dedicated web hosting providers out there. We caught up once again with Hawk Host’s Operations Manager, Brian Farrell, to see how things have evolved since our last chat a few years ago.
Shrinkflation, high interest rates, supply chain issues, and rising healthcare costs — these aren’t just headlines; they’re real challenges for 56% of U.S. households.
As a result, people are stretching their budgets in all sorts of ways: maxing out credit cards, digging into savings, buying clothes from fast fashion brands, and picking up second or third jobs.
(If you ask me, it became clear when Dollar General stores began popping up everywhere.)
About 30% of consumers are now valuing price as more valuable than quality, settling for less to save a buck. This has hit small businesses hard, especially with the costs of domain names, hosting, and site maintenance adding up.
While running an eCommerce site can be pricey, here’s a bit of good news: Hawk Host is an affordable web hosting provider with plans starting at just $2.99 a month — and its semi-dedicated hosting starts at $15.99 a month.
We talked with Hawk Host a few years ago when Operations Manager Brian Farrell said, “We’ve been investing in our infrastructure. And we haven’t increased our prices at all.”
Flying High
When you first take a look at Hawk Host’s homepage, you can’t help but notice its mascot.
Above the fold, there’s a cartoon of a brown hawk dressed in a blue superhero suit, giving a thumbs-up. It’s standing in front of a server dashboard next to a showcase of Hawk Host’s latest deal.
Although this nonbinary bird is without a name, for some reason, I’m immediately drawn to trust this hawk.
Brian says I’m not alone in this either. He shared, “The mascot and the branding have been a huge thing for the company ever since it was first started. As we’ve grown, we get a lot of good feedback about that hawk and the iterations over the years.”
When we last spoke with Brian, he highlighted the company’s affordable cPanel-based hosting. But before then, Hawk Host was a hobby project started by co-founders Tony Baird and Cody Robertson, who casually hosted sites for friends and family.
By 2007, Hawk Host officially incorporated and saw significant growth in the shared hosting market.
In late 2023, Hawk Host revamped its site to feature a cleaner look, improved navigation, and better mobile responsiveness, complete with seven data centers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, New York City, Toronto, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
Brian shared that while Hawk Host doesn’t have immediate plans to open new data center locations, it recently completed a full hardware upgrade for its Singapore, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and New York City locations, with Toronto next on the list for upgraded cloud computing services.
“It’s a fun time to be in hosting because things are constantly changing and evolving,” Brian said. “As more people get online, they need websites, and with that comes the challenges of just learning where the market is going and what that new batch of customers is interested in.”
Hawk Host works on different projects depending on customer demands and market changes, but Brian said the team always takes the same approach — that is, always to find problems and make each website better.
“It might feel cyclical,” he said, “but each change is an improvement and a positive step forward.”
Today, HawkHost offers shared hosting, semi-dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, and cloud computing, all of which range from around $3 to $16/mo.
Supercharging Sites
If you’re familiar with web hosting, then you know there are three main beasts: shared hosting, virtual private server hosting (VPS), and dedicated hosting. But you may be wondering: What the heck is semi-dedicated hosting?
Not too many web hosting providers offer this niche service. That’s the beauty of Hawk Host.
Semi-dedicated hosting strikes a balance between shared and VPS hosting. It offers higher resources similar to VPS hosting but with the managed services typically found in shared hosting.
“Our semi-dedicated hosting is similar to shared hosting in that customers get basic cPanel access, which is a simple control panel for them to use. The key difference is that more resources are allocated to each account,” Brian explained.
Semi-dedicated also shares resources, but unlike shared hosting (which can see up to 100 different users at once), you’ll be sharing with a lot fewer customers. Brian also said Hawk Host offers higher limits for simple tasks, such as outgoing emails and daily backups.
Hawk Host recommends semi-dedicated hosting as the next step for customers who started with a traditional shared hosting package but later realized they needed more resources to keep their sites running smoothly.
For example, if you notice that it takes your site longer than two seconds to load, it may mean you have insufficient resources (like CPU, RAM, or bandwidth), which can lead to slower performance during peak times.
“Semi-dedicated hosting is a popular direct upgrade because many shared customers aren’t interested in managing their hosting environments,” Brian said.
Here’s a quick summary of what you can expect from Hawk Host’s semi-dedicated hosting:
- Nestling Plan: Starting at $14.99/mo, you get 20,000MB SSD disk space, shared IP, unlimited bandwidth, databases, domains, and email addresses
- Talon Plan: Starting at $37.49/mo, this plan includes everything in the other plan but with unlimited SSD disk space, shared IP, unlimited bandwidth, databases, domains, and email addresses
These plans are ideal for eCommerce stores, websites that have seen significant growth, resource-intensive applications (such as having multiple WordPress plugins), and non-technical users who don’t want to worry about the nitty-gritty of managing their servers.
Both plans come with free SSL certificates, complete migration support (so if you’re moving from another host, Hawk Host will take care of everything for you), a Memcached server, access to Weebly’s site builder, malware scanning and defense, and 24/7 customer support.
Eyes on the Horizon
Brian mentioned that improving customer support has been a significant focus of Hawk Host over the years.
In fact, you’ve got plenty of ways to get in touch or find an answer to your question — start a live chat, send an email, open a ticket, tweet them, or check out the knowledge base.
“Without our customers, we’d be nowhere. They’re the ones that dictate how our services are used, so their feedback is the most valuable,” Brian said. “It forces us to improve and stay on top of our game.”
In fact, one customer request was recently implemented.
Hawk Host recently launched a new tier of shared hosting service, which is called the Professional+ tier, for just $11 more per month than its most basic shared plan. This tier is built off the secondary plan, Professional, but with the bonus of a 100% dedicated IP address.
A dedicated IP address is a unique IP address assigned to one user or website. While every computer has a unique IP address, not all websites do by default. Most shared servers have shared IP addresses. But this upgraded plan gives you your very own.
With a dedicated web IP address, you get a more secure website. For example, any newsletters you email to customers are less likely to be flagged as spam, and there’s a much lower risk of your IP address ever being blacklisted due to other users.
“Having dedicated IPs has always been a trend — but as IPv4 addresses become more scarce, it’s become an even bigger request from customers,” Brian said.
As for what else is next, Brian shared that Hawk Host is focusing on advancing its current offerings, but there’s more on the horizon.
“We’re focused on getting all these upgrades done to the existing infrastructure,” Brian shared, and then added, laughing, “Once that’s done, I have no doubt something else will come up because having a company run by engineers and nerds, there’s always something cooking.”
No matter what you’re looking for in a web host, Hawk Host is tough to beat.
Its shared hosting starts at just $2.99/month, semi-dedicated hosting at $15.99/month, reseller plans at $12.99/month, and cloud computing at $5.00/month (plus a 16% discount if you commit to a 1-year contract).
