All In One Does Not Make An Elevated Product
There is a lot to be said for canned website solutions. For content creators, a canned solution is attractive for a number of reasons. Everything is simple to manage. Everything is easy to get to and to work with. Basically, if you can manage a Facebook profile, you can probably manage a canned website solution too. And the functionality you need is probably all there too. Not only hosting and presenting your videos, but connecting to a merchant processor is there, along with the ability to charge users for seeing your videos. You also probably get the ability to connect with Twitter and post updates in a blog to help market your site. And all these are great features to have at your fingertips. All supported and ready for you to make money with your videos and images. But at what cost? And is this really the best solution going forward? Or even right now? Is a canned adult website solution going to represent you the way you want?
Packaged Solutions Are An Attractive Concept
We understand why packaged solutions are popular. Especially for anyone getting started as an adult content creator. The idea of having everything as simple as possible offsets the fear of creating a new website to a certain degree. Most content creators want to be helped by the technology they’re using, not intimidated and hindered by it. That makes an all-in-one solution an ideal way to go for many people. Especially if you have the money to invest ongoing. Solutions like ElevatedX will give you a great result with all the features and hosting you’ll need for $549 a month. If you already have your own hosting, then you can get the packaged solution for only $299 per month.
How Does That Compare?
When we put together a new site, we typically employ popular open source solutions combined with professional software that creates highly flexible and reliable solutions for our customers. Their websites are completely customizable from the point of view of both look and functionality. Instead of being limited to a few pre-determined layouts, their sites are entirely customizable. Every page can be entirely unique and based on whatever look you want. Furthermore, the website can grow and expand to add new features and functionality over time. Excellent software exists, many times for free, to extend the website’s capabilities in any number of ways.
What About Cost Differences?
One of the main things people are concerned with when shopping for a good adult website solution is cost. Isn’t that always the case? And sure, $549 per month sounds a lot less expensive than $7200 for a custom website. But aren’t you planning to be in the business for a while? Do you really want to be paying $549 per month for the next 5 years? That means your website will be costing you a whopping $32,940! Wouldn’t it be better to invest in something you will actually own and spend far less buying it? Even with extensive functionality built in and supporting every feature you can imagine, a custom website from OASysTech will likely cost less than a third of that five year investment.
But Theirs Comes With Hosting!
Does it? The hosting solution offered for $549 is a dedicated server. Which is great. However. We offer the same thing to our customers at a much lower price. In fact, our dedicated server price is $499 a year. Their price is effectively 7 times higher than what we charge, and our is a more powerful modern server. Again, it’s very attractive to see an all-in-one solution that offers everything you need, but the costs of that “convenience” can burn you. And again, this is especially true when you consider that these are ongoing costs. You’ll be paying 7 times more and getting less for it as long as this is your choice.
But wait! There’s more!
The packaged solution offers hosting that puts your videos on the website itself. We do not believe hosting videos on your website is a professional way to operate, and we have written about this before. If you’re a small fry, not busy and not planning to become busy, then streaming your videos directly off your web server might work acceptably for you. But this is not a solution we would ever recommend. Instead, our websites are typically built to work with VDNs (Video Delivery Network) to deliver videos to users. This keeps the heavy lifting off the website and helps it stay snappy and responsive to all users, no matter where they are or what device they are using to visit your website. Furthermore, instead of everyone seeing the same video from your website, users see a version of the video that is more suitable to their device. That means mobile users won’t be forced to stream a huge video file on their mobile connection, but will instead see a version intended specifically for their small screen and slower connection. Obviously this is a far better way to do things and reflects a more professional method. It will keep your users happy!
Yes, there is a cost to putting your videos on a VDN. However, the cost of both our dedicated web server combined with the service to host and deliver your videos is still far less than the packaged solution. The comparison is basically $3000 per year for the ElevatedX hosting solution where your videos live on your webserver, or $499 per year for a dedicated web server and another $25~$50 per month for your video delivery with our solution. In our view, you’re a winner with our solution because you’ll not only save a fortune over time, but your users won’t be complaining about how slow your website is. You’ll be able to handle many users all at once and grow your website at will, and without worrying about bandwidth capacity limits.
What About Support?
Your new OASysTech website comes with 30 days of support after your launch. Additionally, we include basic webmastering and backups with our hosting. If you need full support, we offer that level of support for $99 per month. That will cover your software updates, helping you with your needs operating the website, and assisting with subscriber issues as they occur. You may find over time that you do not need that support and can cancel it at any time. This is not the case with the ElevatedX support. You will be paying for it whether you need it or not. Ongoing. Forever.
The Long Term View
The solutions we’re comparing from ElevatedX are certainly not the only ones to compare to. There are other ways to get a website built. But the adult market is not the same as the general website development market. Adult site developers are usually able to see past the subject matter and focus and how to present your content well. There are fewer of us around, simply because of the nature of the beast. That being the case, we see that packaged solutions are an attractive option for many people. There is a lot to be said about being able to get in business quickly and easily. All we’re saying is that the cost of that apparent convenience is significant, especially over time. Taking the long term view, it simply makes more sense to invest wisely now, and save a fortune as you go forward and grow.
Why We Recommend What We Recommend
Experience. Period. That’s the reason we recommend the solutions and approaches we do. We have had many customers come to us with the symptoms of bad decision making. They have complaining users and systems that box them in and force them to work within the limitations of software they decided on long ago. Now they are faced with the difficulty of migrating all their users and content to a new system in order to give them the performance and flexibility they want. They want to stay modern and up to date, but their software does not support it.
Good Decisions Now Will Pay Off Later (And Now Too!)
Consider what we’ve said here and pair it with your long term plans. Doesn’t it make sense to invest wisely upfront, and reap the benefits ongoing? Isn’t it more sensible to put your trust in widely supported systems and software than to invest in software only supported by a single (and very expensive) software vendor? We understand that our solutions might not be for everyone, and that some people will happily pay the cost for a cookie-cutter solution. But we definitely believe the better approach is to employ our solution, to own your creation outright, and not have to share your profits for the privilege of saving a little time and effort.