Aplus.net Review and Test Results

Review

Aplus.net is a subsidiary of Deluxe, the best known check manufacturer in the world. Designed to provide easy-to-use tools that allow small business to manage their online presence, Aplus.net offers a number of website hosting services that include complete design, development, and management; do-it-yourself website building tools; as well as shared hosting services.

HOSTING PLANS

Aplus.net offers three shared web hosting plans — Basic, Business, and Professional. All provide a choice of monthly or annual billing cycles. Pricing ranges from $7.99 to $23.99 for monthly billing, and $9.99 to $29.99 per month for annual billing. All shared plans renew at the initial rate.

Priced at $7.99 per month, Basic Web Hosting is the cheapest plan. Highlights include a free domain name (first year only, renews at $12.99 per year), 100GB of disk space, 500GB of transfer (bandwidth), the ability to host 2 websites, 5 e-mail accounts, 2GB of e-mail storage, auto-responders, unlimited FTP accounts, unlimited subdomains, 25 MySQL databases, EasySiteWizardPro, a 1-page mobile site, custom error pages, a site search engine, domain forwarding, analytics, as well as a proprietary control panel (see screenshot below right) and applications installer.

The Basic plan also provides a limited number of applications: WordPress, Coppermine Photo Gallery, Image Manipulator, Customer Survey, HTML Editor, Joomla, Online Forms, PDF2Web, Photo Album, phpBB, Site Search, and Site Stress Test.

Screenshot of Aplus.net Hosting Control Panel. Not quite as easy to use as cPanel, we found it to be a workable substitute. Click to enlarge.

The Basic plan supports the following programming languages and advanced features: ADO.net, Ajax, ASP/ASP.net, C/C++, CGI Scripting, Cron Support, GD Library, IIS ASP Components, ImageMagick, IonCube Loader Support, Own CGI Bin, Perl, PHP 4/5, Private Database Folder, Python, Ruby, Server Side Includes (SSI), XML Parser, Zend Optimizer Support, and Tomcat JSP/Java Servlets.

Priced at $15.99 per month, Business Web Hosting is the next cheapest plan. It includes all of the Basic plan features while substituting 300GB of disk space, 3000GB of transfer, the ability to host up to 20 websites, 250 e-mail accounts, 5GB of e-mail storage, and 50 MySQL databases. The plan adds 1 MS SQL database (150MB), $50.00 in Facebook ad credits, MS Frontpage Manager, and Mobile Express DIY.

Priced at $23.99 per month, Professional Web Hosting is the most advanced and costly shared plan. It includes all of the Business plan features while substituting unlimited disk space, unlimited transfer, the ability to host up to 100 websites, 500 e-mail accounts, 100 MySQL databases, and 2 MS SQL databases (200MB). The plan adds an SSL Certificate, EasyStoreMaker Pro, osCommerce, and the Pinnacle Shopping Cart. The plan does not include Mobile Express DIY.

Additional-cost options for all three Aplus.net shared web hosting plans include: email marketing, fax-to-email, Domain Guard, Domain Monitor, Domain Privacy, OneList, Ebiz Card, InForm, call tracking, Mobile Express DIFM, Mobile Advanced DIY, WEB Chat, and advanced analytics.

All Aplus.net shared plans are backed by 24×7 phone/chat/e-mail support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Click the ‘Pricing and Features’ tab above for the feature comparison table.

PURCHASE PROCESS

As is our practice, we selected the lowest-cost shared plan — Basic Web Hosting — for purposes of testing and review. Starting at main navigation menu on the Aplus.net homepage we selected ‘Website Hosting Packages’ and clicked ‘Hosting Products’ from the dropdown menu. Beneath ‘Basic Web Hosting’ in the ‘Plans & Pricing’ section, we clicked the orange ‘Add to Cart’ button.

The first step of the checkout process — ‘Look for a New Domain Name, or Use One You Already Own’ — requires a selection from three options: ‘Register a New Name For Free,’ ‘Use My Current Name,’ or ‘I don’t need a domain right now, thanks.’ As we would be using a domain name we already own we chose the second option and clicked the orange ‘Search’ button.

Screenshot of Aplus.net “Welcome” e-mail. It includes all of the information required to set up your website quickly. Click to enlarge.

The second step asked us to select from three options: ‘Would like to register a new domain,’ ‘Transfer the registration of an unlocked domain to Aplus,’ or ‘Host an Existing Domain.’ While it seemed odd to ask us to enter the domain name again, we selected the third option by entering our domain in the form field and clicking the gray ‘Search’ button.

The third step — Domain Extras — provided the option to add Domain Guard and/or Domain Monitor to our order at an annual cost of $4.95 each. We left the two options unchecked and clicked the orange ‘Continue to Checkout’ button.

The fourth step — Create Account — required us to enter our name, e-mail address, and a password. We completed the form fields and clicked the orange ‘Save and Continue to Check Out’ button.

The fifth step — Billing — required us to enter our payment method and billing information. It provided a choice of three payment options: Visa MasterCard, or American Express. We used a Visa card, entered the required information and clicked the orange ‘Save and Continue to Check Out’ button.

The sixth step — Order Review — allowed us to review our order details and select a billing cycle. The options include of 1 Year at $95.88 per year ($7.99 per month) or 1 month at $9.99 per month. As we only required the account for purposes of testing and review, we selected the monthly payment option and clicked the orange ‘Place your order’ button.

SETUP

Only seconds after submitting our order, we received our e-mail receipt. Just over an hour later, we received the “Welcome to Aplus.net Hosting” e-mail. See screenshot above right.

We are pleased to report that the e-mail provided all of the information required to set up our test site quickly. This included the control panel login, support contact information, e-mail settings, instructions on accessing EasySiteWizard Pro, FTP access details, and nameservers information.

Aplus.net Uptime Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

Next, we updated the nameservers at our domain registrar. Once the domain name had propagated, we used the FTP access instructions to upload our 1-page test site. We then set up Dotcom Monitor page-load speed and uptime testing, and waited for the test results to accumulate.

TESTING

All web hosting services reviewed by NCM Online are purchased and subjected to our 10-day test for speed and reliability.

Aplus.net testing began on 12/4/14 and concluded on 12/13/14. Our test site was checked for page load speed and uptime every 15 minutes from 13 worldwide locations. In all, testing consisted of nearly 2000 individual server checks. We are pleased to report that Dotcom Monitor testing resulted in a perfect 100% reliability score. See uptime test results chart above right.

Aplus.net Speed Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

Although reliable, our Basic Web Hosting shared plan recorded a very slow, 10-day average speed of 2.2407 seconds to load our simple, one-page test site from 13 locations worldwide, and 1.4208 seconds from 7 U.S. locations. This was in some part due to the fact that a total of seven TCP 10054 (an existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host) errors were recorded on 12/7/14. The affected test locations were Montreal, Florida, Frankfurt, California, and Amsterdam. Speed testing concluded on 12/13/14 at 23:59 without additional incident, but the damage had been done. See screenshot above right for test locations and results chart.

Pros

• Generous disk space
• 100% uptime test result
• “Welcome” e-mail includes all of the information required to set up your website quickly
• The price for the initial term is the same as the renewal rate
• Free domain name (first year only)
• Domain names renew at only $12.99 per year
• 24×7 US-based phone, chat, and e-mail support

Cons

• Checkout process is not as fast and efficient as it could be
• No PayPal payment option
• No cPanel control panel or Softaculous apps installer
• Limited access to open source applications
• Cheapest hosting plan has limited scalability
• Slow server speeds

Conclusion

While they proved to be both reputable and reliable, Aplus.net recorded some of the slowest page-load speeds recorded to date.

Aplus.net earned 3.5 stars and is not presently recommended by NCM Online.

Pricing and Features

Cheap website hosting company price comparisons based on 1-year term list price before coupon/promo codes or limited time/introductory offer discounts. These are the renewal rates for the second year of hosting. To ensure that you receive the most affordable Aplus.net pricing possible, please see Summary above for coupon code and/or current discounts before making any purchases.

Plan	Basic	Business	Professional
Storage	100 GB	300 GB	Unlimited
Monthly transfer	500 GB	3000 GB	Unlimited
Email addresses	5	250	500
Email storage	2 GB/mailbox	5 GB/mailbox	5 GB/mailbox
Hosted Domain Support	2	20	Unlimited
Free Domain	1	1	1
SSL Certificate	X	X
FTP Accounts	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Subdomains	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
MySQL Database	25	50	100
MS SQL Databases	X	1@150 MB	2@200 MB
Facebook Ad Credit	$0.00	$50.00	$50.00
Account Management
Billing (Invoices, Payments, Services)
Profile (Address, Preferences)
Messages
Email Management
Autoresponders
Easy Mail Setup
Forwarders/Aliases
IMAP/IMAPS
POP3/POP3S
SMTP/SMTPS
SPAM Filter
Virus Protection
Webmail
Email Marketing	Optional	Optional	Optional
Fax-to-Email	Optional	Optional	Optional
Domain Management
Add Subdomains
DNS Manager
Domain Locking
Domain Manager
Request EPP Auth Code
Domain Guard	Optional	Optional	Optional
Domain Monitor	Optional	Optional	Optional
Domain Privacy	Optional	Optional	Optional
Domain Forwarding
Search Tools
EasySiteOptimizer
Website Search Engine
Quick Ranking
OneList	Optional	Optional	Optional
Ebiz Card	Optional	Optional	Optional
InForm	Optional	Optional	Optional
Call Tracking (200 Toll Free, 1#)	Optional	Optional	Optional
Web Design Tools
EasySiteWizard Pro
Coppermine Photo Gallery (installer)
Customer Survey
HTML Editor
Image Manipulator
Joomla (installer)
Online Forms
PDF2Web
Photo Album
phpBB (installer)
Site Search
Site Stress Test
WordPress (installer)
MS Frontpage Manager	X
EasyStoreMaker Pro	X	X
osCommerce (installer)	X	X
Pinnacle Shopping Cart	X	X
WEB Chat	Optional	Optional	Optional
Mobile Design
Mobile 1 Page
Mobile Express – DIY	Optional		Optional
Mobile Express – DIFM	Optional	Optional	Optional
Mobile Advanced – DIY	Optional	Optional	Optional
File Management
File Manager Pro
FTP Manager
Protect Directories
Statistics
Standard Analytics
Advanced Analytics	Optional	Optional	Optional
Advanced Web Counter
Advanced Tools
Archive Manager
Change Website Root
Custom Error Pages
Supported Languages
ADO.net
Ajax
ASP/ASP.net
C/C++
CGI Scripting
Cron Support
GD Library
IIS ASP Components
ImageMagick
IonCube Loader Support
Own CGI Bin
Perl
PHP 4/5
Private Database Folder
Python
Ruby
Server Side Includes (SSI)
XML Parser
Zend Optimizer Support
Tomcat JSP/Java Servlets
Support
24/7 Live Toll Free Phone Support
24/7 Live Chat Online
24/7 E-mail Support
Price per Month*	$7.99	$15.99	$23.99

*Prices based on 1-year term before the application of coupon/promo codes and introductory/limited-time offer discounts. While you may pay less for the first year of hosting, the prices displayed on this page are the 1-year term renewal rates.

Company Information

Aplus.net is an online company that specializes in website hosting and domain acquisition. Aplus.net strives to be the consumer’s one stop shop for all informational technology needs. Aplus.net offers a plethora of services related to the web hosting and domain name industry.

Begun in 1992 as Abacus America, Aplus.net launched its operations in the time period before “the Internet” was even a household name. By 1995, the upstart company was expanding to the web. By 1998, Aplus.net was selling web domain hosting services. Since then, Aplus.net has added peripheral online services and applications such as EasySiteWizardPro and the Social Page Creator.

Aplus.net offers as an incentive a free starter website along with access to their user friendly control panel. At Aplus.net, security of clientele is given utmost importance, with free domain locking service (to prevent the unauthorized transfer of your domain). Full domain management and administration is available to clients, to include the management of registrant and administration details, billing, and technical contact information for the client’s domain. Simple renewals may also be effected through this feature.

Aplus.net designs websites for business and personal usage as well. It advertises over 5000 professionally designed templates from which clients can choose. They boast the broadest selection and most cost-effective delivery of services and websites of any domain hosting provider going. Their website claims that aplus.net strives to provide the most comprehensive and cost effective products and services to clients who wish to run a smaller scale online concern within a broader scope. They seek to provide dependable and versatile one stop shopping for a business’ online marketing and their goal is the elimination of clients’ needing to deal with multiple vendors and service providers, as per their website aplus.net.

Aplus.net offers a money back guarantee if their domain server and hosting platforms fall below a performance rate of 99.99%. Having hosting platforms in several countries throughout the world, Aplus.net is positioned to offer premium, secure domain hosting services at competitive cost. Their employment of top of the line equipment and multiple storage sub systems lend to their reliability and security. Their basic network is comprised of the latest application technology developed and furnished by Cisco, itself a leader in modem and network security applications.

Moreover, Aplus.net is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. This means that aplus.net is extensively knowledgeable of Microsoft platforms and systems, and utilize this expertise in bringing their services to the small business owner. Aplus.net has extensive expertise in helping small and medium businesses achieve greater results and draws from its history of helping clients achieve their own entrepreneurial goals. This company also provides ancillary services such as fax to email services, logo design for your website, email marketing (a burgeoning sub-specialty within the domain hosting industry) and the provision of SSL certificates for a client’s financial and informational transactions. Aplus.net offers round the clock support.

Aplus.net Deluxe Corporate Headquarters 3680 Victoria Street North Shoreview, MN 55126 855-791-8966 506-624-2653 Fax 877-532-0132

How to Install WordPress

This video tutorial demonstrates the installation of WordPress on an Aplus.net shared hosting account using their proprietary control panel and applications installer.