Note: These are pre-sales questions only; customer support questions can be found in the Knowledgebase section under "Get Support" in your Valcato Account.
General Questions
- How many years have you been in business?
- What guarantees do you offer?
- What currencies do you accept?
Dedicated Server Questions
- What's the difference between managed and unmanaged servers?
- How does your server monitoring work?
- Are you qualified to provide dedicated servers?
- Can I overload my own server?
- Can I use my server for hosting?
- What type of WHMCS licence do I receive?
- Loyalty Reward Guarantee
Shared Hosting Questions
- What's your average server uptime?
- Can you help me move my website from my old host?
- When do you consider a site as overloading the server?
- What will you do when a site overloads a server?
- What do you do with the sites that continue to overloaded your server?
- Are you actually a "reseller"?
- Is PHP Safe Mode Enabled?
Domain Name Questions
- If I register my domain name through you, will I be the owner?
- Can I change the WHOIS information and Nameservers?
- What's ID Protection?
- Why isn't ID Protection available on .us .in .eu .uk domains?
- How can I ensure my transfer is smooth?
- If I register my domain with you, do you need to host my website?
- Can I transfer my domain to a different registrar, are there any costs?
Account Questions
- How much do you charge for exceeding bandwidth limits?
- Can I host multiple domains on one account (add-on domains)?
- Is there a maximum file size limitation?
- Is there any email attachment size limitation?
- Is there any account usage limitation?
- Can I upgrade my account if I need more space?
- Do you offer a reseller service?
WHMCS Questions
Support Questions
- What support methods do you offer?
- Are there any restrictions on the use of support?
- When I can expect to get a reply for a support ticket?
- When is live chat and telephone support available?
Others
- Do you backup users' accounts?
- Do you have any configurations for preventing hacking issues?
- Host X offers 10 times more space/bandwidth than Valcato, why are your limits smaller?
General Questions
How many years have you been in business?
We?ve been in business since early 2002, for more information visit the about us section.
What guarantees do you offer?
We have a full 30 day money back guarantee, a server uptime guarantee of 99.5% per month, a 100% network uptime guarantee, a no overselling guarantee and a loyalty reward guarantee. More information is available on our guarantees page.
What currencies do you accept?
We price in US Dollars, but you can also choose to pay in British Pounds or Euros during the signup process.
Dedicated Server Questions
What's the difference between managed and unmanaged servers?
Unmanaged servers are sometimes cheaper than ours, this is because you are provided with the machine and are expected to setup and maintain it yourself. Our dedicated come in two flavours; semi-managed and fully managed. Semi-managed is the cheaper option and puts you in the pilot's seat; you are in charge of the majority of technical administration but we are on hand to provide help should you need it. With our fully managed service we take care of everything for you; it's no more complicated than using a shared hosting account. More information is available on server management.
How does your server monitoring work?
We check your server every 5 minutes from monitoring stations around the world. If they?re unable to reach your server, you (and our technicians) will be emailed so the problem can be fixed. We will then email again when your server is back online. Notifications by SMS message are also available for an extra cost.
We will email you weekly and monthly uptime reports and you can view your server's entire history on our server status page.
Are you qualified to provide dedicated servers?
Yes, we been managing servers for our shared hosting customers for over half a decade and have built up a reputation for providing a rock-solid stable service.
Can I overload my own server?
It is possible through flawed coding for you to load your server to the point of slowing or stopping it from responding, however we do not have a policy on this like we do for our shared hosting. If your server seems slower than normal we can help troubleshoot the issue.
Can I use my server for hosting?
You can indeed, you are also entitled to a free licence for the premier webhost billing system; WHMCS and the ability to sell domain names to your customers. You would be responsible for billing, supporting and ensuring your customers abide by the Terms and Conditions to which you have agreed.
What type of WHMCS licence do I receive?
All managed server customers are entitled to claim a free licence for WHMCS for the life of the server. This is the branded type of licence, no-branding licences are available for $3/month. For more information refer to this FAQ.
Loyalty Reward Guarantee
As part of our Loyalty Reward Guarantee we will credit existing customers who have outgrown shared hosting for any remaining term of your plan. Even better we will transfer all the data from our server to yours so that you can start using your new managed server straight away!
The credit will be applied to your account once you cancel the shared hosting, to be used against the second month's invoice or on new services.
Shared Hosting Questions
What?s your average server uptime?
Our average server uptime is 99.9%, you can view detailed uptime reports on our server status page.
Can you help me move my website from my old host?
Absolutely! Our Website Transfer Service can move everything across from your old host, for free with no downtime and no hassle.
When do you consider a site as overloading the server (In terms of server resources, quota etc.)?
This is the exact reason we do not advertise any ?unlimited? features; the quotas in place are for you to use - if you have 80 GB of bandwidth, you can use 80 GB of bandwidth. Some resources are shared though, mainly the CPU and RAM and so if a customer?s website caused the server to slow down we would take action.
What will you do when a site overloads a server? And if you suspend such sites, will you warn me before or after suspension?
We do everything possible to avoid suspending an account, and this can include informing a customer of the problem and letting them resolve it. However there are certain situations where an account may already be affecting the server and so we are left with no alternative but suspending, if we do this we will email you informing you of the reasons.
What do you do with the sites that continue to overloaded your server?
If a customer?s website were to continually overload the server we would recommend they move to a dedicated server, we offer half price setup and a website transfer service to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Are you actually a "reseller" or are the sites hosted on your own servers?
No, we operate our own servers, for more information click here.
Is PHP Safe Mode Enabled?
No.
Domain Name Questions
If I register my domain name through you, will I be the owner?
Yes, absolutely!
Can I change the WHOIS information and Nameservers?
Yes, using our Account Control Panel.
What's ID Protection?
On all domain name registrations and transfers we will display generic information in the Whois database instead of yours. That way no one can get your information and send you spam email or steal your identity! This is a completely free courtesy.
Why isn't ID Protection available on .us .in .eu .uk domains?
The registries that administer these domains do not permit the use of such ID Protection services, unfortunately this is beyond our control. However if you register a .uk domain for personal use then your postal and email addresses will be hidden anyway (only your name will be shown).
How can I ensure my transfer is smooth?
Transferring a domain name to a different company involves a few security procedures to ensure you are the legitimate owner of the domain.
For a full outline of how to transfer a domain name please refer to our guide.
If I register my domain name with you, do you also need to host my website?
No, you can use any host you like.
Can I transfer my domain name to a different registrar, are there any costs involved?
Yes, as you are the owner you are totally in control. We do not charge for transfers away.
Account Questions
How much do you charge for exceeding bandwidth limits?
We have quotas in place, so once you reach your bandwidth limit your website will be deactivated to prevent you from exceeding it. We send warning emails before you approach your quota to allow you plenty of time to increase your bandwidth by upgrading to a higher plan, or at $2/month for 5 GB.
Can I host multiple domains on one account (add-on domains)?
Yes! All our accounts allow you to host as many domains as you like.
Is there a maximum file size limitation?
There is no limit to the size of a single file you can upload via FTP or PHP. Additionally there is no limit to the number of individual files you can store in your account at any one time.
Is there any email attachment size limitation?
The attachment limit is a very generous 50 MB.
Is there any account usage limitation?
No, as long as all the content is legal your databases can be as big as you like and you can store as many files as your disk limit allows.
Can I upgrade my account if I need more space?
You can upgrade or downgrade your plan instantly, or add extras via the Account Control Panel.
The only price you pay is the difference between the new plan price and the old plan price. We never charge administration fees of any sort.
Do you offer a reseller service?
Sorry, we do not offer a reseller service. If you would like to provide a hosting service you may be interested in our managed dedicated servers. We can further help by selling you a licence for the premier webhost billing system; WHMCS and the ability to sell domain names to your customers.
WHMCS Questions
What are the differences between the licence types?
We offer two different types of WHMCS licence; branding and no-branding. Both licences provide exactly the same software, unlimited support and unlimited access to all the latest new releases.
Branded licences are provided at a reduced price because they include the following line at the bottom of every client area page:
Powered by WHMCompleteSolution
The branding-free licences do not contain this line. A branded lisence can be upgraded to unbranded at any time.
Support Questions
What support methods do you offer?
We offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via support ticket. Live chat and telephone support are also available at the advertised times. We?re here to help even on public holidays and Christmas day!
Are there any restrictions on the use of support (e.g. phone support for only emergency problems)?
No, there are no restrictions.
When I can expect to get a reply for a support ticket?
We answer support tickets in less than two hours, on average.
When is live chat and telephone support available?
Typically between 9am and 6pm - British time Monday to Friday.
Others
Do you backup users' accounts?
We make regular remote backups to a separate server to aid recovery in the event of hardware failure. We do not keep archive copies of files from individual accounts, so please contact us quickly if you need your account restoring.
We recommend that all customers take regular full backups from the Website Control Panel.
Do you have any configurations for preventing hacking issues?
Our servers are highly secure and have never been cracked. We have installed an additional firewall on the server as well as a virus scanner that is also available to customers! We also have a number of measures in place to prevent DDoS and brute-force attacks.
Sometimes individual websites are cracked (usually through an exploit in a script on that account) we monitor for this and will inform customers if we spot their website has been attacked.
Host X offers 10 times more space/bandwidth than Valcato, why are your limits smaller?
The simple answer is that we don't need to offer bigger limits; none of our customers are using the full amount of their allocated resources on our current plans.
Host X may offer each customer 200 GB disk space, but with between 200-300 customers per server that works out at 6 TB (60000 GB)! When a 6 TB hard drive is invented perhaps we?ll offer 200 GB disk space, but until that day we?ll continue offering realistic and achievable quotas.
It is for this exact reason we have our no overselling guarantee, you can use every bit and byte of your allocation.
