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A Small Orange (ASO) was founded in Atlanta more than a decade ago in 2003. Today, the company is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and has a dynamic 80-person team.
With close to 12 years of experience and having served tens of thousands of customers, ASO prides itself on delivering high-quality web hosting and excellent customer service. The company’s four core values are dependability, passion, integrity, and relationships. It strives to develop meaningful relationships with customers to ensure long-term satisfaction with its services.
In order to provide the best possible service, ASO maintains two different U.S.-based servers in Dallas, Texas, and Dearborn, Michigan. Both data centers boast high-performance, carrier neutral networks. ASO is committed to keeping your data secure, and its data centers include a range of security features, including 24/7/365 on-site support technicians; physical ID checks, biometric access, and keycard access; and full CCTV surveillance that is backed by digital recording on file. Both data centers boast multi-homed, carrier-neutral high-performance IP managed premium networks and make use of Arbor Networks PeakFlow DDoS detection.
The company A Small Orange (co-owned and lead by Douglas Hanna back then) was acquired by Endurance International Group (NASDAQ: EIGI) in 2012. If you have not heard of EIG – they are the company who also own iPage, BlueHost, Hostgator, JustHost, FatCow, and a number of many other popular hosting brands). We did an interview with Douglas in 2009 (back when the time he was with Hostgator)- just in case you are into the company history.
A Small Orange Hosting Plans
ASO shared hosting plans come in five different sizes: Tiny Plan (500 MB storage, 5 GB bandwidth, 1 domain), Small Plan (5 GB storage, 50 GB bandwidth, unlimited domains), Medium Plan (15 GB storage, 150 GB bandwidth, unlimited domains), and the Large Plan (30 GB storage, 500 GB bandwidth, unlimited domain). Prices range from $35 per year to $240 per year*.
All shared hosting plans include SSD hard drives, 24/7/365 service and support, POP3, IMAP, and webmail access with spam and virus filtering, full FTP and SFTP access, and database management via phpMyAdmin. Customers are also able to install and configure a variety of different scripts with the Softaculous automatic script installation, which is included free with every hosting account.
Business Hosting
ASO business hosting plans can meet the needs of small businesses and large corporations alike. Business plans are available in three different sizes: the Startup Plan (40 GB storage and 600 GB bandwidth), the Small Business Plan (50 GB storage and 800 GB bandwidth), and the Enterprise Plan (60 GB storage and 1,000 GB bandwidth). Prices range from $20 per month to $60 per month* depending on the plan. All business hosting plans include a free SSL certificate, webmail access with spam and virus filtering, full FTP and SFTP access, database management via phpMyAdmin, Webalizer and AWStats site statistics, and 24/7 Email + Live Chat Support. All business plans are fully PCI compliant. These hosting plans are ideal for e-commerce sites or high traffic sites.
Reseller Hosting
ASO offers three hosting plans for those who want to resell hosting services: the Small Plan (20 GB storage, 250 GB bandwidth, 30 hosted websites), the Medium Plan (25 GB storage, 500 GB bandwidth, 50 hosted websites), and the Large Plan (50 GB storage, 1,500 GB bandwidth, 100 hosted websites). All ASO reseller hosting plans are fully scalable and environmentally friendly. Prices range from $15 per month to $35 per month*. All come with 24/7/365 expert technical support, webmail access with spam and virus filtering, full FTP and SFTP access, and Webalizer and AWStats site statistics.
Cloud VPS
ASO offers cloud VPS hosting with 2 cores, 2,048 MB of RAM, 30 GB of storage, and 1,000 GB of bandwidth at $30 per month*. Plans include integrated automatic failover, Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization technology, and free backups.
* Note: All prices stated here are BEFORE discount. Apply promo code “WHSR20” upon ordering to save 20% on all ASO hosting plans.
A Small Orange vs World
For your reference, here’s what you’ll get at $5/mo with other hosting services.
| Features / Web Host | ASO | BlueHost | Hub | A2 Hosting | Host Metro |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan in review | Small | Plus | Spark | Swift | Mega Max |
| SSD strorage | |||||
| Data transfer | 50 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Addon domain | 5 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Auto installer | Softaculous | Simple Scripts | Softaculous | Softaculous | Softaculous |
| Full refund trial | 90 days | 30 days | 90 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| WHSR’s rating |  |
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| Signup price (12-months) |
$3.33/mo | $5.95/mo | $3.74/mo | $4.90/mo | $4.45/mo for life |
- Very Reliable – The test site score 99.99% uptime on the first month (check uptime review below).
- Fast Hosting, SSD Storage in RAID 10 – Test site response time range in 200 – 400 ms according to Uptime Robot and Pingdom, which is relative fast when you compare to my most other test sites (U.S. hosted, response time range in 1,000 – 2,500 ms).
- Room to expand – Basically you don’t have to worry about outgrowing your web host at ASO.
- 90 days full money back trial period – 90-days full money back guarantee is the longest trial period you can get (the other two hosting brands that offer the same are InMotion and WebHostingHub). It’s easy to pull the plug if you are unhappy with ASO services.
- No overselling – ASO does not oversell – you get what you paid for.
- Outstanding customer support – I contacted ASO customer support twice and they passed my test with flying colors.
- Exclusive discount (update July 2015) – You get 20% discount on all plan using promo code “WHSR20”.
- Additional services for busy websites owners – In addition to its hosting services, ASO offers web design, server management, and SEO services, which I believe it’s a huge plus for busy business owners.
- Account suspension rules – If you exceed the allocated bandwidth, your ASO account might be suspended until further payment has been made (read TOS quoted below). Imagine your site got lucky, landed on Reddit’s front page, and you didn’t know about it – disaster.
A Small Orange TOS (11 – Bandwidth Usage)
11.2. Should your account pass the allocated amount, A Small Orange reserves the right to: a) suspend the account until the start of the next allocation, b) suspend the account until more bandwidth is purchased at an additional fee, c) suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, and/or d) charge you an additional fee for the overages.
Source : http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/a-small-orange-review/