HostingNZ is a family-run web hosting company that manages several servers in Auckland (New Zealand) and Dallas (U.S.A.). This New Zealand-based business was acquired in March 2016 by Dynamite Design & Hosting, which itself had been founded in 2007. The HostingNZ website is in English.
Features and Ease of Use
HostingNZ offers eight shared hosting plans (four each for Linux and Windows), four Linux reseller hosting plans (with two additional Windows reseller plans listed on the cart page), four email hosting plans, and four VPS plans.
With the Linux shared hosting plans, you can expect to find these features:
- cPanel control panel
- 500 MB to 3 GB disk space
- 2 GB to 35 GB bandwidth
- 1 to 7 web domains
- 2 to 20 email addresses
- Up to 7 subdomains
- 1 to 7 MySQL databases
- PHP versions 5.5 and 7.2
- Free SSL certificate
There are several ways to populate your website with content. Firstly, the SitePad website builder lets you create a professional-looking website without having to be a coder. Secondly, the Softaculous auto-installer helps you install a CMS or other app without any technical expertise. Thirdly, since HostingNZ supports an e-commerce shopping cart, you can easily set up an online store and start selling.
Once your website is up-and-running, you can expect it to stay up almost all the time thanks to the 98% uptime guarantee. Although this is lower than the industry average, it does make clear that you get a full month’s refund if your website goes down for more than 2% of the time in the preceding month. But beware that you have to claim within 60 days of the end of the month in which the downtime occurs.
Aside from the shared hosting plans, the VPS plans offer several unlimited resources, including bandwidth, email addresses, subdomains, and MySQL databases. You also get weekly server snapshots to help you recover if anything goes awry.
Pricing and Support
HostingNZ’s shared hosting plans are pricey. You can pay for them in New Zealand dollars on monthly to annual billing cycles by PayPal, check, credit card, or bank transfer. All hosting plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and annual billing affords you a free domain.
For self-help, you can refer to HostingNZ’s knowledge base, or access the server status page to see that everything is running smoothly (or not). For one-to-one support, you can contact the customer support team via telephone, ticket, email, or live chat. I got some good answers via the live chat channel:
