In a bid to retain their existing customers and attract new ones, shared providers include many free add-ons in their plans, such as:
- SSL Certificate
- Website Builder
- Email Accounts
- Content Delivery Network
- Malware Scanning & Removal
- Cloud Storage
- File Management Tools
- SEO Tools
- Marketing and Analytics Tools
However, clients tend to shy away from the available free add-on features for the following reasons.
Lack of awareness
Shared clients probably know and use the number of business email accounts in the shared package but seldom explore the other available add-ons. They usually focus on the type of domain, the storage capacity, and the bandwidth.
Online business owners tend to leave the website setup to their more tech-savvy officials, who decide which add-ons their employer should know about and use.
Setup challenges
Many add-ons require configuration and integration knowledge, which users find challenging to acquire.
Shared hosting users of free add-ons for WordPress in 2024 complain that it’s tough to make anything out of their plugin suite, primarily through the Design-your-own feature.
Of the free features listed above, SSL certificates and content management systems (CMS) are notoriously tricky to set up.
Clients can’t find what they need
If an online business involves content creation, its owner should seek free SEO plugins.
To set up an online store, one should focus on free add-ons for sales funnels, website builders, and CMS solutions.
However, shared providers never offer the above list of free add-ons in its entirety.
So, when looking for a shared plan, clients should carefully check the providers’ offers and shortlist the ones that provide for most of their business needs.
Performance concerns
Many shared clients falsely assume that using too many free add-ons makes their website less responsive.
In a shared environment, clients share server resources like computing power, RAM, and storage.
For this reason, they should keep their websites simple and effective, focusing on less resource-intensive add-on features.
Too many add-ons to choose from
When clients shop around for a shared plan, they often get overwhelmed by the variety of free add-ons offered by different providers.
As a result, they miss out on important ones that will work for them. Worse, they may install ones that conflict with their business model or the design of their site.
Clients forget to renew their subscriptions
Many free add-ons for shared plans require a regular subscription renewal. However, shared clients usually forget to sign up again for the free add-ons they use less often, thus losing access to them altogether.
Later, when they discover the expired subscription, they prefer to look for a new add-on that does a similar job rather than return to their previous choice.
Poor provider-client communication
Shared hosts make little money from their free add-ons, so they do not put much effort into advertising them.
When signing their contract, the clients usually skim through the fine-print sections, where the free add-ons and services typically hide.
Also, the customer care services shared hosts use can be insufficient when explaining to clients how to set up a particular free add-on. Instead, they forward their queries to virtual assistants and self-help forum threads.
Security worries
More than 280,000 Chrome users installed potentially vulnerable extensions in 2024, Forbes writes, citing a report by researchers from Stanford University and the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security.
Email services or third-party integrations sometimes collect private user data that can leak to hackers or scammers.
In view of these concerns, users tend to underutilize add-ons that are generally safe and reliable.
Conclusion
Even if shared hosts offer a variety of add-ons for free, their customers tend to underutilize them for the reasons discussed above.
Last but not least, many valuable add-ons are only free for a limited time. After that, they require a monthly subscription, which increases the total cost of the shared plan.
