It's a build as you go option.. buy in bulk it becomes cheaper..
You maybe right it may very well be worth investigating..
Host costs work out around £250 to £300 a year, Depends on what you want more storage, memory, CPU cost more money.. ATM it's about £260 a year.. I say £300 to cover upgrade asked I have upgrades to perform which require setting up a separate server in the interim, as the Linux varient is so outdated, the software Xenforo cannot be updated. Here is where I could probably look at an alternative host.. Suggestion would be great..
ATM 50gb, 2 GB Ram, Dual Core
Moving forward.. probably look at.. 50gb - 80gb host, dual to quad core CPU, 2-4 GB ram
The database is the thing we carry out our own backup's which takes space.. With manager d hosti solution we wouldn't have to worry about that, as the host would do all that for you..
The bigger the site gets the more infrastructure it needs.. we learnt quickly a single cpu could not deal with the amount of traffic we receive.. Each user represent a connection to the database.. opening thread generates queries, which increases CPU load.. Get 800 users online during a match day thread (which we have had on a few rare occasion) you grind to a halt..
So that was upgraded...
Xenforo Licences £65 (inc Vat) a year
Other licences £50 - £80 a year
Domains £10-£20 a year