I provide domain and hosting to my customers along with web design.

Over the past 6 months I have had real issues with clients not paying there domain and hosting charges within the 30 days of invoice so I suspend the account on the 31st day.

I also warn them that there is a reconnection charge of €35 if there domain is suspended. This is automatically added to the account on suspension.

My question is:
Are there any other designers out their doing the same or is this an unfair charge!!!


I was thinking of dropping the charge as it causes disputes.
All feedback welcome.

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Alan (Neweb Ireland)
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The one thing we all have in common is that we are all different!

I'm not in your field, but just an idea, maybe you could offer to commute the charge if they sign up with your for direct debit...

I pay for my hosting on D/D and it's no big deal to me.

cheers,
Geoff.

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I'm not sure about the reconnection fee, but I'd have no issues with suspending accounts for non-payment

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The €35 charge - whats this as a % of the cost?

Out of curiosity, do your clients ever give you a reason ?

We have a low number of sites hosted (just under 200) but we probably charge 3 or 4 times the market rate, but then we do everything for our clients - reset passwords, modify sites, help with everything - none of them want to move. So we're a bit slow to turn them off, even if they are 3 months late - but 3 months is extreme. Most of them are around 40 days late - a couple of friendly reminders does it.

But if you don' charge a lot, it's not worth it either!

Instead of turning them off, you can also suspend their account without turning off the site - deny them access to e-mail for a day - you'll get a call within an hour. Turning off their site is very public and embarrassing too!

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Search Engine Optimisation | Website Design | SEO Ireland | Irish Gifts for him and for her

100% agree with this but I'll go one further... The last people that did this to me, I moved my hosting from. It was their mistake and they barely apologised for it!

So if you are turning off sites... be ultra sure its the clients fault!

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My Blog thing!

I have no problems suspending an account due to experience. As much as I hate to say it, the Irish have a reputation for holding back on the money. Getting paid is the biggest problem for most companies.
I suppose you could say the charge is the fee for the time and effort it takes to get paid.
Same here, we do everything for our clients. So our hosting is above average also. I have a number of customers for over 6 years, I also have customers that have left and come back.

I have lots of customers who pay there bill on time. I have never cut them off so no issue with embarrassment.

Its not me embarrassing the customer, it’s the customer doing it to themselves.
As for cutting a customer off by mistake, its never happened and it never will with the system I have in place.

Invoice is issued, 10 days they get a reminder, 20 days another reminder, 25 days final reminder, 31 days account suspended.

Seems a bit hard I know but I'm not a charity. I make it my business to pay my providers within 10 days of Invoice issue. I can't achieve this if I am left waiting for money. Why should my providers have to wait.