Zambian hosting

New billing information page:

We've put up some detailed information about our billing schedule, policies and practices. Please have a look and let us know if you have any questions.

Thank-you for seeking more information on our web and email hosting packages advertised in the January, February and March 2008 printed editions of The Lowdown. We look forward to serving your hosting needs and exceeding your expectations, as we have done for many happy clients since 1996. To the best of our knowledge, NinerNet is the only Zambian company dedicated to providing professional web and email hosting services. Our competitors are mostly the handful of large ISPs who offer hosting in addition to their core activity of providing Internet access, and web designers who resell the hosting services of big American and British hosting companies. We run our own servers, and we're focused on hosting.

Your goals are our goals. We want to make getting on the Internet hassle-free, quick, and reasonably priced for you. Whether you're just looking for a more professional image for your company email communications by using your own domain rather than your ISP's domain (or, even worse, a Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail address or the like), or you're looking for quicker and more reliable hosting for an existing website (along with our renowned support), or you're ready to start from scratch with a brand new website, we can get you up and running in short order.

Our rate structure is designed to allow flexibility for your future expansion, while not limiting you in the present. (Rates are in US dollars, and are payable locally in either kwachas or US dollars.) The vast majority of our clients choose one of the following two hosting packages, depending on whether or not they have or want a website:

ANNUAL HOSTING FEES FOR WEB AND EMAIL		Hosting features: Annual domain registration included with annual payment for gTLDs, dot-ca, dot-eu, dot-us and dot-za; web-based control panel for easy management; effective "spam" (unsolicited commercial email) blocking and filtering; visitor statistics; scripting and databases for more complex sites; FTP access; password protection; a web-based contact form to prevent exposing your email addresses to spammers; mailing list manager; SSL for secure connections; domain management. Included disk space (3 GB) and traffic allowance (10 GB) can be increased but are more than enough for most clients. Additional features available: Shopping carts, content management systems, newsletter managers, blogs, wikis, forums, photo galleries and other web applications, as well as extra disk space, bandwidth and email addresses. Additional domains are charged at 50%; hosting for additional domains pointing to the same website at no charge.
Set-up (one time only)	$15
Hosting fees ($15 x 12 months)	$180
Includes registration (with annual payment) and hosting for 1 domain, 3 GB of disk space for your website and email, 25 email accounts with unlimited forwarding addresses, and 10 GB of traffic.

ANNUAL HOSTING FEES FOR EMAIL ONLY		Hosting features: Annual domain registration included with annual payment for gTLDs, dot-ca, dot-eu, dot-us and dot-za; web-based control panel for easy management; effective "spam" (unsolicited commercial email) blocking and filtering; mailing list manager; domain management; parking page. Included disk space (3 GB) and traffic allowance (5 GB) can be increased but are more than enough for most clients. Additional features available: Extra disk space, bandwidth and email addresses. Additional domains are charged at 50%; hosting for additional domains pointing to the same domain at no charge.
Set-up (one time only)	$15
Hosting fees ($10 x 12 months)	$120
Includes registration (with annual payment) and hosting for 1 domain, 3 GB of disk space for your email, 25 email accounts with unlimited forwarding addresses, and 5 GB of traffic.

Web design

Our design firm can create the website you want in less time than you might imagine. What takes most companies weeks can be done in days by our skilled and professionally-trained team -- even quicker if you already have a logo or corporate image that we can work with. While we work with companies and organisations in a diverse range of industries, our design firm has experience in creating websites to meet the needs of the tourism industry and NinerNet is specifically interested in improving and developing the Zambian tourism industry and its image on the Web in international, regional and local markets. To this end we have options available that are affordable even for the smallest guest houses, and our streamlined design process gets you online as quickly and inexpensively as possible. We also link to your website from our network of established websites, ensuring that your website is visible in the search engines as quickly as possible, and stays there.

Custom design process

Our streamlined design process for custom-designed websites is tailored to provide you with a professionally-designed website in a short amount of time. We realise that you'd rather have an attractive and functional website than spend weeks trying to find just the right shade of mauve. Here's how it works:

You provide us with some things that we need to get started. (See the "What we need from you for a custom design" list below.)
We provide you with a detailed quote.
You decide to proceed and submit a non-refundable deposit of 50%. (All fees are payable locally in either kwachas or US dollars.)
Our design team prepares one or two mock-ups for your approval.
You approve the design, we build it.
On completion your site goes live and you submit the balance of the payment due.

Full details are available on this page.

What we need from you for a custom design

If we are designing your website from scratch, as much of the following as possible will be very helpful to ensure that you get a look you like:

An idea of the kinds of colours that appeal to you.
Pictures, if appropriate to your business.
Links to any websites that you particularly like.
If there are any websites in the designer's portfolio that you particularly like, please let us know which ones. (Keep in mind that some designs may require a higher budget.)
Any existing logos or other company artwork that you have available on disc.
Any printed materials that you already use, such as brochures, business cards, letterheads, etc.

Example budget for a custom design

A typical six-page website with no content management system is generally priced at US$1100. This gets you a unique, custom-designed website based on an existing logo that will present a professional image to your customers and potential customers. Adding a content management system will cost $300-$500, but will pay for itself in the long run by giving you the ability to update your website yourself, rather than paying someone to do so each time. If you don't have an existing logo or corporate image, we can design one for you, but this will incur an extra charge that we will discuss with you in advance. Full pricing details are available on this page.

Low-cost options for very small operations

We recognise the fact that there are many small businesses (particularly small guest houses with low nightly rates) that cannot justify the cost of a custom-designed website. For these businesses we offer non-custom sites based on templates that are also used for other websites. These websites look just as good as the custom-designed sites, but other websites may be using the same or a very similar design. We can set up a template-based website for you for little more than the annual hosting fees detailed above.