Managed cloud hosting - you choose the platform, we run it
Some websites are a shop window. Others are the shop floor, the booking system and the order book all at once. When yours is doing that much work, a share of a server stops being enough.
This tier gives your site compute, memory and storage of its own, on the cloud platform you pick – ours, Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud. Then we set it up, maintain it and watch it, so nobody in your business has to.
Priced on the size of server you need. Moving your existing sites across is included.
The big cloud platforms are genuinely powerful. Standing one up is genuinely painful.
Anyone who has tried knows the shape of it. Days lost to instance types, storage volumes, firewall rules and permissions – and at the end of all that, you still haven’t installed the website.
Then it goes live and the work changes rather than stops. Something has to be patched, something needs resizing, and a Tuesday morning disappears again.
The power is worth having. The administration isn’t yours to do. That’s the whole point of this page: the same infrastructure, with the building and the running handed over.
Who this is for - and who it isn't
Let’s get the honest bit out of the way first. Most business websites do not need this, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise.
If standard hosting is coping, stay there. A brochure site, a small shop, a few hundred visitors a day – Web Hosting handles that comfortably and for a fraction of the monthly investment. Buying a dedicated server for it is money doing nothing.
This tier earns its keep when: you’re a growing ecommerce business where a slow checkout costs real orders; you’re an agency or developer hosting client sites and you need staging, Git and room to work; or the site is simply too important to share a server with strangers.
Not sure which side of that line you’re on? Tell us what the site does and how busy it gets. We’ll say plainly if you don’t need us.
Three platforms, one honest answer
Our cloud
Usually the best value of the three, and the simplest to budget for – a data transfer allowance is included rather than metered separately. The right default unless you have a reason to be somewhere else.
Amazon Web Services
The largest cloud platform by number of users, with the widest spread of data centres and the longest list of services alongside it. Worth choosing if you’re already on AWS or need your site sitting next to something else you run there.
Google Cloud
A close second on scale, with global coverage and a strong network. The sensible pick if the rest of your business already lives in Google’s world.
For the great majority of sites, the day-to-day difference between the three is small. The real reason to choose AWS or Google Cloud is that you’re already there – and if you are, we can bring that hosting under our management rather than move it. Ask us and you’ll get a recommendation, not a preference.
What "fully managed" actually means
It’s an easy phrase to print and a harder one to mean. Here’s what it covers.
We size it and build it. You tell us what the site does; we work out the cores, memory and storage, spin the server up and configure it properly the first time.
We keep the underlying infrastructure right. Patching, maintenance and the hardware underneath are ours to worry about – or Amazon’s, or Google’s. Not yours.
We watch it. Round-the-clock monitoring, and a team in Bournemouth who pick up the phone when you’d rather talk to a person than raise a ticket. [add proof point]
You still get the keys. Developers who want hands-on access have it. Everyone else gets a control panel and never thinks about the server again.
Built for shops that are actually busy
An online store is the hardest thing to host well. Everything is fine until forty people check out at once, and then the queue that forms is your revenue standing still.
You can have your server tuned for that. PHP-FPM and OPcache keep WooCommerce quick when several customers are moving through the basket together, and there’s no cap on PHP workers, so concurrent checkouts don’t sit waiting for a slot.
Running Magento? Redis and Elasticsearch come configured, which is what makes Magento’s search and large catalogues behave the way they’re supposed to.
None of this is something you configure. Tell us it’s a shop and what it runs on, and it arrives set up.
For agencies and developers
If websites are your day job, the useful features are the unglamorous ones.
Staging and cloning. Copy a WordPress site, break it, fix it, push it live – without a client watching the process happen on their production site.
Git version control, built into the panel. Deploy from your repository instead of dragging files over FTP and hoping.
Room for the whole client list. One server can host as many sites as its resources allow, which is a very different billing conversation to one account per client.
Email that isn't fighting your website for room
Business email is included, with generous mailboxes and no per-user counting.
More usefully, it runs away from your web server. Your mail isn’t eating the compute and storage you bought for the website, and a busy morning of email doesn’t slow the shop down.
Already on Microsoft 365? Leave it exactly where it is. Nothing about this changes that.
Everything in one control panel
Most businesses that grow into cloud hosting end up with a mixed estate – a couple of sites here, something older there, a client project on AWS from two years ago.
All of it can sit in one panel. Sites on our cloud, sites on AWS, sites on Google Cloud, plus your databases, domains, email, files and Git repositories – one login, one place, one invoice.
That’s usually the thing people notice first. Not the servers. The fact that they’ve stopped hunting for logins.
How it's priced
This isn’t a shelf product, so it hasn’t got a shelf price. What you pay comes down to the size of server your sites actually need and which platform you put them on – our cloud, AWS and Google Cloud all cost different amounts to run.
So we quote it. Tell us what you’re running, how busy it gets and where it lives now, and you’ll get one monthly figure with the migration included.
Two things we’re always explicit about in a quote, because they’re where hosting bills tend to surprise people:
What’s actually in the monthly figure. Management, monitoring, backups, email and support are part of it, not added afterwards.
Data transfer. AWS and Google Cloud charge for traffic leaving the server, and our own cloud includes an allowance before doing the same. If your sites shift a lot of data, you’ll hear that from us up front rather than on the third invoice.
Outgrown the server you started on? It scales up whenever you need it to, without rebuilding anything.
Where this sits
High-Frequency Hosting
The speed tier, for sites where half a second is worth paying for.
High-Frequency HostingOur Hosting Platform
How the infrastructure underneath all of it actually works.
Our Hosting PlatformWorking with us
Plenty of firms will sell you a cloud server. Fewer of them will also know why your accounts package is timing out, because hosting is all they do.
We came at this from the other direction – an IT company that happens to host websites. Your server, your mailboxes, your staff laptops and your network sit with one team, so when something breaks there’s one number to ring and nobody spends a week deciding whose problem it is.
We’re in Bournemouth, working with businesses across Dorset and the South Coast. The platform underneath runs to a 99.99% uptime guarantee, and the redundancy behind that is what the rest of this page describes.
Getting started
1. Tell us about the site
What it’s built in, what it does for the business, and roughly how much traffic it carries. A short phone call covers it.
2. We size it and recommend a platform
You get a straight recommendation on cores, memory and whether ours, AWS or Google Cloud suits you – with the reasoning, not just the answer.
3. We build it and move you across
Migration from your current host is included and we run it. Your existing site keeps serving visitors until the new one is signed off.
If yours is unusually large, or has been built in an awkward way, we’ll say so and scope it before you commit – no surprises in either direction.
4. We run it from there
Maintained, monitored and looked after. You’ll hear from us when there’s something worth hearing about.
Get a quote for your setupCommon questions
The things people ask before they commit to a server – which platform, whether they need one, and what happens when the site outgrows it.
Anything technical we’ve missed, ask. You’ll get an answer from someone who runs these.
What is managed cloud hosting, in plain terms?
It’s a private server that belongs to your website – its own compute, memory and storage, rather than a share of a machine used by other people. The “managed” part means the setup, maintenance and monitoring are done for you, so you get the benefit without the system administration.
How do I know if I need it rather than standard hosting?
Usually the site tells you. Pages slowing down at busy times, a checkout that stalls under load, or a business that can’t trade if the site is off – those are the signs. If none of that sounds like you, standard web hosting is the better buy and we’ll say so.
Which platform should I choose?
Ours is generally the best value and the simplest to run. Choose AWS or Google Cloud if you’re already using them or you need the site alongside other services you run there. Tell us your situation and we’ll give you an honest recommendation.
We already have hosting on AWS. Can you take it over?
Often, yes – that’s a common reason people come to us. It stays where it is, but the management and the control panel become ours, which usually makes it cheaper to run and far less work to look after.
Do I need to be technical to use it?
No. Everything is managed through one control panel, and if you’d rather not touch even that, we’ll handle it. Developers who do want direct access still get it.
What happens if we outgrow the server?
You scale it up. Resources can be increased when you need them, without rebuilding the site or moving it anywhere.
Can we host more than one website on it?
Yes – as many as the server’s resources will comfortably carry. That’s what makes this tier work for agencies and for businesses running several brands.
Not sure this is the tier you need?
Good. That’s the right instinct, and it’s a cheaper conversation than the alternative.
Tell us what your site does and we’ll point you at the smallest thing that does the job properly – even when that isn’t this page.