Eleven2 Review - Are They Reliable or Another Hosting Dud?

Name: Eleven2
Plans: Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated.
Website: www.eleven2.com
Summary: Eleven2 doesn’t get the best reviews online. Their shared plans are very appealing. However, once I dive deeper into Eleven2 I find there are some big holes in their company. This Eleven2 review will show what other webmasters are stating about them.

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Eleven2 was started in 2003. They have been in business for over 10 years now. Currently, they have over 100,000 websites that are hosted on their servers. They have headquarters that are located in 4 different locations. The locations are in Houston, Texas, Dallas Texas, London England, and Singapore Asia. Right on their “About Eleven2” page on their site it states that they never sleep. They are always there to answer any questions and concerns you might have. But, what are webmasters saying about their experiences working with Eleven2? Are they ranting and raving about their top of the line infrastructure? Or are they ripping them to shreds over problems and issues?

Well, you’re in luck because today is the day I am going to evaluate them. I have reviewed a number of different hosting companies over the years. I research them to the point where I pretty much get to know what webmasters are loving and hating about Eleven2. I’m looking at their features, uptime, reliability, customer support, and then their price tag. At the end of my Eleven2 review, I will then either recommend them or point you in another direction. So let’s get started and take a look at everything that Eleven2 has to offer.

Eleven2 Features

They offer a number of different web hosting plans; 4 different types of plans total. They offer shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. I am going to go into further details about the plans that Eleven2 offers.

Shared Plans

The first plan they offer are shared plans. These are great for small businesses, personal websites, blogs, and charities. These plans are really appealing because you get a lot for the money. Pretty much any kind of site that isn’t going to get over 200-300 visitors per day. They offer 4 different shared plans. Here are the plans they offer:

S-100

10 GB Storage.
50 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
10 Domains Supported.
Free Setup.

$5.95/month, $59.40/year, $118.80/2 years, $178.20/3 years.

S-200

250 GB Storage.
20,000 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
Unlimited Domains.
Free Setups.

$10.00/month, $96.00/year, $144.00/2 years, $216.00/3 years.

S-300

500 GB Storage.
40,000 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
Unlimited Domains.
Free Setups.
Free SSL Certificate.
Free Dedicated IP Address

$20.00/month, $192.00/year, $288.00/2 years, $432.00/3 years.

S-400

999,999 GB Storage.
999,999 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
Unlimited Domains.
Free Setups.
Free SSL Certificate
Free Dedicated IP Address

$40.00/month, $384.00/year, $576.00/2 years, $800.00/3 years.

For the S-100 and S-200 plans, you can purchase an SSL Certificate for $69.99/year or dedicated IP Address for $4/month.

I do like how Eleven2 does give you the total bill for monthly, yearly, bi-yearly, and for 3 year plans. A lot of other hosting companies you don’t learn this until you are almost ready to check out. I really wish other companies would start doing this. It’s more of a straight forward approach that a lot of webmasters do like.

As you can see their shared hosting plans are pretty high compared to SiteGround, Hostpapa, and GoDaddy.

Reseller Plans

Eleven2 does offer a number of reseller hosting plans for their clients. This is a great way to get residual income from your clients that develop websites for. The details of the four reseller plans they are offer are down below:

R-100

100 GB Storage.
1,000 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
ClientExec or WHMCS.
Dedicated IP Address.

$19.95/month, $215.46/year, $383.04/2 years, $502.74/3 years.

R-200

200 GB Storage.
2,000 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
ClientExec or WHMCS.
Dedicated IP Address.

$34.95/month, $377.46/year, $671.04.04/2 years, $880.74/3 years.

R-300

300 GB Storage.
3,000 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
ClientExec or WHMCS.
Dedicated IP Address.

$49.95/month, $539.46/year, $959.04.04/2 years, $1,258.74/3 years.

R-400

500 GB Storage.
4,000 GB Monthly Bandwidth.
ClientExec or WHMCS.
Dedicated IP Address.

$79.95/month, $863.46/year, $1,535.04.04/2 years, $2,014.74/3 years.

VPS Plans

If you’re looking for a VPS server Eleven2 has also got that. They have 3 different plans you can choose from. Here are the details of the plans offered.

VS-100

1 GB RAM.
120 GB Storage.
1 TB of Monthly Bandwidth.

This plan cost $49/month or $529/year.

VS-200

2 GB RAM.
240 GB Storage.
2 TB of Monthly Bandwidth.

This plan cost $99/month or $1,069/year.

VS-300

3 GB RAM.
360 GB Storage.
3 TB of Monthly Bandwidth.

This plan cost $149/month or $1,609/year.

These servers are fully managed servers. They state that no matter what is happening on the server you are guaranteed the resources stated. They won’t oversell the servers so that your VPS isn’t ever bogged down. You can also scale up or down at anytime. The data centers are located in Los Angeles or Amsterdam.

Dedicated Plans

Last but least, Eleven2 does offer a number of different dedicated plans. Currently, they offer 4 different plans. The details are down below:

DS-100

Intel i3-3220 CPU.
4 GB of RAM.
500 GB Raid 1 HD + 1 TB backup.
3 TB Bandwidth.
$199/month.

DS-200

Intel e3-1270v2 CPU.
8 GB of RAM.
2x 1 TB Raid 1 HD + 1 TB backup.
6 TB Bandwidth.
$299/month.

DS-300

Hexa-Core Xeon e5-2620.
16 GB of RAM.
4x 1 TB Raid 1 HD + 2 TB backup.
10 TB Bandwidth.
$499/month.

DS-400

Dual Hexa-Core Xeon e5-2620.
32 GB of RAM.
4x 2 TB Raid 1 HD + 4 TB backup.
10 TB Bandwidth.
$699/month.

The location for your data center will be in Los Angeles.

Control Panel

Eleven2 Control Panel

Eleven2 does come with free cPanel on all their plans. This means that it makes no difference which plan you choose you’re never going to have to pay a cPanel licensing fee. I do pay a yearly licensing fee with InMotionhosting.com. This really appeals to a lot of webmasters because usually, they have to budget for an extra monthly or yearly expense. I have no problems or issues with the control panel they use. In fact, it’s my preferred control panel.

Money Back Guarantee

Eleven2 does have a great money back guarantee. A lot of other web hosting companies generally have a policy where they will give you a prorated refund with 30 days if you’re unhappy with your service or just don’t want to do business with them anymore. However, I have found that Eleven2 has a 60-day money back guarantee. This is better than Hostgator.com which only offers a 45-day money back guarantee. This is double what the industry standard is.

All the prices and features really do look great. I mean what isn’t to love about shared hosting that gives you a ton of resources The S-200 comes with 20,000 GB of bandwidth. This is insane! Heck, my VPS with InMotion gives me 3 TB which is about the same as their shared plan for $10 a month. But, here is the real question; is their service worth it? I have seen so many host that look great on paper, but once you actually sign up for them things might be a little bit different. I guess we will see if this is the case with Eleven2.

Eleven2 Uptime & Performance

Uptime

Eleven2 Uptime

Uptime is a pretty important part of running a successful web hosting company. As webmasters, we freak out if our websites go down. We can’t afford to monitor our sites through Pingdom tools and every second our website is down we are loosing money or dealing with our clients that demand answers to why their website is down.

According to WebHostingStuff.com, they have been up 99.97% of the time. This is excellent. What webmaster in their right mind isn’t going to love uptime like that? But, the real questions is what are Eleven2 customers saying about their uptime. Well, it doesn’t quite seem to be that dependable. In fact, websites get suspended from time to time, and your site could go down at random times during the month.

So, uptime isn’t one of the best things about Eleven2. No, I am not stating that if you avail of their services you’re going to have lots of downtimes, but then again you “could”. In fact, uptime and customer support are my two big issues with Eleven2.

Performance

Performance varies from host to host. No matter what they tell you on their website it really doesn’t make any difference at all if they don’t deliver. What I mean is if they tell you they are using the latest and greatest hardware and then you test it out and you find out your website runs slowly; those words don’t really matter. So, Eleven2 does state they have excellent hardware and their performance is great. But is it really?

Eleven2 Response Time

I actually use Isitdownrightnow.com to check their servers response times. Basically, you just go to that site and put in their domain name “Eleven2.com”. This will tell you if the website is up or down. But, it also shows you their response time. A good response time is below 20 ms. Eleven2 had excellent response times. It was lightning fast 4.37 ms. This is blazing fast and is right up their with InMotion and MDDHosting.com.

But, what about their TTFB (time to first byte). This is a number that shows us how quickly their servers respond to the first byte. Typically, you want these numbers under 400 ms. Again, Eleven2 was .200. This is very very good. I have no problems or issues with their performance. Generally, their past customers haven’t complained much about performance issues.

Eleven2 Customer Service

Eleven2 states that they never sleep on their website. Meaning that if you need to get ahold of them at anytime you should be able to do so. There are a number of different ways you can get ahold of them. The first is through telephone support. They have agents standing by 24/7. Next, is their ticketing system; you can send them a support ticket 24/7. Last, is my preferred way to get ahold of a host; this is through live chat. As you might have guessed this is also available 24 hours a day.

However, just from reading their contact us page I found out that technical support is available 24/7. Sales are only around Monday through Friday (7 AM to Midnight CST). Billing and management are around the same hours as sales.

Customer support is one of the most vital factors to running a successful web hosting company. Just having that extra little security blanket is something that really goes a long way. As webmasters we have to contact support from time to time. We want our questions answered quickly and the agent needs to be helpful. However, with Eleven2 I have read numerous articles that state they are slow at responding and they seem to create a support ticket for just about everything. Meaning, that sure you can call them and ask them your questions, but their response will be “we will have to start a support ticket”. Therefore, you are just waiting on Eleven2 to reply to you through a support ticket. Furthermore, I have read a number of threads on WebHostingTalk.com that constantly complain about the customer support.

I actually, also heard that they outsource their customer support. I wanted to get an answer to this question. I jumped on live chat and ask them if they outsource their customer support. They told me it’s against our company policy to disclose that information. So, I guess it’s just speculation and no one really know other than the people that control the company. Overall, I believe customer support could be improved. They have a lot of work ahead of them. Stop creating support tickets for any and everything. I put support down there with 1&1.com and WebHost4Life.com.

Eleven2 Summary

So, here is the question you probably want to know the answer to. Is Eleven2 worth you’re hard earned money? The simple answer is no. Why? Because, I have issues with their uptime which could be problematic. There have been a number of webmasters that have reported this issue over the years. Next, customer support could be much better. True, they are around 24/7, but if they have to start a support ticket for almost all of your questions; you’re going to be losing sleep and waiting for them to get back with you. I really, just see those two major issues to be enough to pick another host.

So, who should you host with? Go with InMotion for VPS, reseller, and dedicated servers. Optionally, if you know that your site is going to expand and you want to start out with their shared plan you can start with them too. However, if you know your site is only going to need a shared server I would go with WebHostingHub.com.

If you found this Eleven2 review helpful would you mind supporting tbwhs.com by sharing this article on Twitter, Facebook, Google +1, etc? I would really like to hear from customers that have used Eleven2. Please take the time to rate them and leave a comment up above. Good or bad I will publish everything. Thanks for reading my review.

This part of my Eleven2 review is where you get to see my research. Meaning, that I research every web hosting company that I review for articles, blog post, reviews, threads, etc. to see what information I can find on them. Once I find these pieces of content I will then only post stuff on tbwhs.com which I feel comes from a creditable source.

I will then post the a short summary of the piece of content I find on Eleven2 and put in one of the following categories; positive, negative, or neutral. This gives you a chance to take a lot at what others are saying about different web hosting companies. I really feel this helps us get a better understanding of the web hosting company in question. Please take a second to look through the content I have found on Eleven2.

“Positive”

“Negative”

WebHostingTalk.com

On WebHostingTalk.com there was a thread that was started by “redcell1”. He started a thread in May of 2012. The title of the thread is called “Eleven2 Review – Don’t waste your time with them.” He basically stated that he heard some good things about Eleven2 and wanted to give them a try. Just a couple months in he had problems and issues with them. He states that their servers are slow and his site is being redirected to a random site.

A member of Eleven2 team did show up on the thread and asked for the support ticket ID and domain name. The original poster told Eleven2 that he’s already spent several hours explaining simple things to customer support. He even had to answer to his clients which wanted to know why their website didn’t work correctly.

The member from Eleven2 “Nick_H” requested that they contact their CEO. The original poster expressed that their technical support team should be able to handle little problems and you shouldn’t have to contact the CEO for every little minor detail.

The thread goes on for 5 pages and you can bet I read every comment on there. What is sad is one user pointed out 3 other threads which show how lousy Eleven2 has become. And “~Lee~” stated they have been getting bad reviews recently, which a lot of other webmasters had predicted. Basically, they get ripped to shreds on WebHostingTalk.com.

ReviewPon.com

Reviewpon.com is another web hosting review site much like tbwhs.com. They don’t have as many reviews as my site, but their author Cam Secore has reviewed 25 different hosting companies. Here are some of the highlights from his review:

Likes:

Told exactly how much bandwidth you can use.
Shared plans pack a serious value.
Very quick FTP speeds.
You can choose your servers location.

Dislikes:

Working with support is a chore. Everything goes to a support ticket. Then you wait.
Support tickets don’t always get answered. Sometimes you have to send 2-3 of them.
Support might be outsourced.
Long wait times (over 20 minutes on hold).

Cam Secore doesn’t speak very highly of Eleven2. In fact, he rates them a D on A to F ranking system. Support is one thing you just won’t receive with Eleven2. Long story short there is much better host out there.

HostJury.com

HostJury, like tbwhs.com, provides reviews and analysis of the web hosting sites. They open the page with a brief “about us” blurb provided by the host, and a screen shot of their price schedule. Then there is a graph with an overall score for the important categories under consideration. In this case, HostJury.com has done a review of Eleven2. Let’s see what they have to say.

Overall Score:

On a scale of zero to one hundred, Eleven2 has a score of only 37. That’s not very good, in my book they get 31 in the “support” category and 33 in uptime. Features get a score of 37, and the price gets the highest score at 48. I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, that’s an F.

Customer Reviews:

There were a few customers who said they really like Eleven2. However, the majority of them had some significant problems. One user said that their server with Eleven2 was blacklisted, and E2 would not issue a refund on their contract.

Customers have had trouble with the firewall, permissions, and have lost their domains. Others complain of hacking, slow load times, and extensive downtime of their sites. One person who lost his domain had to pay 2 thousand dollars to get it back.

Customer service has tanked, according to customers who have had accounts there for several years. Tickets go unanswered for weeks, and no one ever answers the customer service line.

From the reviews here, you’d be better off with another host. Nearly, everyone that has taken the time to leave a review has complained about something. They have a long list of complaints from their customers. Since their overall rating is a 37 and nearly everyone is complaining about something I am adding this to my negative section for Eleven2.

WhoIsHostingThis.com

WhoIsHostingThis is a website that reviews web hosting services, much like tbwhs.com does. They provide a brief explanation of the host they are reviewing, along with a checklist of the key features. If there is a discount coupon in effect, they will provide that, as well. They also provide an overall score based on five stars, with five being the best. The price for the basic package is listed, followed by customer reviews. In this review, WhoIsHostingThis.com is evaluating Eleven2.

Overall Score

WhoIsHostingThis.com gives Eleven2 an overall score of only two and a half stars out of five. The highest scores are three stars for features and value. Support only has two and a half stars while uptime a dismal two stars.

Customer Scores

Customers seem to either love or hate Eleven2. However, even those who give Eleven2 four stars only five it one star on uptime. I don’t know how they can like a host that has such poor record for uptime – if the server is down so is your business.

The majority of customers give Eleven2 at least three stars for value. Once again, how can it be valuable if it is down most of the time? Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean I should buy it.

Support gets one star from most customers, who complain that support just tells them problems are their own fault. Recurring or persistent problems, that require more than one call, result in a different answer each time.

Others say that just setting up an account is an ordeal, taking over a week.

Really, it doesn’t look like Eleven2 gets a lot of good feedback on WhoIsHostingThis.com. Out of the 16 reviews that were left on their site only 2 of them were praising them. It seems that webmasters are outraged with Eleven2. For this reason I am adding this piece of my research to my negative section.

“Neutral”

BestHostNews.com

BestHostNews provides reviews of web hosting sites, like tbwhs.com does. They offer a brief summary of the site they review along with a total score. Then, there is a graph for the editor’s score and for customers’ scores. You’ll see the editors’ analysis of the service, followed by reviews and scoring on a five-star scale by customers who have used the web host. In this case, we’re looking at what BestHostNews.com has to say about Eleven2. Their conclusions are somewhat inconclusive, with a pretty even balance of good and bad when discussing hosting by Eleven2.

Overall Score

The editor, in studying Eleven2, concluded that the company deserves a 7.5 on a ten point scale. He gives Eleven2 a score of 8 on value and uptime (despite there being various complaints about downtime on WebHostingTalk.com which were reported in 2014), and a 7.5 on support (they logged onto live chat and got a response in just minutes), with a seven for features and speed. They do use cPanel and are integrated with CloudFlare.

However, the overall scores from customers who bought the service are only 4.9 out of ten. Speed and uptime only get 5.2, while features get five points. Support and value get 4.7. This makes it hard to decide just from reviews whether or not Eleven2 is a good choice.

Customers Said:

The editor’s conclusion for Eleven2 was that the price is about right for the services, but server downtime could be a problem. They rate it as a satisfactory provider.

The customers say that if you are going to have a lot of traffic to your website, you’d best go elsewhere for your hosting needs. Otherwise, your site or sites could be down for an extended amount of time.

Overall, about 9 comments have been left so far and there have been a couple of really rotten comments left about Eleven2. However there were a number of comments which did praise them. So, since the editor review is pretty high (7.5), but the user reviews are 4.9 there seems to be mixed reviews on them. Overall, they do get a 6.2 out of 10 which is a passing grade. For this reason I am adding this piece of my research to my neutral section.

Interviews are a great way to get some real user feedback on different host. What better way to see what it’s like working with Eleven2.com than by conducting an email interview with webmasters that have used their service in the past. I love doing interviews on different web hosting companies really feel it adds a lot of value to tbwhs.com. If you would like to do an interview with me about Eleven2 please contact me. You can always reach out to me on Twitter @tbwhs.

All content on tbwhs.com are opinions and not facts. I have thoroughly reviewed each company and then provide my personal opinions on them. It's up to you as the consumer to do your due diligence and do more research if you feel something might be inaccurate.