How much should this hosting cost?

Question

I have a client with a wordpress site that gets the following traffic.

1. 6.2-6.4 Million page views per month
2. Around 3 TB of Transfer per month
3. Most of the users are logged in, so the static caching options are not that effective. About 80% of the traffic is direct to the DB. We have about 20 plugins, but nothing too crazy.

Woth out knowing much more, How much do you think they should be paying per month for managed hosting? Not build your own, support your own server setups, but a support desk that you can call 24-7 and someone who updates your LAMP stack, etc.

I would not hold anyone to the amount, I just wanted to know what this group of experts would think was reasonable for 24 Hour managed / supported hosting for something of this size?

I just want to make sure that I am not way off base when I say our current cost is reasonable.

Answer 1

I would compare your hosting needs to what WordPress VIP Hosting provides for a flat rate of $500 per month with a $1,500 set up fee.

Here is what they provide for that amount:

• Your site running on the WordPress.com grid (over 1,200 servers in three data centers)
• Unlimited space and bandwidth
• 24/7 IT support
• Content Delivery Network and hourly backups
• Enterprise-level Akismet spam protection
• Optimization and security feedback on your site’s theme for a faster and more secure site
• Integration with WordPress.com features like Blogs of the Day, My Comments, Tag Surfer, and Gravatars
• Promotion of your new blogs on our Publisher Blog
• Sitemap and News Sitemap for better search engine and Google News exposure
• People logged in to WordPress.com will be logged in on your domain, making it easier for them to comment on your blog

Answer 2

This is going to come off as totally self promotional, and I believe I responded you on the wp-hackers list already :). But.. ZippyKid.com can do this for less than the $500/month. Exact costs will be based whether we can offload some content off to a CDN, where we get a better rate.

We don't charge any setup fees.