CanSpace Solutions vs. Site5 2020

th ago - I'm paying a few dollars more a month but now my site is flying. I never realized Wordpress was not supposed to be so slow. They also helped me install some caching plugins and set up CloudFlare, which has made a massive difference. They definitely know Wordpress and I would recommend them to anyone hosting a Wordpress site.

s really amazing is the service you get through chat. Way over what you would expect for such monthly cost

my contact list says my emails are going to their spam filter - only Gmail accounts were reliably receiving messages from our domains. Of course CanSpace had no idea what I was talking about but this is the same host that repeatedly cited 'propagation time' and 'client email configuration' as the reason for almost 48 hours downtime with the transfer of these domains. In the end it turned out that their 'senior' tech discovered that our MX records had been incorrectly entered -- but no apologies offered for the lies told by their incompetent support staff. I should further add that this was only discovered after raising almost a dozen tickets because guess what? Despite claiming to offer 24/7 telephone support, their phone lines were mysteriously down when we called as they were "in the middle of moving offices" - of course. When I escalated the situation to owner Sunil and explained how messages from our domains were being blocked by half our address book since transferring them to Canspace, I was told to sign up for Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) - at an added cost - to better ensure that our messages were whitelisted. Fifteen years using the same domains with various hosts, no problem. Day one and every day after with Canspace, half the messages being sent from our domain are blocked. It was such a disruption to our business during our busiest time of year that we had to switch to using a Gmail account to ensure reliable email communication. The eventual solution? Transferring the domains the hell away from CanSpace to Namespro based in Vancouver. Total downtime? 3 hours but more importantly once again all of our emails are reaching our clients and the nightmare that is CanSpace is thankfully over. Deal with CanSpace at your own risk.

, I switched my site to a cheaper plan. Site5 refunded the unused portion of my old plan; however, I did not realize until recently that they had never cancelled the billing for the old plan, and it renewed in 2018 for another two-year term even while my new plan for the same domain name was still active. My new plan also auto-renewed in 2019 for two more years. So for my last two two-year terms, I have been double-billed for the same website.
I was told via a site5 chat window that my old account could not be refunded while it is still active and was advised to place a cancellation request for my duplicate account, after which point a credit would be applied to my billing account. So that's what I did. When that request was processed, they cancelled BOTH plans and my web site ceased to function.
The following Monday morning I reopened a ticket and waited for a response. And waited. And waited. Finally, 66 HOURS later, I got a response. I was told that I had cancelled the wrong plan, that I should have cancelled the new plan instead, the one I had just renewed months earlier. Any mention of a refund is quickly met with a link to their refund policy, which essentially states NO refunds beyond the first 45 days for ANY reason. I can attest based on personal experience that "customer satisfaction" and "doing the right thing" aren't valid reasons.
So like many other site5 reviewers, I have noticed a decline in customer service the past few years. Their only support options are a ticket system or via chat window. It once was possible to call site5 and speak to someone local if an issue arose. Now, in their exact words: "As an Inbound Support Center, we do not provide a callback to our customers. I am sorry for it. We have discontinued the phone support."
One thing positive I will say about site5, their uptime is legitimately very good. Unfortunately, that alone isn't worth the slow and underwhelming support. There are too many other options. I switched to Complete Internet Solutions, which is not only cheaper with a price lock guarantee but provides quality customer service as well; my one issue was resolved via phone in less than an hour. I should have switched from site5 years ago.