Please note that although this article is provided for customers that wish to be informed, we calculate the cost of the change for you, so you do not need to work it out yourself unless you wish to. Simply contact sales and they will give you a quote with no commitment.

The first thing to do when looking to change plans is to establish whether this is an upgrade, a downgrade or a crossgrade. To do this, first look at the amount that you are paying for your existing plan (just the plan, exclude any extras such as domains, SSL certificates, extra space/bandwidth etc. Exclude VAT when calculating this.). Now, look at the cost of the new plan when paying on the same billing cycle (i.e either monthly, quarterly or yearly). If the two prices are within 10p (£0.10) of each other, then this is considered a crossgrade. If the new price is higher than this, then it is considered an upgrade. If the new price is lower than this, then it is considered a downgrade. If you now know which of these you need, please see the right section below. Otherwise, please read on for an example.

For this article, we will use the example of a customer who was on one of our older hosting plans that are no longer sold (the .Net Special Single plan), who is paying £4.95 a month. The customer is considering 3 different plan choices:

Example 1. Moving to the Bronze Single Domain plan (£2.49 a month, £6.99 a quarter, £24.99 a year): The customer compares the old price (£4.95 a month) to the monthly price of the new plan (£2.49) and the new one is lower, therefore this is downgrade.

Example 2. Moving to the Silver Single Domain plan (£4.99 a month, £13.99 a quarter, £49.99 a year): The customer compares the old price (£4.95 a month) to the monthly price of the new plan (£4.99) and it is a difference of 4p (£0.04). As this is less than 10p difference, this is a crossgrade.

Example 3. Moving to the Silver Multi Domain plan (£7.49 a month, £20.99 a quarter, £74.99 a year): The customer compares the old price (£4.95 a month) to the monthly price of the new plan (£7.49) and the new one is higher, therefore this is an upgrade.

Performing an upgrade

When upgrading a plan, we issue a credit for the remaining number of days on the existing plan at the time the upgrade is performed and this is taken off the cost of the new plan. The difference is then paid. For this section we will use the example of someone upgrading from the Silver Single Domain plan, paid yearly at £49.99, to the Gold Single Domain plan, paid yearly at £99.99. The existing plan was last renewed on the 5th September 2013, and the upgrade is being performed on the 6th January 2014. 

Example:
  Remaining number of days on the plan: Days between 6th January 2014 and the next renewal date, the 5th September 2014: 242 days 
  Total number of days in this billing cycle: Days between 5th September 2013 and 5th September 2014: 365 days 
  Credit for remaining time on existing plan: 242 days / 365 days multiplied by the cost, £49.99: (242 / 365) * 365 = £33.14
  New Plan Cost: £99.99
  Difference to pay: £99.99 - £33.14 = £66.85

The customer would then pay the difference of £66.85 and the plan would be renewed for a year from the upgrade date. On each anniversary of the upgrade date, the customer would pay the renewal cost of the new plan of£99.99. 

Please contact sales if you would like to perform an upgrade.

Performing a crossgrade

When the cost of the two plans are within 10p (£0.10) of each other, we consider them to be the same price for this purpose. To move between the plans, you just need to contact sales who will change you to the new plan. There will be no payment due. When the original plan would have expired, you will instead be billed for the new plan at it's normal cost.

Performing a downgrade

When the new plan is cheaper, this is a downgrade. A downgrade can be performed at the end of the billing term that you have committed to (i.e either a month, quarter or year). You can request the downgrade at any point by contacting sales, and the plan will be changed to the new one for you immediately, with the billing changes not taking effect until the end of the billing term. As you have already paid for the more expensive plan, you may wish to continue using this, and only contact sales to do the downgrade at the end of your billing term (it must be done before the renewal is paid for). The cost of the new cheaper plan will be charged on the date that the existing plan expires, and on each anniversary after this. As such, there are no refunds for downgrades, as you have a commitment until the end of the billing term.

What to do about extras

When changing plans, the extras that you have (e.g extra disk space and bandwidth blocks) are not considered. These continue to apply to the new plan and renew on their renewal dates. If after changing plan you decide that you no longer need the extras, you can cancel them at any time so that they will no longer renew. There are no refunds for cancelling extras before the end of their term.

Changing billing cycle at the same time 

If you wish to change billing cycle (either to monthly, quarterly or yearly) at the same time as doing an upgrade/downgrade/crossgrade, please contact sales. When calculating whether it is a upgrade, downgrade or crossgrade, please use the price of the new plan for the cycle that you currently have, not the one you wish to change to. Then take a look at the table to see how the change in cycle affects it:

If you have any questions about changing your plan, please contact sales and they will go through your options and provide any quotes needed.

Your new registrar will normally start this process, they will ask you to either provide details or perform actions for the transfer process. When they do, you can contact us for assistance, and we will either provide the necessary details or perform the necessary actions after going through the appropriate security checks with you.

If you have any questions about this process, please do not hesitate to contact us.

For our new range, we have split the shared plans into two sets - single domain and multi domain plans. This is in response to feedback from customers who only have one site, yet need a lot of resources, and do not wish to pay for more domains that they will not use. We have gone back to the drawing board so there is no connection to the old plans, even though some of them might share the same names.

We have provided a set of questions and answers below that we hope will cover any questions existing customers may have. If you have a question that we haven't thought of, please contact customer services for assistance!

What happens to my existing plan and prices?
Nothing - you can keep your existing plan and price for as long as you wish. There are no changes forced upon you. 

I prefer one of the new plans, can I change?
Yes! We anticipate many customers may wish to change to the new plans if they suit their needs better. You can change plans by contacting sales. For full details on how changing the plan works and the costs involved, please see this article: Changing your hosting plan

My old plan has the same name as one of the new ones
There are some plans for which this is true, however there is no connection between the two. For billing purposes we differentiate between the plans by prefixing the new ones with "2014". Because of the change in our range, some of the older cheaper plans have the same name as some of the newer higher end plans, but the prices and features are different. 

Can I still buy the old plans?
No, although customers with existing plans can keep them, it is not possible to buy new packages based on the old plans, or change an existing plan to a different one of the old plans.

I prefer my current plan, but would like to use Windows 2012 R2
No problem, although the new plans have been launched alongside the Windows 2012 R2 hosting launch, you do not need one of the new plans in order to use it. Anyone with an existing account can use Windows 2012 R2 when adding a domain to their account.

Can I switch an existing domain to Windows 2012 R2?
Currently, the only way to do this is to delete the domain from the system (along with all data and settings), and then add it back, choosing Windows 2012 R2 when asked. We hope to be able to provide an easier method of migrating existing domains later in 2014.

I don't know what amount of resources I am currently using, how can I choose the right plan?
You can view your resource usage at any time from your control panel. For shared hosting customers, click on "Packages" and then the package, then "Resource Usage". For reseller hosting customers, click on "Account Settings" and then "Resource Usage".

I need more disk space/bandwidth, but would like to keep my existing plan
You can still add extra disk space or bandwidth blocks to an account without changing the plan. Please see some example prices on the services page: http://www.liquidsix.com/services 

I would like, or I am currently on, a Low Density plan
Low Density does not yet support Windows 2012 R2 and remains the same as before the new plan launches. We will be relaunching low density hosting with 2012 support and new plans later in 2014.

Does this apply to the UK or the US servers?
The new plans apply to both the UK and US servers and Windows 2012 R2 hosting is available in both locations.

You may think that because the company is making the claim, they are forced to live up to it. Unfortunately, and predictably, this is not the case! These companies will often insert clauses into their terms and conditions that allow them to terminate accounts that use too much data (sometimes without warning!), sometimes with no refund for future time that you’ve paid for. So how do you know when you will be hitting their limit? Often you won’t know until it is too late, as they will not tell you their actual limits, sticking to their false claim of being unlimited. You are completely at their mercy!

At LiquidSix Hosting, we believe in being honest with our customers and setting clear limits up front for each plan we sell. This way, you know in advance what you have available to use and you know that there will not be any hidden charges. We ensure that you have plenty of resources at a reasonable price so that you will have no problems running your site! We own and manage all of our own UK hardware, to ensure that you have the highest quality service possible.

Remember also, that if the company is selling you an ‘unlimited’ plan, they are also selling them to their other customers and that those customers trying to make use of the resources they purchased will likely drastically affect the performance of your website. By setting clear limits, we can ensure that all of our customers get the best performance for their website.

We have a lot of experience in hosting, having been providing our services since April 2004, and still going strong! In that time we have seen many dishonest and cheap companies come and go, taking their customer’s websites with them. We do not aim to be the absolute cheapest, but instead to provide a reliable service at a reasonable and affordable price.

If you are considering using a company that is dishonest enough to claim unlimited resources, we would urge you to first ask them a simple question: If you try to store the infinite amount of data that they claim to allow, would they:

either a) Eventually stop you from uploading more data or take your account down, breaking their promise?

or b) Go bankrupt trying to buy the infinite amount of hard drives required, and take all of their customers sites down with them when they go?

Either way, their customers lose in the end! There are many other examples of how absurd claims of unlimited resources are. For example, if a hosting plan costing a few pounds a month can offer unlimited everything, why do large companies such as Facebook and Google have their own expensive datacenters when they could just sign up for one of these plans and save millions of pounds? The answer is simple – because the plans are not unlimited and would not be able to support them!

We hope that you will take our honesty into account when choosing a hosting provider, and allow us to prove our commitment to fair, honest and reasonable pricing for our high quality services.