Pricing:  

This web hosting service offers four basic packages plus you can add on extra services like dedicated servers, a SSL secure certificate, private registration, additional domains and more at a yearly rate.

Here are the basic packages (prices based on a one year contract):

Personal ($5.95/mo):
• 15 GB Storage
• 250 GB Transfer
• 1 Hosted Domain
• 50 Emails

Business ($7.46/mo):
• 200 GB Storage
• 2000 GB Transfer
• 5 Hosted Domains
• Unlimited Emails

Professional ($14.96/mo):
• 250 GB Storage
• 2500 GB Transfer
• 25 Hosted Domains
• Unlimited Emails

eCommerce ($26.21/mo):
• 250 GB Storage
• 2500 GB Transfer
• 50 Hosted Domains
• Unlimited Emails

Hosting Features:  

One of the things we would have really have liked to have seen with Aplus is unlimited storage and transfers like many of their competitors. With Aplus, unless you choose to commission your own dedicated server the most you can get is 250 GB of storage and 2500 GB of transfer, which is a lot, but not unlimited. These amounts are suitable for most businesses and organization unless you plan on doing tons of streaming of video, then you may want to consider their dedicated server option and check into their transfer speeds a little more closely.

Otherwise, Aplus has almost everything we were looking for including access to detailed traffic logs, Linux, Windows and Unix hosting, an easy to use control panel and a site builder and easy tools for creating your own forum, blog and photo gallery.

Domains:  

Through Aplus your first domain registration or transfer is free, after that they are $9.99/year and an additional $8.95/ year if you want private registration. They offer most of the kind of domains you would need, we did not see international domains, but they offer international support, so they might be available.

Ecommerce Hosting:  

Aplus offers a decent eCommerce package and they also offer merchant accounts, a credit card payment gateway, dedicated IP addresses, a shopping cart and an online store for the Unix option. However, they offer their own, we did not see for example Cube, Agora or Zen Cart represented or support for Google Checkout or Paypal, but likely there is a way to incorporate these services, Aplus just does not mention them specifically. And as mentioned, they offer limited data transfer so if you sell a product that transfers by download, such as software, video or music, you may want to make sure they can satisfy your bandwidth needs.

Email:  

Aplus.NET offers unlimited emails with all of its packages except the personal, which is limited to 50. It supports email forwarding, auto responders and more. They also provide form scripts and spam protection and for a price they offer list support. In terms of email protocols, they support POP3, IMAP, SMTP and web based email types. We did not see that they offer a “catch all” email option but it could be configured through forwarding.

Programming / Multimedia:  

This web hosting service supports a variety of technologies including CGI, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, C/C++, TCL, AJAX, ASP, FrontPage and MySQL. They may support more but this is all that Aplus listed and if you would like to use streaming technologies like QuickTime or RealAudio, you may want to contact Aplus and see if they have a solution for you if you are interested in their services.

Support & Service:  

Aplus offers superior service; you can contact them anytime, any day of the year, 24/7/365. Besides email and telephone support they also offer chat support and host a knowledgebase, a blog and a forum. They also post video tutorials that cover topics from transferring domains from GoDaddy to uploading with SmartFTP.

Overall, we liked the services offered by Aplus, they provide four very well put together and functional packages and powerful upgrades. We also give them many kudos for offering 24/7/365 support, which is how web hosting support should be, since web sites need to be up and running 24/7. One of the main things that kept Aplus apart from its competition is that it does not offer unlimited storage and transferring, but in reality, most businesses do not need it.