ChemiCloud review
We read its page and operated the term toggle, and checked every item we credit. Here is what we found.
- ByMohamed Al-Shehri · edited by Nora Al-Mutairi
- Read on
- Score6.4 / 10
Built from what ChemiCloud publishes about itself on its plans page, and the term toggle we operated, without an account and without buying. Read on .
ChemiCloud is a small company that does something nobody else on our table does: it tells a visitor which of its data centres is nearest to them, before they buy and without being asked.
This is it: ChemiCloud’s plan card prints a line reading nearest datacenter and then names it. To our Egyptian session it said Frankfurt. It is the only company on our table that tells a visitor which of its locations is nearest to them, before purchase and without being asked, and that counts in its favour. The answer it gave our reader is Frankfurt
And it does something many of them do: it puts a countdown above the offer: The offer on ChemiCloud’s page carries a countdown which we read at twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds, beside a line saying the discount is applied automatically at checkout. A counter starting from twenty-four hours on a first page load is not a deadline but a counter that resets
How this review was built
We bought nothing from ChemiCloud. We read the plans page and operated the term toggle, created no account, typed no personal detail and did not walk the order form.
Our record of this company was right as it stood: the price, the term, the renewal and the refund window are all as we read them six days ago. We corrected two cents in the first payment and no score moved.
Speed and uptime sit outside the score, here and at every company on this list, because measuring them needs a bought plan.
Buying and price
3.3
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 33%
Three terms, and a regular price that changes with them.
We operated the toggle and read the card each time: We operated the term toggle and three terms appeared at three prices: monthly at fourteen dollars ninety-five, annually at three dollars forty-nine against a regular price of fourteen ninety-five, and three years at one ninety-five against a regular price of eleven ninety-five. So the regular price itself changes with the term, which is unusual on this table
That is unusual and worth saying: across much of this table the renewal price is the same whichever term you chose, so a long commitment lowers only the opening price. Here it lowers both ends.
Its price score is low even so, because we score the term the advertised figure on the card belongs to, and the distance between three dollars forty-nine and fourteen ninety-five is a large one however it is presented.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| Renewal jumps to 4.3× the opening price | 0.15 |
| a 12-month term is available | 8.17 |
| The renewal price is not on the pricing page | 0.00 |
| $41.88 today | 7.91 |
Support availability
6.0
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 27%
Two channels around the clock, and no telephone.
ChemiCloud advertises support at all hours by chat and ticket, and two channels is what puts the support score where it is. The score looks at published availability and how many routes there are, not at the quality of the answer.
And where this score fails our reader: ChemiCloud publishes no entries at all in the alternate-language set, and we found no occurrence of the word Arabic and no Arabic text on its page, nor any statement about support languages in either direction. That confirms what we recorded about it on the sixteenth of September, and it is now read from the served page rather than inferred
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| support around the clock | 10.00 |
| Contact by chat, tickets | 6.67 |
| Publishes no Arabic support | 0.00 |
Published features
8.5
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 20%
Six items of seven, and ten backups rather than one.
We read the card item by item: The plan carries 6 of the seven items we count: a free domain, unlimited email, ten daily backups, an SSL certificate, free migrations and a Cloudflare network. The missing item is staging
The number ten is worth stopping on: much of this table says daily backups and never says how many are kept or for how long. This one says ten.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| 6/7 published features | 8.50 |
Refund and billing
10.0
Basis: the company’s own pages · weight 20%
Forty-five days, written on the card rather than in a document.
The score looks at three things: is the window written down, are the exclusions published, and does the billing show the renewal price. This company takes full marks.
And the window itself: ChemiCloud writes a 45-day money-back guarantee on the plan card itself, a window exceeded on our table only by InMotion’s ninety days. It is written where the plan is sold rather than in a separate document
We did not read its full terms of service, so we do not know what conditions attach to that window, and we say so rather than letting the figure look absolute.
| Value | Points |
|---|---|
| a refund window of 45 days | 10.00 |
| The refund exclusions are written down | 10.00 |
| Billing states the renewal and its price | 10.00 |
Speed and uptime: we did not measure them
Speed and uptime sit outside this score because measuring them needs a bought plan.
And we did not return to the page a day later to see what the counter did, which is a limit on our own observation and is stated in its chapter.
Arabic: where it reaches and where it does not
No local editions at all, and no Arabic.
We read what it publishes: ChemiCloud publishes no entries at all in the alternate-language set, and we found no occurrence of the word Arabic and no Arabic text on its page, nor any statement about support languages in either direction. That confirms what we recorded about it on the sixteenth of September, and it is now read from the served page rather than inferred
We had recorded on the sixteenth of September that this company has no Arabic presence, and today’s reading confirms it from the served page rather than by inference. Six of the fifteen companies on our table publish no localisation for anybody, so the absence here is general rather than aimed at us.
The countdown, and what we do and do not know about it
A counter reading twenty-three hours, on a page just opened.
The offer carries a countdown, which we read once: The offer on ChemiCloud’s page carries a countdown which we read at twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds, beside a line saying the discount is applied automatically at checkout. A counter starting from twenty-four hours on a first page load is not a deadline but a counter that resets
We will say what we know and what we do not. What we know is that the counter stood at twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes when we first opened the page, and that this is the shape of a counter that resets rather than the shape of a deadline. What we do not know is what it did the next day, because we did not go back. So we do not assert that it resets — we describe what we saw and leave the reader to open the page, which costs them three seconds.
And we put beside it the thing that counts in this company’s favour, in the same place: it is the only one on our table that tells a visitor where its nearest server is. The counter and that sentence sit on the same card.
The full calculation
| Sub-score | Value | Weight | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 3.3 | 33% | 1.089 |
| Support | 6.0 | 27% | 1.620 |
| Features | 8.5 | 20% | 1.700 |
| Refund | 10.0 | 20% | 2.000 |
| Total | 6.409 → 6.4 |
If not this one, then what
Both picks are computed from the scores rather than written by hand: the first is the one directly above it in the ranking, the second the one that beats it by the widest margin on the criterion it loses on.
hosting.com
6.4The service directly above it in the ranking.
$1.99/mo on a 48-month prepayment: $95.52 today, then $9.99/mo
Read the reviewVerpex
7.6What this page offers instead on the criterion it loses on — Buying and price.
$3.00/mo on a 12-month prepayment: $36.00 today, then $6.00/mo
Read the review
Bottom line
Buy from ChemiCloud if forty-five days and ten daily backups matter to you, you read English, and you accept that the nearest machine is in Frankfurt. Stay away if a countdown pushes you into a decision you would not otherwise make, or if you need to be answered in Arabic.
Questions
Did you buy this plan?
No. We read the plans page and operated the term toggle, created no account and bought nothing. That is why speed and uptime are outside the score.
What will I pay on day one, and after a year?
Forty-one dollars eighty-eight for twelve months at three dollars forty-nine. Then the month becomes fourteen dollars ninety-five, which is also the monthly billing rate.
Is the countdown real?
We read it once and it stood at twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds on a first page load. That is the shape of a counter that resets, but we did not return the next day to confirm it, so open the page yourself and look.
How many backups do I get?
Ten daily copies according to the card. That number is worth noticing, because many companies on our table say daily and never say how many.
Where will my site be hosted?
The card told our Egyptian session that the nearest data centre is Frankfurt. It is the only company on our table that tells you before you buy.
What we know, and where from
Every figure on this page, where it came from and when we read it.
| What we say | How we know | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChemiCloud’s plan card prints a line reading nearest datacenter and then names it. To our Egyptian session it said Frankfurt. It is the only company on our table that tells a visitor which of its locations is nearest to them, before purchase and without being asked, and that counts in its favour. The answer it gave our reader is Frankfurt | we measured it | ChemiCloud — nearest datacenter line | |
| The offer on ChemiCloud’s page carries a countdown which we read at twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds, beside a line saying the discount is applied automatically at checkout. A counter starting from twenty-four hours on a first page load is not a deadline but a counter that resets | captured from their page · capture on file | ChemiCloud — offer countdown | |
| We operated the term toggle and three terms appeared at three prices: monthly at fourteen dollars ninety-five, annually at three dollars forty-nine against a regular price of fourteen ninety-five, and three years at one ninety-five against a regular price of eleven ninety-five. So the regular price itself changes with the term, which is unusual on this table | we measured it | ChemiCloud — Starter plan, billing-term toggle | |
| ChemiCloud publishes no entries at all in the alternate-language set, and we found no occurrence of the word Arabic and no Arabic text on its page, nor any statement about support languages in either direction. That confirms what we recorded about it on the sixteenth of September, and it is now read from the served page rather than inferred | we could not find it | ChemiCloud — no locales, no Arabic found | |
| The plan carries 6 of the seven items we count: a free domain, unlimited email, ten daily backups, an SSL certificate, free migrations and a Cloudflare network. The missing item is staging | the company states it | ChemiCloud — Starter plan features | |
| ChemiCloud writes a 45-day money-back guarantee on the plan card itself, a window exceeded on our table only by InMotion’s ninety days. It is written where the plan is sold rather than in a separate document | the company states it | ChemiCloud — 45-day money-back guarantee |