NorthStack, by Pagely, is launching pay-as-you-go WordPress hosting

NorthStack is a new and ambitious product line created by Pagely — but set to operate as an independent entity — where they are attempting to offer a whole new type of WordPress hosting.

Very similar to Amazon’s broader pay-as-you-go approach, Pagely is seeking to serve a particular type of customer with this product:

Users of traditional hosting plans may face a lose-lose proposition. If the site’s demand is high, the performance of the site suffers. If demand is low, the hosting company pockets the extra from the unused resources. NorthStack frees clients to pay for only what they use in terms of compute resources, database, bandwidth, storage, and other essential elements of a successful WordPress site. For the first time, WordPress users are free to choose their overhead instead of being beholden to the whims of the host.

I am very curious to see how this goes. I am cautiously optimistic that it can be a new and valuable segment in the hosting industry.

I helped offer feedback to the NorthStack team as they were preparing this launch. My concerns then are the same as they are now: it may be too complicated. But I certainly believe this type of hosting has a place and could end up a very popular option for a certain type of site owners and business entities seeking excellent performance on a pay-as-you-go model, always certain to get the best bang for their buck.

Being fully serverless and scalable means it serves a broad array of customers too, from just a few dollars per month to thousands. A similar model, further up the stack, has worked extremely well for Amazon. Now we will get to see if it can work at this layer.

Pagely is no stranger to paving new paths as the first to the “managed” WordPress hosting space, and they are clearly stating that NorthStack is their attempt to achieve another first.