TopCities

At TopCities, we offer you a platform to launch your own independent business online, without you ever being tied down nor controlled by us.  This means...

We Can Never Hold You Hostage

We utilize only the most popular open-source software available. We don't tie you down to any proprietary system. If at any time you feel like moving away, you can do so, without any hassles.

Ebay is a prime example of the opposite. In the early days they were great. But then they started increasing fees, limiting refunds, and generally making life miserable for power sellers. What recourse did merchants have? None really. All of their hard-earned reputation and site traffic were held hostage at Ebay. As for traffic? Sure they could move elsewhere, but then they'd have to start back from square one.

If your current company presence rests on top of sites like Ebay, Amazon Webstore, Yahoo Store, Alibaba, Facebook, Ning, Flickr, and the likes, then you'd better think about the what-if's.

At TopCities, you'll never have to worry about any of the above. If we ever try to raise our fees or add some draconian restrictions, you can just move out, period. We don't own your domain, we don't own your site's application code, and we don't own any of your traffic. We're the anti-Ebay/AOL company, and we're proud of it.

We'd like to take the popular internet meme and say, All your traffic are belong to you!

You'll Never be Left Stranded

Imagine if one day Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP. You'd be stuck with a system with lots of potential security leaks and possibly no recourse. If you ever need support, they might not be around to help either.

You will never experience this at TopCities. Why? Simple. We utilize only the best-of-breed open-source software to power our member sites.  With a huge community of users/developers, you're never more than a Google search away from a solution. The applications are all open-source, meaning you can also modify the code to your liking. All your code are belong to you!

You Don't Have to Depend on Us for Features

You'll never have to worry about us discontinuing feature additions to your website application. Why? Because we didn't write them in the first place!

Sounds silly that we're proud of this? It's not so silly once you realize the software we use to power your site is used and developed by thousands and even millions of webmasters around the internet!

What this means to you:

• New and useful features are constantly being added.
• Usability-tested. No strange usability issues (UI and UE optimized if you wanna get technical about it).
• Security-tested by the internet community.

In short, all your base are belong to... that's right, YOU!

We are experts at every single one of our hosted applications. This means when you have a question about how to use a component within Joomla, our expert staff will know the answer. When you have trouble configuring a payment option within Magento Commerce, we will know the answer. When you get stuck trying to figure out how to set up user permissions with phpBB, again we will know the answer.

Can your run-of-the-mill hosting provider do this? Most likely not. "We don't offer support for third-party software" is the typical answer you're going to get from them. Suddenly you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Where do you turn to then?

That is when our deep knowledge experts can step in and help. We take care of you end-to-end. This means less downtime, less hassles, less of everything that makes running a web business unpleasant.

One-On-One Over-The-Phone Training

If you are completely new to creating a website, or if you're just not familiar with your new site's backend, we can get you up-to-speed in less than a day!

We offer our customers a 2-hour, over-the-phone, one-on-one training session for just $99! No it's not a recording. No it's not done by some newbie who barely knows his/her stuff. For $99, an expert customer service staff will walk you through your site's frontend and backend usage. By the time they are done, you will be ready to hit the market running!

That's right, we work for peanuts! Don't ask us how, just let us show you!

If you're on the free plan, the advantage is simple. You pay nothing! But you already knew that...

Now, if you're thinking about upgrading to a premium package and are wondering, why aren't we offering unlimited everything for $9 a year, then you need to read on.

It is true that many hosting providers are offering a lot, for very little in monthly payment. However, the old saying goes, "you get what you pay for". First of all, there's no such thing as "unlimited". If that were true, Google could just set themselves up on a $9/year plan and be done with it. Why bother paying millions of dollars a year on huge amounts of bandwidth and servers?

Fact is, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Hosts that offer you unlimited disk storage or bandwidth are dishonest. They're dishonest because they're overselling what they can't possibly fulfill. Typically they'll hide some tricky gotcha clause in their terms of service. As soon as your account eats up too much of their disk space or bandwidth, they'll find a way to terminate you or charge you more money.

Also, because they offer so much for so little, something has to give. The thing that usually gives is service. You will get sub-par uptime, sub-par tech support, sub-par performance, etc.

Your website is your livelihood. Do you really want to put everything at risk, just to save a few measly bucks on your hosting bill? When you've just launched that awesome advertising campaign and suddenly your shop goes dead, you'll realize that the few dollars you've saved can't even begin to cover the losses from your downtime.

Low-priced, low-end hosting is actually a handicap, not an advantage.

At TopCities, we don't play that game. Instead, we charge a reasonable rate, in exchange for having the best darn application experts on staff. We're here to support you when you need us most, so that you can fight your battles in the market place where it really matters.

Now THIS is what we call our price advantage! Don't start an online business without it.