Michael

Absolute nightmare. Tons of missing parts. It would take six hours to sit down, go through the full instructions and inventory exactly what all is missing. And the client is paying me $25 an hour to assemble it. So this is either free time from me, or expensive for the client, not to mention multiple trips to Lowe’s and the parts themselves. All based on Kidscraft not doing proper quality control before they shipped this to us.

Not super impressed so far. They ate through 3 hours ($135) just disabling a firewall (I had 2 installed on accident) and researching other problems (even though the audit is supposed to be free). But to actually fix any of those other problems, I needed to buy a 4th hour ($50 more).

Surprisingly easy. Had to wait 25 minutes but once on the call I understood why. Very thorough and professional process.

So I have a few of these platforms. They are basically a business in a box, and have revolutionized the way I run my businesses.

I like them all, but SuiteDash in particular is the top dog for my most serious business. In that company we handle sensitive medical documents and communications internationally.

HIPAA compliance is only the beginning of what we have to consider and getting hacked is not an option.

Out of all the companies I use for this type of service, SuiteDash is the only one I trust to that level.

Their platform is made to scale as well. Not only is support great, their road map is impressive and they seem to hit their objectives on time. The amount of features on their is overwhelming, literally. It's all tucked away though at first so it doesn't confuse you. But rest assured, if there's something you want to do with your company's dashboard, there will be a way to do it with SuiteDash. The features and possibilities are a never ended rabbit hole.

Highly recommended!

Good Variety. Average Support.

I realllllllly wanted to like this company. But there have been a lot of let downs early on.

They don't seem to actually keep things up to date as they say. There is no dedicated person to do updates. The developers themselves have to stop what they are doing to update files.

This creates a real problem because they limit your annual downloads and you have to waste your downloads by re-downloading the same file over and over and over and over.... day after day after day after day... just to see if they actually updated the file after you requested them to... which they probably haven't (in my experience).

There is an option to "follow" so you're notified when the file is updated, but they they don't update it so you're never notified. And when they finally did update one of the files because I had to beg them, I never got a notification that it was updated, even though I was following it.

When you message them directly, they tell you anything you want to hear. "Yes Sir, we will update." But talk is cheap. The files are the same, but you still have to waste your downloads to check and see.

Right now I'm waiting on a theme to be updated and there's another theme that is up to date, but missing the demo content so you can't import it.

---Update---

After this review, they finally updated one of the files....BUT they deleted the other one completely. So now I'm in an odd spot. I had asked them to update one file (they did) and add the missing demo import content for another file (but instead they removed it completely from their platform, saying that it had not been updated in over a year and a half). But there are so many other old files on their site already.

This felt a little bit like calling the police to help you... but when they show up, they shoot you instead. Now I don't trust this company and I'm afraid to ask them to update any files because maybe they will just delete them from their site altogether.

These are nice guys. They respond and they want to help. But they are just too busy trying to develop an automatic update system that they have no time left to update files or handle customer service.

They claim to have 32,000 customers. They clearly make enough money to hire people to do these jobs. It's unacceptable.

I'm going back to NoBuna. They don't have the same variety. Missing a lot of stuff. But at least what they have is kept up to date.

Also, they have some plugin on their website that makes it so you cannot highlight or copy any text. But this causes a HORRIBLE user experience. You cannot right click (or 2 finger click on mac) and so you cannot "open in a new tab". It's infuriating to use their website this way.

For example, you will search for a theme. And 100's of themes show up in the search. So you want to open like 10 of them and see which one you will pick. But you cannot open 10 new tabs, you have to go to each one, one by one, in the same browser window. It's a nightmare! That alone makes this service unbearable to use. Then the updates and lack of support. It's just not worth it. Will be refunding and sticking with NoBuna.

Not a fan. The software is weak compared to it's competitors, the service is shady and it slows your site down.

The main issue for me is that they brand EVERYTHING and make you pay an extra $118.00 to remove their logos from your already paid account. That means you pay them for an account and email time you use the your paid account it still shows their company logo to your customers.

I hate white label black mail. I sent in multiple requests in their system. Never heard back (and I have a paid business account).

All and all it seems to be a one man show.

Advertises a free WordPress scanner with 50 free scans per day (and option to upgrade for more), gets you to sign up and enter your info, just to tell you that the free version no longer exists. Now they will probably spam my email. Total disrespect for customers time.

I've tried cPanel and Webmin/Virtualmin (which I liked better than cPanel as well), but CyberPanel installed with Open LiteSpeed instead of Apache or NginX... Yeah man. That's where it's at. Give it a try. It's organized better, has way deeper access (root) and is intuitive and fun to use, with a great community supporting it. Highly recommended.

Hate this site. You log in one time from a VPN or from traveling abroad and they lock you into that location forever and display it on your profile that you are from there. So I'm a doctor from New York, but on Fiverr I live in Albania. Deleting your account is the only way to fix that but then that email address is burned for life and they don't care at all.

I was looking for an alternative to Bit.ly since they aren't cheap for what I need and they are kind of associated now with spammy links.

Switchy did the trick. It's a simple but robust little platform and the team behind the scenes is great too, although you never have to contact them because it all just works. Really liking this so far.

It allows you to use pixels and tags and all sorts of other metrics. The dashboard is clean and allows you to make folders to organize all of your link categories. You can make separate workspaces too for clients or other companies. They are young and seem to be improving as well. Super stoked with these guys.

I'm getting like:

- 800 gigs SSD
- 30 gigs ram
- 8 core

For like $18 a month. It's stupid! You have to manage the VPS yourself but once you get used to linux, root access, IP tables, cron jobs, SSH login, CLI, etc there is no going back and there are tutorials online on how to do it.

Just go for it.

Trade off is tech support is a little slow to respond via email tickets but they are competent and helpful when they do and after the initial setup you don't need their help all too much anyways.

So, hm. Yeah, of course there are some junk courses on Udemy. But all and all it's been a complete blessing. I've spent over $2,000 over the last 10 years on $10 Udemy courses. That's less than the cost on a single college class at RIT, which luckily the Army paid for :)

In MBA school they didn't teach us the important stuff to run a business. Stuff like Linux, LLC formation, profit and loss statements, risk evaluations, taxes, investment or intellectual property.

All that I learned on Udemy. Pick your courses well, anyways you can refund junk ones, and go to town. $10 is nothing to learn some of the crazy helpful things I've learned on their platform. Highly recommended.

Pro tip: Check out Chris Haroun. That guys is a God send.

Billy is fun, easy to watch, teaches the courses himself and comes at you with brief, straight to the point lessons. He forces you to take action. It's all meat and each tip is associated with an action step.

Aside from that he's got a pretty hilarious sense of human. Not PC at all and the community he's built around his brand is impressive. Surprisingly, I've found them to be quite honest in their marketing, which I was not expecting. Their count down timers are real. They actually close the deals when the clock runs out. They do of course retarget and offer upsells and all that, but it's always felt a bit more honest with them. Billy's blunt and brutal honesty sort of makes you feel like he's not hiding anything. His tactics are of course intense, but it doesn't really upset your conscience the way he does it. Comes across more as clever than sneaky.

All and all I'm a fan.

Tai's cool. A lot of controversy regarding his programs but for me it's been good quality info. I don't like that he ropes you in thinking he is going to be involved in the teaching of the course and then you get in and it's some young dude Tai is paying to teach the course for him. Their marketing is shady, but I guess that's the new normal sadly.

All and all though, I find his info pretty high end. Specifically, the agency stuff. I had already stumbled upon a lot of that knowledge myself in daily life, so it was nice to hear it repeated, organized, condensed and quantified. Plus of course I learned a lot as well.

Needed to stop monthly payments once I had absorbed the material I was interested in and they were quick and responsive with the cancelation.

Fake Reviews

AppSumo was one of the most trusted companies I've come across. The community they have built is mind-blowingly loyal and competent. AppSumo leverages this to their advantage. Nothing wrong with that.

But now things are shifting. AppSumo seems to have abandoned that community in favor of the SaaS companies. So much so that I just tried to post a 1 taco review on the infamous Phone Wagon deals and AppSumo force changed my review to 5 tacos! Like from 1, it just jumped to 5 and there's no way to edit it.

It's getting so odd that I am thinking they may just block my account for being a trouble maker at some point. Luckily I bought up a domain name similar to appsumo.com (I won't say it here yet) to organize a petition against them if they shaft me. Not too hard to file a class action lawsuit these days, especially with my previous legal training.

These guys are not just destroying their reputation and breaking up their community. They are walking on super thin legal ice as well.

Bjorn is great and his videos are super helpful. The way the company is run though is insane.

If you buy a course and your login doesn’t work, email support just never really responds. You’re on your own.

Then you join the FB community and leave a comment on a bad piece of advice a member gave the group and that member (Nickie Oakwood in my case) starts harassing you in your inbox.

You report it to the group and they ban you. I have literally no idea what they are thinking running this company. I much prefer Adam at WpCrafter if you’re looking for a more consistent and continuous experience.

Sad. Bjorn seems like such a nice guy in his videos.

They essentially seem to blackmail you with your own identity. This should be illegal. They refuse to send me an OTP or call, they tell me that if my number is listed on a website then send that is proof. I did, they said it’s not good enough. And they force you to send them a copy of your carrier bill. So I sent them a screenshot but it doesn’t have the number listed on it. This is ridiculous.

These guys are supppppppppper shady marketers. I've bought most of their products, which seem so far to be good and legit. But then they upsell anything useful about it. Like if you buy thumbnail blaster, then you have to pay $17 extra a month for templates. And if you buy Keyword Blaster, they send you a link to register for a free live training. Then they say you missed the training (which is odd because you were there at the right time) and they off you 24 hours to rewatch the live training you missed. Then in that video they basically say the software is so powerful you can never learn to use it alone, so you need to pay them an extra $500 USD for the academy on how to use the software you already bought. Then you realize that the video is actually 2 years old (because of the google searches they demo in the "live training") and they have just been lying to you the whole time. I wasn't going to take the time to write this review but the a-hole keeps bragging the whole time in the "live" video (that's 2 years old) how honest and humble and transparent he is and how he wouldn't lie to you and cares about your success. I just couldn't take it anymore and had to write it. These guys are the kings of fake count down timers, impulse buying and straight up marketing lies. The most annoying part is the insult to your intelligence that they don't think you are smart enough to smell a 2 year old video they are pretending was just live 24 hours ago, while they talk endless about how all they care about is "trust".

First things first. I'm admittedly a difficult customer, at least in the sense that I have high expectations for my hosting company. If you consider the relationship you're entering into with a host, it's a bit of a marriage. You are transferring over all your data and clients to them, putting it all in their hands, and asking them to take care of it for you. And if you’ve been in this game a while, you’ve been burned enough to be careful before you choose a new one.

You're trusting them with security, speed, support, etc. And the profit margins in hosting are not usually such that companies can afford to care too much about individual accounts. How could they? They'd go bankrupt.

And so it goes. They promise you the world for a low ball price and you bite.

Things are ok for the first year. But then year 2 rolls around and your renewal fees are a shocker, but switching hosts is a daunting task, so you pay the renewal fees anyways, and lock yourself into a 3 year deal with them to get a better price per year.

All the sudden, you start getting IP blacklisted, the quality of support drops and your sites slow down because they cram tons of other users on your shared server. You are dissatisfied and your clients are complaining. The solution? Oh, no worries, just upgrade to a better plan… for double the price… or get your own Virtual Private Server or a Dedicated Server with SSD and the all new “Hyper-Warp-Mega-RailGun-Grand-Chinese-Buffet-Under-New-Management” feature they are offering for “free”… for triple the price.

So, you bite the bullet and upgrade. Then all hell breaks loose and they:

⁃ Throttle down your account (My experience with GoDaddy),
⁃ Cap your bandwidth (Everyone's experience with VPS),
⁃ Offer you a huge server size but then screw you on the inode count so you can't actual use it (my experience with NameCheap),
⁃ Promise you 24/7 "live" support from "a small and passionate USA based tech team" (No more chatting with Sandeep) but it's actually a snail-mail ticketing system they answer at their own pace (My experience with WebHostPython),
⁃ Sell out to EIG (My experience with Bluehost),
⁃ Create their own crappy panel (since cPanel raised its prices) and force you to switch over to from your beloved cPanel (My experience with SiteGround),
⁃ Or your client list grows and you hear about “reseller” accounts, where you can become your own host and registrar by renting out your server metal to clients and charging them monthly fees, but the “we will migrate all of your old sites over for free!” guarantee turns out to be more complicated then you thought, especially if you want to smash your old hosting file hierarchy into multiple new panel instances and combine old single WordPress installations into WPMU multi-site accounts (My current situation with ScalaHosting).

I’ve seen it all and been threw it all. It’s a complicated and frustrating world out there. I can say though, that throughout this journey to find the best host out there, Scala has not only met the mark, they have bent over backwards and upside-down to stand alone in the industry. These people have thrown logic and caution to the wind when it comes to customer satisfaction. They do not run a cost evaluation on “how much are we paying employee X to talk to customer Y -VS- how much the customer Y is paying each month”. They just deal with it, no matter who you are.

I was also concerned about the structural differences between cPanel and sPanel. And the error prone nature of manual migration vs an automatic cPanel import. I can say that all of my concerns have been addressed at Scala, and then some. And not in a small way. They have blown me away with the amount of concern they have for their customers. My monthly bill is only $12 a month for a VPS and yet they escalated my case to the director level to make sure it was handled properly. They get the big picture and they are in it for the long haul, for sure.

Scala will do right by you.

---UPDATE - First Month---

Had some issues with sPanel, as it's new. But as a company Scala has been available to fix anything, it seems to get better daily and even the top brass are available to jump in and make any issue right. So far it's been a great experience.

They offer a "free" option... then you give them all your info... then they tell you it's only a 10 day trial and they use your info to market to you. Enjoy your 1 star review.