I was browsing AgentsOnline.net and came across this thread about Superlative. The post originated in 2007, but there was a response added about a week ago that I wanted to highlight warning of contractual obligations for website providers (and Superlative specifically):

I too would not recommend anyone to Superlative.com after my experience with them which I am still dealing with. Long story short, I signed up for service in July of ’09 when Superlative’s Regional Account Manager visited our real estate office. Afterwards, I exchanged a few e-mails with the regional account manager clarifying the terms of what the service offered and as they were waiving set-up fees, and domain fees since I had my domain already, etc., he had me cross out certain terms in the contract and his own words, word for word on his e-mail to me says: “We bill on the first of every month $29.95. The agreement is for one year if you want to leave after that just email superlative and let them know.” – With this being said, I signed up. Surprising to me this January (2 and a half years later), I sent an e-mail to them requesting that my hosting be cancelled. I received no response to that e-mail so continued to send 1 or 2 other e-mails until I got a call from a representative saying the contract is an ‘auto renewing’ contract and I cannot cancel until July. This irritated me to no end, especially since I have the e-mail above from their Regional Account Manager. Since my e-mail requesting service be canceled on January 11th, they still have not canceled service and will not reply to any e-mails. Sure enough, February 1st came and gone and so did the $29.95 charge on my credit card. I have submitted a complaint to the LA Better Business Bureau which still has not received a response.

Again, a word of advice to agents looking for website hosting – it is my opinion that there is much better providers with better service, lower prices, and most of all, no contracts required – I am sure other companies won’t make their “long time” customers go through what I am going through just to cancel.

Obviously, the above does not shed much of a positive light on Superlative — but it should serve as a wakeup call to the realities of monthly contracts in this industry. The monthly recurring revenue is the business model of almost every vendor in this category. The exception being development or design shops that do one off completely custom work for a specific client — the entire cost of that (generally) has to be paid upfront. One important point I do want to make is that you should EXPECT to pay more money upfront for a website or other product if you don’t have a monthly contract. You are almost always given a discounted rate when tied to a monthly contract, since the dollars are committed to for a set amount of time and the company doesn’t have to worry about you canceling after a month or two. That said, don’t expect to pay (close to) nothing, get an amazing product, AND have no monthly contract — the world doesn’t work that way.

I know Virtual Results (the best websites in the vertical in my biased opinion) doesn’t generally tie people to monthly contracts, but I’m not sure about other providers.

Are you on a monthly contact, or are you free to go whenever you like? If you are on one, make sure you are aware when it expires and whether it auto-renews or not. If you have negative, or positive, experiences with contracts with real estate website vendors, leave them in the comments.