Budgeting for Moodle

How to find your hosting level

Given the vast number of hosting providers out there – and the often confusing service levels on offer – it can be hard to know exactly what you’re looking at. And because of that, hard to compare exactly what you’d be getting and how the associated prices stack up.

Obviously, the more complex your needs, the more complex the answer, but we’ll try and make it as simple as possible…

Totally new to Moodling

If you’re totally new to the world of Moodle, or returning to the Moodleplex after a break, we can help you move your existing in-person classroom online. The modular nature of Moodle is perfect for this – transfer your physical training environment to a virtual world, using dedicated ‘blocks’ to recreate the various activities and learning paths.

But if you’re at this stage, you won’t know what you need, so we recommend starting on the lowest shared hosting level that suits your Moodle flavour, then simply moving up (pro rata) as and when your usage dictates. To gauge your total startup budget, you need to:

  • Find your Moodle flavour. If it’s Moodle for your workplace, you have a couple of options – standard Moodle or IOMAD Office. Read about how to make that choice here.

  • Find the lowest hosting level. For standard Moodle, that would be Pearl shared hosting, and for IOMAD Office, it will be an IOMAD Small shared hosting. Find both services here.

  • Follow our signup process. Every step is laid out clearly, including setup and access timescales… Go here to start the process or just to see how it all works.

Migrating from MoodleCloud

If you’re already Moodling on MoodleCloud, you’ll know what disk space you’re using based on the plan you’re paying for.

Migrating because you want more customisation and plugin options and the ability to use your own URL for free? We can offer you a minimum of 3GB. Moving because you also need more space or have reached the user limit? We can match that from 5GB and up. To confirm your budget and start the migration process, you need to:

  • Find your Premium hosting level. All MoodleCloud levels and corresponding Premium hosting levels are listed here, including instructions on how to find your true GB usage.

  • Follow our signup process. Go here to get signed up for Premium Moodle hosting, and here for the MoodleCloud to Moodle migration steps.

Migrating from another provider

For those who already have a hosting provider, or want to move from self-hosting to managed, you’ll be able to see your usage if you go to:

Site administration > Reports > Course size report 

If you don’t have that report enabled, download it here:

https://moodle.org/plugins/report_coursesize

Once you have this information, you just need to:

  • Find your hosting level. If you’re migrating with standard Moodle, all hosting levels are here, but if you’re migrating so you can move to multi-tenancy Moodle, all hosting levels are here.

  • Follow our signup process. Every step is laid out clearly, including setup and access timescales… Go here to start the process and coordinate a suitable migration time/day.

Bolt-on support services

Like Moodle, our approach is modular – pick only what you need, only when you need it, and build a unique agreement that fits both your budget and e-learning strategy. We have plenty of support options that offer peace of mind in both the long and short term, and you can add these to your agreement whenever you want.

Alternatively, why not take the opportunity to upgrade the learner experience as part of your move? Like applying a bit of Marie Kondo expertise to your competency hierarchy, you can migrate your hosting to our servers and get a full refresh as part of the process.

We offer standalone Moodle MOTs and Refresh Combis that include project support as part of the deal. If you’d like to use your migration to kickstart an overall improvement to your environment, you just need to:

  • Follow our migration process. Once you’re live on our servers, we can undertake a Moodle MOT and give you a full report of all recommended improvements, including a version upgrade path if appropriate.

  • Apply all changes in UAT. Dedicated server clients get a UAT as standard. If you’re on shared hosting, you can get a pro-rata UAT site to build and test your improvements and upgrades. Once you’re happy with the changes, you simply…

  • Book a day/time for upgrades. As your site will need to be in maintenance mode for the upgrades to be applied, book a timeslot that will have the least impact on your users. You can find the full process here.

Moodle hosting FAQs

Yes. Data is automatically encrypted at rest.

We proactively track site usage and send out emails when you’re on or over your current limit, giving you the opportunity to clear down and stay within your allowance. If that’s not possible, a pro-rata invoice is raised to cover the remainder of your term.

Standard agreements are for a 12-month term, automatically renewing unless instructed. However, we send the next year’s invoices a few weeks before the renewal date so you can decide whether to rollover renew, renew with a multi-year discount, or migrate to another provider.

Got general questions about how things work? Our FAQ page covers the basics.

Want to ask something specific? You can raise a ticket directly in our Helpdesk system.

Prefer a contact form? Fill in the details, and a ticket will be raised automatically.