At what point...
 

Do you consider upgrading your server? We're rapidly growing so I just want to make sure we're prepared for traffic. And what do you upgrade to? I don't even really know what I have right now. Just that I'm with hawkhost. :bucktard:

Depends on what you have currently, If youre say on shared hosting, once you start seeing your website slowing down its normally a good time to upgrade (or if your host tells you they refuse to host you anymore because youre taking resources from others) Normally you'd upgrade to a VPS, depending on your computer knowledge also determines how much you'll pay, unmanaged servers come cheap, super cheap for good specs. Although if you have not so good computer knowledge you'll be better off with a managed server.

Taking the vps leap will take quite a bit of cost depending on the luxuries you want, for example, if you want cpanel (which comes with just about 90% of shared/reseller hosting now a days) that will normally cost ya $15/month extra, sometimes you can score it free on a sale or promotion.

I strongly recommend you check out here Great area to snag good deals. I've managed to get some friends 40gb disk / 350gb bandwidth on a premium host for only $3/month which they were paying about $6/month for 5gb/100gb on their old host. The new one was also a reseller package unlike their old one being a standard shared host.

Thank you for that information!! It's going to be helpful! I know we're nowhere near being "popular" yet but we are growing fast which excites me. I take my site pretty seriously and try to better it everyday =)

Always better to upgrade early rather than too late.

Also forgot to include theres also option of a dedicated server, step up from vps, which cost even more, but you don't share the server at all, its 100% yours to use only.

Well my Pokemansion site is hosted on Shared server, and it does not have any problems so far. Unless you constantly get 30-50 members online at the same time, theres no need to upgrade to VPS or dedicated.

I would say you have some time before needing an upgrade, can't you check your stats/graphs? like bandwidth and cpu usage? Be sure to read your hosts terms of service clearly too. I know some hosts will charge enormous fees for over use of resources and they can hold your sites files hostage until paid.

Good thing I back up my files daily =) Like I said... I know I have time... I was just curious =)