Yes, our sandboxes expire by default
Using sandboxes for customer demos? Shorten your prospect’s decision timeframe. Time-limiting your customer demo sandboxes encourages your visitors to come to a decision about your product more quickly.
By default, our sandboxes have an expiration date. We ask our customers to choose the shortest timespan possible for the sandboxes they create.
Yes, we do offer the option of persistent sandboxes — sandboxes that never expire — to a limited few of our subscription plans. But even for those plans, the default is for the sandbox to xpire.
Why? Optimization.
You have to optimize for something. You can’t optimize for everything.
What is WP Sandbox optimized for?
WP Sandbox is optimized to quickly create WordPress sandbox sites, as fast as possible, for as many people as possible.
To better explore this, and to truly dig in to what WP Sandbox is ideally suited for, it’s helpful to take a candid look at what we’re not optimized for…
What is WP Sandbox not optimized for?
We’re not a web host
WP Sandbox is not optimized to be a permanent, dedicated website host. There are many features you can find at your normal hosting provider that WP Sandbox does not and probably will never offer.
We’re not a staging site
WP Sandbox is not optimized to host your one, single staging site. If you need just one single staging site for your website, WP Sandbox isn’t a good fit for your needs. Often, traditional dedicated WordPress host plans can provide you a single staging site for your site, free of charge, at just the click of a button.
There are many WordPress plugins that help you set up a staging or dev site for your WordPress site. You should explore those options instead of using a service like WP Sandbox (if for no other reason than those sites do not expire).
We’re not a VPS
WP Sandbox is not optimized to permanently host your client sites. If you need to host several WordPress websites for your agency clients, then WP Sandbox won’t be a great fit for your needs. A VPS account is usually a better choice for permanently hosting WordPress websites for your agency customers.
Okay, so maybe all of this isn’t so bad. Maybe having an expiring sandbox is a good thing?
We think so. Here’s why…
Expiring sandboxes can be useful
Most of our customers are using WP Sandbox for customer demos, customer support, QA, user acceptance testing, plugin or theme development, or for hosting e-learning content. Customers using WP Sandbox in those scenarios find that it’s advantageous for their sandboxes to expire, for several reasons.
More reuse means more visitors
Sandboxes that expire allow each sandbox to be reused by other visitors. Similar to the concept of “turning tables” in a restaurant, you get more value for your money the more people that you allow to use each of your allotted sandbox sites.
Shorten your prospect’s decision timeframe
Customer demo sandboxes with a visible expiration timeframe encourage your visitors to stay focused and make their purchase decision more quickly.
Help your e-learning customers stay focused
E-course content sandboxes that expire help encourage your students to stay on track and finish the course before the sandbox disappears.
When non-expiring, persistent sandboxes are useful
Persistent sandbox sites are useful for some of our customers who use them to host internal training content, knowledge base content, to help developers track issues, or to maintain ongoing internal demos. In many cases like these, removing the constraint of sandbox expiration does make sense.
What do you think?
Should we allow persistent sandboxes to more of our customer plan levels? Let us know your thoughts on the use case you have in mind for a non-expiring sandbox. We’re always here to listen to your ideas.
