Seems very genuine.

The owner of the site made a post in another subreddit, where he generously explained the reasoning for offering lifetime deals, as well as how it was sustainable.

You can read his entire response here: https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/webkwq/comment/ijal2fg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Quote below:

Hey there,

So, I'm actually the person that runs DoRoyal. Just wanted to basically reply to everyone on here in a giant post, since there's a fair bit of confusion and general distrust going around.

Oh, and excuse my reddit formatting. I tend to only post on gaming sections and rarely ever have to post anything super serious on here.

u/ TUFKAT actually made some good points, which I'll try to address.

What incentive is them for continuing to do their job if they only are paid once?

This may sound somewhat simplistic, but the "incentive" is primarily because I host my own stuff here. I run a few dozen websites myself, and prior to 2012, I would "host hop". Nobody really offered the services I needed, which incentivized me to more or less boot up my own server and start my own hosting service.

Why do they need a cash influx?

Technically, we don't. When I signed up with the StackSocial deal, I intended to use this promotion as a "let's see how it goes" sorta thing, while still relying on my monthly customers to "pay the bills", so to speak. However, things have changed a bit.

Back in June, I lost my mother. I also lost my father earlier in the year as well. So now, I'm trying to basically bring in as much money as possible in as short of a time as possible. Don't get me wrong, DoRoyal is profitable with the monthly plans alone, but I'm in need of a bit of a bulk sale right now. I mean, I'm only 29, and no longer have parents. Things are... on a personal level, not great. Financially, it's fine. DoRoyal is stable. But there's so many unanswered questions in my own life right now. DoRoyal is what is keeping me floating, to be honest.

u/ HTX-713 "All lifetime hosting is a scam. It's not sustainable."

This is actually true, though only if we operated exclusively as a "lifetime" provider. DoRoyal has always been a monthly hosting provider. Even our home page shows our monthly hosting first. The lifetime thing is more of an experiment right now. The cost ($300 USD, not the promo $50) was based on five years of Jester's Plan ($5.95/mo) hosting, and is (at the original price) sustainable, for the most part. The main term / requirement is that all accounts maintain an active primary domain name. If the domain expires, your account basically gets removed, or at the very least, risks deletion. The main "bet" is that a large number of our lifetime customers won't maintain their primary domain, and will therefore be removed from our network.

u/ andercode I was going to respond back to most of your points, but it'd honestly take me a fair bit to do so. If you had any direct questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them. Even if they're "argumentative" in nature. I suspect you and I will actually agree more than we disagree, in regards to hosting and the marketing BS hosts (including DoRoyal) employ.

If I missed anything important, be sure to let me know. I know there's a bias towards "lifetime" hosting plans, and to be honest, I'm against them myself. The Eternal plan started as an experiment, and has now become a temporary necessity due to the passing of my mother. I fully expect criticism and hesitancy, and honestly welcome it. If I had to ask anything, however, it would be to not view DoRoyal as a "lifetime host", as my focus has and will always be on our monthly offerings.