27 Best Web Hosting Companies In Nigeria
Best Web Hosting Companies In Nigeria – If you are seeing this article, it means that you are looking for a reliable hosting company in Nigeria to host your blog. There are a lot of hosting companies in Nigeria but this article will be showing you the 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria.
Just like other countries, the web hosting companies in Nigeria provides you with the platform and storage space to help your website or blog function well. The hosting companies give out space on a web server for your website to store its file and when people search for your website they will be able to see it on the World Wide Web through the internet.
A reliable web hosting company is very important for your website or blog to function properly.
Hosting your website on a hosting company in Nigeria will allow you to pay with the naira debit card; bank transfer and bank deposit and also provide you with the “.ng” or the “.com.ng” and at a cheaper rate unlike hosting your website with a foreign web hosting company.
READ ALSO: 17 Best Investment Platforms In Nigeria
When you are looking for the best web hosting companies, you will have to consider certain things like the quality of the service rendered by the hosting company, the up-time, disk space, bandwidth and price.
This article is going to show you the 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria and all the services they rendered that earned them a spot on the list.
Without further ado, let’s get started…
27 Best Web Hosting Companies In Nigeria
Qservers Web Hosting Services
This website has gained popularity among Nigerian website owners and this is because of the wonderful services they render as a hosting company. It is no surprise that they made the list of the best web hosting companies.
This hosting company offers e-commerce hosting, dedicated server hosting and Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting alongside the web hosting services.
This company also offer brilliant customer services and excellent web design and they have shown to be a personalized, passionate, punctual and friendly web hosting provider which is available anytime you need them.
Qservers will certainly give you the value for you money so be rest assured that you are in safe hands. The company will give you 2GB storage space, 8GB bandwidth, 5 sub-domains, and Free SSL certificate on your hosting plan for as low as N5,000 which is shared into N500 per month.
Their payment options are very easy as you can pay with you debit card or through bank transfer. You can visit www.Qservers.net for more information about the company.
WhoGoHost Limited
This hosting company is arguably one of the best hosting companies both in Nigeria and West Africa and this is because of the wonderful services it rendered as a web hosting provider.
The company is known as a web hosting company as this is what it started with but it has also expanded to offer some other products and services that would help its customers excel and succeed in the online world.
The company offers both yearly and monthly plans and this makes it easy for their customers that are working under a tight budget.
The hosting services they render are: Note.JS Site hosting, Email hosting, Web hosting, WordPress hosting, Managed Cloud Services, Cloud hosting etc.
WhoGoHost is an accredited NiRA “.ng” registrar and also a Google G Suite accredited reseller.
The company offers plans going from N500 to N2,500 yearly offering from 2GB to unlimited storage and 10GB to unlimited bandwidth.
It also has an entry-level plan called Aspire which is N500 monthly and the plan offer 2GB storage and 10GB of bandwidth.
You can visit www.whogohost.ng/ for more information.
Web4Africa
This is another top Nigerian web hosting company whose excellent web hosting services has earned it a spot on the 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria. The company was established in 2002 and it is an ICANN Accredited Domain Name Registrar and also a leading Pan-African web hosting company.
It has some unique features like super-fast Linux servers, regular daily, weekly and monthly backups, 500 easy-to-install an application, 99% uptime and ultra-low latency.
Their services come with cPanel control, free SSL certificate, Web applications, 1 free Domain and a basic Web Browser.
Web4Africa offers different types of domain and also hosting solutions from data centres across Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
They offer web hosting subscription packages from N600 to N6,000 per month. The cheapest plan offers 2GB disk space while the highest plan offers unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space.
Mercury plan costs N600/month, Bronze Plan costs N1,500/month, Silver costs N2,250/month and Gold cost N4,500/month.
You can visit www.web4africa.com/nigeria/ for more information.
DomainKing
This web hosting company is one of the leading domain name registrar just like its name implies and it has operations in over 4 countries. The company is accredited with over 16 Asian, African and Global Domain Registries including NiRA (.NG), DotPH (.PH), NIXI (.IN), .PW & CentralNic and ZACR (.ZA).
It offers the best services to their customers and client and even at affordable prices.
DomainKing just like the name implies specializes in offering services such as Domain Name Registration, Web Hosting, Website Design and WordPress Hosting and their payment options are debit cards, bank deposit, bank transfers etc.
They also offer services to international clients and they get to pay through the global payment methods like Paypal, Webmoney and Payza.
You can get unlimited hosting with free domain, SSL certificate and unmetered bandwidth for as low as N375 per month.
If you need more resources and faster servers, you can go for the N933 per month plan or the N1,666 per month plan.
For more information, visit www.domianking.ng/
Gigalayer
This was previously called HUB8 and it is one of the web hosting companies that offer affordable web hosting services depending on what you want as a website owner.
With just N8,750 a year, you can enjoy wonderful web hosting services that the company offers and this includes 20GB bandwidth per month and up to 2GB storage space but it does not have SSL built-in so you will buy that separately.
Gigalayer offers a medium plan of N14,000 per year where you can get free SSL and more capacity for your website. There is also a large plan for N21,000 per year and a colossal plan for N28,000 per year.
You can visit www.gigalayer.com/ for more information about the web hosting company.
Utiware
This is a very popular web hosting company that is registered in both Nigeria and also in the US. Their main offices are located in Lagos, Nigeria and Cincinnati, USA.
The office in Lagos are in charge of the web hosting services while the office in USA is manages the cloud and physical services.
They offer variety of hosting services like Windows web hosting, Linux Web hosting, reseller hosting, cloud hosting and dedicated server hosting.
Utiware offers from 5GB to 50GB storage depending on the subscription package you opt for and monthly traffic limit ranges from 18GB to 180GB traffic depending on your hosting plan.
The hosting plan prices ranges from N5,000 to N100,000 per year.
For more information about the web hosting company, visit www.utiware.net/
Registeram
This company is becoming one of the fast-growing web hosting companies in Nigeria. It provides web hosting services as well as domain name registration.
It offers 5GB to 30GB storage space depending on your subscription package and monthly traffic limit ranges from 25GB to 90GB traffic depending on your web hosting plan.
Registeram Linux web hosting costs between N11,500 and N75,000 per year and you can pay with your debit card or through bank deposit.
The entry hosting plan that costs N11,500 per year offers one free .com.ng domain, 50GB disk space, 25GB bandwidth, 5 domains allowed, unlimited email accounts, 20 sub-domains, PHP, PHPMyAdmin and 5MySQL databases.
This web hosting company gives an auto-installer for Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and many other scripts.
You can visit www.registeram.com.ng/ for more information.
Listed Hosting
This web hosting company is developer friendly and this uniqueness earned it a spot on the list of 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria.
They focus on providing support to clients and customers as this was brought about the existence of the company. It has the capacity to provide reliable hosting services in Nigeria.
They offer services like affordable hosting services with SSD storage, domain name registration and SSL certificate to help entrepreneurs (small and medium scale businesses) to stand out with their business ideas.
Listed Hosting also helps in providing quality assistance to help entrepreneurs succeed in their businesses.
You can visit www.listedhosting.com/ for more information.
Cyberspace Limited
This multi-award winning company has been in existence since 1995 and they have always been known for their creativity and level of ingenuity which has made it to be among the top hosting companies in Nigeria over years.
It provides network solutions, software solution and also many other problems relating to website. They are working ceaselessly to stand out and help its customers and client stand out in the online world.
For more information, you can visit www.cyberspace.net.ng/
WondaHost
This web hosting company provides 10 times faster servers with 99.9% uptime and this unique feature has earned it a spot on the list of 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria.
They offer hosting solutions like Shared Web Hosting, Domain Registration and Transfer, WordPress Hosting, Professional Email, SSL certificates, Website design and development and website builder.
Since their services are hosted on a powerful Turbo blazing server, they offer 10 times faster web and WordPress hosting with 99.9% uptime commitment and 30 days money-back guarantee.
If you use WondaHost, your website will be hosted on a fine-tuned Swift-server platform with a free CDN and solid-state drives.
You can visit www.wondahost.com for more information.
Syskay systems
This web hosting company started in 2006 with a vision and mission to further expand the scope of web hosting services in the country. They are one of the best web hosting companies in Nigeria and provides a lot of web hosting services for individuals and also growing entrepreneurs and companies.
The web hosting company provides high performance Personal and business website hosting, e-commerce hosting and internet portals. They also provide Linux servers and custom web hosting software and services for their clients and customers.
You can visit www.syskay.com for more information.
Smartweb Nigeria Limited
This is one web hosting company that gives people easy and affordable ways to get their ideas and passion online and it started this since 2004. If you are looking for a web hosting company that provides affordable web hosting services, cloud hosting, and domain registration, then this is one company you should try.
Smartweb offers Linux web hosting and Windows web hosting and with as low as N5,000 per year, you could get 3GB disk space and 15GB bandwidth.
For more information, you can visit www.smartweb.com.ng
HostiFlexi
HostiFlexi has found its name on the lips of many website owners in Nigeria and so it has earned a spot on the 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria. It is one of the leading web hosting companies in Nigeria and also Africa as they provide a lot of wonderful services.
They do not just offer web hosting services as they offer Domain name registration, website design and search engine optimization services.
HostFlexi is known for its flexibility of packages, swift and efficient customer service as they believe that you are the reason they are existing and tend to serve their customers better.
They are there to make sure your website is active every time and anytime and so they are the best bet for you when it comes to hosting your website.
For more information, visit www.hostflexi.com/
AlphaGeek Host
This is a new US based hosting provider that offers variety of web hosting services to Nigerians. They offer affordable and scalable cloud SSD based web hosting with an everyday and all day support group ready to attend to your problems and assist you in any way they can.
AlphaGeek are notable for their 24/7 customer care service and other assistance contributions.
They offer services like premium affordable hosting solutions, cloud hosting, domain registration (.ng and International Domains across the world), SSL certificates, e-business hosting, website security solutions (protection against DDoS, and Hacking) and domain and hosting reseller products.
You can visit www.alphageekhost.com for more information.
Kawriz Hub
This company was established in 2019 and it has been gaining relevance in the online community. They do not just provide quality services and solutions as they also ensure that their customers and clients are very satisfied with their services.
They have a team of experienced and certified professional that ensure that brands get their creativity and reach out to their target audience through new media and also machine learning (AI) which helps their customers’ website understand consumer behaviour and search patterns.
They put their customers and clients as the cynosure of their company and so they give the best customer service.
Datatell Technologies Limited
This is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company that engages in solving clients’ real-world ICT issues with the quality of service and sound technology.
The company goes as far as conducting extensive research and analysis of their customers’ and clients’ environment to ensure that they offer right solution for their clients.
As an ICT company, they deliver ICT solutions to their customers and go as far as exceeding the expectations of their customers by deliver high quality website hosting services on time and on budget.
They also provide value by giving their customers and clients different alternatives to choose from depending on their budget and preference.
It is a wonderful hosting company to host your website and for more information, visit www.datatellng.com/
Silicon Wave Marketing
This company gives its customers variety of digital marketing services and that is why it earned a spot on the 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria. Its unique digital marketing services help their clients to get a larger customer base and increase revenue.
This company has been around for some time and it has years of experience in building marketing campaigns for clients in various industries, sizes and locations.
They have the right skills, personnel, competence and experience to help you stand out among your competitors.
AcneHOST
This web hosting company is an industry-driving supplier of different hosting services like WordPress Hosting, VPS hosting, Business hosting, dedicated servers and reseller hosting.
They have solid frameworks and organization and have a team that supports their clients and customers anytime and any day to be the best among competitors.
This company offers a lot when it comes to web hosting and also website design and so if you are looking for a company for your business, don’t look too far as AcneHost is right one for you.
You can visit https://acnehost.com/ for more information.
Tfhost
This web hosting company started in 2008 and it is one of the fast rising web hosting companies in Nigeria and this is because it offers a free SSL certificate on all their web hosting packages and their lowest storage space and bandwidth are 1GB and 2GB.
Their web hosting services costs ranges from N2,200 to N12,000 per year but be sure that you will be getting value for your money. They also provide one of the best supports among the web hosting companies in Nigeria.
It won’t be a bad choice trying them and for more information, visit www.tfhost.ng/
Teqporte Cloud
This web hosting company is one of the leading provider of web hosting service in Nigeria and it is partners with some top global firms to launch the first auto-scaling multi-server web hosting in Nigeria with 100% uptime with is the first of its kind in Africa.
Their global partner is a UK based web hosting company, veterans of web hosting technologies which is the promoter of web fusion 123-Reg and Heart Internet.
Teqporte Cloud offers one of the best hosting platforms that guarantees auto-scaling and a load-balanced platform without any single point of failure.
You can try this web hosting company if you are looking for a reliable web hosting company in Nigeria and for more information about the company and its web hosting services, you can visit https://teqportecloud.com/
Ecozeen Tech
This is a web hosting company that provides professional web development and security IT services and solutions to its clients. It is one of the leading web hosting and development companies in Nigeria.
They use their web development skills to help the business of their clients grow and they do this by providing quality websites and applications that will help expand their clients’ customer base, boost conversion and also increase revenue.
This is a great web hosting company to try as they do not just build websites, they build websites that sell and make business grow.
For more information about Ecozeen Tech, visit https://ecozeentech.com/
Upperlink limited
This company has a team of young and talented professionals that are grounded in fields like ICT, Marketing science, programming, engineering and communication and they are one of the leading software development companies in Africa.
They provide a wide range of services like online database solutions, web development, e-payment, cloud solutions and enterprise software.
Their services also come at an affordable price so you can see that it is a company that offers one of the best web hosting and development services even at a more affordable rate.
For more information about this web hosting company, visit https://upperlink.ng/
Inclide
When it comes to website design and digital marketing, Inclide is one of the leading companies in Nigeria and they do not relent in offering unique and excellent solutions to business owners to help them promote their online presence and also grow their business.
They offers excellent services like social media advertisement, website design and management, life-long IT support, Search Engine Optimization and Brand solution and all these services helps a business to expand and grow.
They give you top quality and value for you money and so it won’t be a bad idea to check them out as they are worthy of being on the list of 26 best web hosting companies in Nigeria.
Global Hosting 247
The name says it all but let’s give you some features that made this wonderful web hosting company earn a spot on the list of 26 best web hosting company in Nigeria.
This company offers affordable and high quality plans as their basic plan which is N2,500 per year has 1GB disk space, 15GB bandwidth, free site builder, unlimited FTP and free SSL certificate.
You can pay N7,000 to get an Advanced Shared Hosting package that offers 6GB disk space, unlimited bandwidth, free SSL certificate and free site builder.
For more information about this company, visit www.globalhosting247.com/
HostNowNow
This is a fast growing web hosting company in Nigeria and it offers a wide range of hosting services like shared hosting, cloud hosting and reseller hosting. You can enjoy their services for as low as N3,000 per year.
They also offer their services on a per month basis as you can get a shared hosting plan for N500 per month depending on the capacity of your website.
They also offer cloud hosting plan for N2,400 per month and the reseller hosting plan starts from N5,000 per month.
For more information, visit www.hostnownow.com/
Abollyhost
This is another very popular web hosting company in Nigeria and a lot of big websites and blogs are hosted on this company. Their basic plan offers unlimited SSD disk space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, excellent customer service, free marketing, SEO tools, free .com.ng domain and 99.9% uptime with 30-day money back guarantee.
One interesting thing is that you could get all these features we have highlighted above for as low as N450 per month.
For more information, visit www.abollyhost.com/
So we have looked at some of the best web hosting companies in Nigeria but we want to give you additional information as some of these Nigerian hosting companies might not be able to host large websites and so you can try using some international hosting companies.
We will be talking about some of the international web hosting companies that are reliable and efficient.
The Best International Web Hosting Companies
Namecheap
This is a very popular domain registrar and it also has some exciting web hosting plans that make them unique. This company offers some of the cheapest shared hosting with month-to-month payment options that are very affordable.
It also offers EasyWP which is one of the most affordable managed WordPress hosting offerings.
If you need more power and control over your website, you can try Namecheap as it offers VPS hosting and also dedicated servers. For more information visit www.namecheap.com/
BlueHost
This is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the world and a lot of big website are hosted on it. It is really popular for people launching their first website.
They offer excellent rates and a beginner-friendly platform that makes it easy for you to run your website even as a first timer.
If you use Bluehost, it will walk you through a task for the first time and if you encounter any issue, there is a 24/7 support by phone or live chat to help you out.
This web hosting company offers excellent analytics and SEO tools to help track how well your website is ranking for specific keywords and it also go ahead to give you tips and ideas on how you can optimize your site for the best search rankings.
For as low as $8.99 per month you can get the basic shared hosting plan but there are also some discounts you can get as a new customer. If you sign up for three years and lock in the price, you can get it at $4.95 per month.
If your website is expanding and you want to upgrade, you have a lot of wonderful options on Bluehost like managed WordPress hosting, dedicated hosting and VPS hosting.
As a hosting company, it is reliable, efficient and covers everything you need from a hosting company and so as a beginner, you should try this web hosting company.
For more information, visit www.bluehost.com/
DreamHost
This is another wonderful web hosting company that offers excellent month-to-month plans at affordable prices even while giving you value for your money.
Their month-to-month plans start at $1.99 per month and this plan allows you access to 1 website with unlimited traffic and also a free SSL certificate.
Although this is just a promotional deal that will go up once the deal is over and then you will have to start paying the current monthly rate which is $7.99 per month which is also affordable.
They also offer one-year and three-year contracts for as low as $2.59 per month that allows you to save more money, this is worth trying.
They are very reliable and efficient when it comes to managing websites they use a completely custom control panel to manage your website unlike others that use the standard cPanel.
Migrating to DreamHost is very easy as their free migration plugin helps you to migrate easily and you will also be able to scale your hosting as your website expands.
It is another one of the three WordPress recommended hosts as it has some managed WordPress hosting in its basic shared plans.
They also have an excellent customer service that is less traditional and 24/7 email support and live chat only on business hours. If you want technical support on your phone, you could pay an additional $9.95.
For more information, visit www.dreamhost.com/
DomainRacer
This is a very popular web hosting company and it offers wonderful web hosting plans with incredible features even at a lower price.
It provides LiteSpeed technology which is ten times faster than the Apache server and this gives you a high-speed web hosting service. They also provide free SSL certificate that helps to secure your website from third-party attacks and a free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) default tool to help maintain your website ranking on Google.
DomainRacer offers affordable and secured web hosting services with unlimited SSD storage space, 99.9% uptime and unbounded bandwidth.
The company also gives free weekly JetBackup services and so you don’t have to worry about backing up your files.
Some of its web hosting services are Dedicated Server hosting, Shared hosting, VPS hosting, LMS hosting, Reseller hosting and Application hosting (Node.js, Magneto, eCommerce, Web Developer, MySQL, PHP, etc.)
It also offers 7+ security performances like DDOS protection, Imunify 360, ModSecurity, EmailSpam protection, MagicSpam protection, PYXSoft, ImunifyAV and Firewall.
If you use them as your hosting company, you will get a free SitePad website builder with 1000+ themes to build your website even with having any knowledge about coding.
For more information about this web hosting company, visit www.domainracer.com/
Hostinger
This is an excellent choice and it is popular among the big websites because they offer excellent web hosting services.
Their hosting plans range from $1.99 per month to $4.99 per month which is more like the cheapest and the most popular plan is the Premium Shared Hosting plan that is $2.59 per month and this provides you with everything you need to start a website.
All these rates are promotional and will certainly go up when you want to renew but you can actually pay for longer subscription and enjoy the lower prices.
The Premium Shared hosting plan comes with 100GB SSD storage, plenty websites, a free SSL certificate but if you need more; you will have to upgrade to other plans.
Even when the promotional prices end, the costs are still fair and affordable as a single-site plan only costs $3.99 per month after renewal which is one of the lowest plans offered by a web hosting company.
One interesting this is that it offers you free weekly backups even on the entry-level plan and from the marketing to the UI for managing your website, it is a premium host.
Hostinger has its own user-friendly control panel for every admin which is an hPanel in case you don’t like the cPanel. The hPanel has a dedicated WordPress dashboard and you can also auto-install a WordPress site.
You get to enjoy 99.9% uptime guarantee and 24/7 support at an affordable price and it offers a separate email hosting from $0.99 per month.
For more information, visit www.hostinger.com/
Hostgator
If you are a business owner and you are looking for a simple website, then this is one web hosting company you should check out.
This host provide you with websites or portfolios where you just need a visitor’s contact info, maybe an about page only or a landing page to collect leads.
This hosting company offers you “how-to” guides for technical support and if you are not satisfied with that, you can engage in live chat and the email support.
Hostgator offers hosting plans that are cheap and it is beginner-friendly as you get to learn a lot using this hosting company.
They offer Windows hosting, Linux, Cloud hosting, managed WordPress, dedicated server and VPS hosting. The Shared hosting plan starts at $2.64 per month with a three year contract.
For more information, visit www.hostgator.com/
A2 Hosting
This is one web hosting company that offers you website with great speed even at low prices.
A2 Hosting supersedes other hosting companies when it comes to speed and with their Turbo Boost and Trubo Max plans, you will get access to their Turbo Servers. This web hosting company is 20 times faster than other servers.
This web hosting company also has a 99.9% uptime commitment on all plans and with this; you can rely on them to host your site.
If your website is hosted on a bad host and you want to migrate, A2 Hosting offer free site migration and with this, you will save time of rebuilding another website.
Their startup plan includes only one website and if you plan on hosting multiple websites, the Drive plan is what you will need.
You can visit www.a2hosting.com for more information.
SiteGround
If your website is not easy to navigate and not fast, you will lose a lot of potential visitors but with SiteGround, this is not the case they deliver top-class websites with speed and sound security.
Their hosting is built upon Google Cloud to help maintain swift and stable connections and their SSD persistent data storage ensures low latency.
This web hosting company has a better PHP solution which is the Ultrafast PHP and its deliver site speeds that are 30% faster than the standard PHP while reducing time to first byte by half and memory usage by 15%.
Visitors will be able to navigate your site easily and faster with SiteGround as your host and they are very vigilant as they keep customers’ sites secure and stable. They run server health checks every 0.5 seconds and the Ai-driven anti-not system helps to block brute force attack attempts every hour.
SiteGround is one of WordPress’ recommended web hosts and it is known for delivering high quality performance for WordPress sites.
They also offer auto updates and constantly scan for platform vulnerabilities.
For more information, visit www.siteground.com/
WP Engine
This is one of the best WordPress hosting companies and it provides highly optimized WordPress websites. This host offers you all the storage and speed you will need for your website or blog.
Though their prices are quite expensive but they offer you value for your money. WP Engine’s lowest price plan is $23 per month and the plan gives you one site with 10GB and a maximum of 25,000 visitors per month.
You get two months free when you sign up for a year and the Quick Sprout offers better deals too.
The WP Engine provides quality services to WordPress users and with this, your site will be superfast with no downtime and all maintenance tasks are done automatically.
If you want to run an online store with WordPress, there are special plans for you as you will get access to premium WordPress ecommerce themes and some other tools to help your website grow.
There also provide excellent customer service with their support staff available 24/7 even on live chat.
For more information, visit www.wpengine.com/
InMotion Hosting
This web hosting company is the best when it comes to Virtual Private Server (VPS). With VPS hosting, you get more control over the server than when you are using shared hosting and so if you are not really confident in the command line, a managed VPS plan from InMotion is the best option for you.
You don’t have to worry about SSL certificates as all InMotion VPS plans include AutoSSL which enable protection for every website visitor with a single click.
The InMotion VPS hosting starts from as low as $19.99 per month and it gives you speed that makes your website easy to navigate and also safe too.
For more information, visit www.inmotionhosting.com/
FAQ
- How much is hosting in Nigera?
The price of hosting depends on the web hosting company and also the hosting plan but you should expect to pay an average of N900 for a domain and N300 per month for a hosting account.
- Which domain is the best?
Well a lot of sites go with the “.com” and this is actually the best choice as it is what most visitors usually search for and it is also easy to remember. Although it is becoming more difficult to get quality .com domain names and users are using some other domain names like .net, .org, .co etc.
- How do I start a website?
You can start a website in just 4 simple steps which are:
1. Register your domain name
2. Find a web hosting company
3. Prepare your content
4. Build your website
It is as simple as that then you can now add some other things as you proceed and your site grows. - What is a good name for a website?
Well it is very good that your domain now be a keyword but let it not be too long so that it will be easy to remember. Short domain names are memorable. Some people recommend that your domain name fewer than 12 to 15 characters.