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Ok, $49.99 is expensive. There is a cheaper solution that you should do.

Homestead will cost you more over time than actually having a web design company help you. The numbers look like this:

HomeStead
$49.99 a month * 12 months=$599.88 a year. Over a two year period thats $1,199.77

Web Design Company
Web Hosting can cost cheaper than $10 dollars a month. So $10 *12 months=$120.
Now you pay for the one time cost of building a site with search engine optimzation, support, bug design warranty, it looks professional and any other services the web design company offers. It may cost you $500.
$500 +$120=$620 for the first year. $20 more expensive that homestead.
Now for the second year, the only expense you have is the web hosting which is another $10* 12 months=$120. The first year cost of $620+ second year cost of $120= $740.

So it comes down to $1199.77 vs $740. In the long run, one is cheaper and better quality.

My company offers web design services at: http://www.my-lan.us/services/web_design/
You can read a website faq here: http://www.my-lan.us/services/web_design/faq.php

Are you using prostores that's simply branded by homestead? It's a powerful application, and there are dozens of hosts offering it. Being that homestead was recently purchased by intuit (QuickBooks), I would trust them.

I would use extreme caution with $10 hosting. As a merchant on the Internet, you have certain responsibilities, like PCI compliance. A cheap web host will not have the resources to support PCI compliance, nor will they invest spend $10000s on their systems to ensure their merchants are compliant. Stick with a leader.

I have clients and one that I'm helping right now. They took the advice of a so-called developer and made cost a priority by moving to cheap hosting. The network is unstable, the servers are unpredictable, tech is anything but savvy, network is not compliant, etc.They moved from Monstercommerce and their orders & traffic have dropped by over 60% in one year. So, as they say, you get what you pay for... Why sacrifice your business to save $30 a month? It makes no sense if you're serious about succeeding online.

yeah i agree homestead isn't that great and it's ultra expensive. i have a friend who just signed up for it. couldn't get his site to work. most hosting companies have low hosting fees and some even have web templates for free. like hostgator.com. i don't use them but have reviewed their services, they aren't bad.