Almost every hosting company advertises an introductory rate. You pay it once, for the first term, and then you pay the renewal rate for as long as you stay. That is not a trick in itself — it is how the industry prices. The problem is that the renewal rate is usually two clicks away in the terms, so the number you compare between providers is not the number you end up paying.
There is a simple fix. Stop comparing advertised prices and start comparing what a year actually costs, at the introductory rate and at the rate that follows it.
The arithmetic that matters
Multiply the advertised rate by twelve, add any setup fee, then do it again at the renewal rate. Our own entry plan is $7.95/mo and renews at $12.62/mo, so a first year is 12 × $7.95 = $95.40 plus a $2.95 setup fee, or $98.35 — and every year after it is 12 × $12.62 = $151.44. Both numbers are on the plan card. The gap between them is the whole decision, and it is the number most providers make you hunt for.
Do that for each provider on your shortlist and the ranking often reverses. The cheapest first year is frequently the most expensive third year, because a deep introductory discount has to be paid for somewhere.
If a provider sells you a term, price the whole term
Many hosts quote their lowest number against a multi-year commitment, billed upfront. That is a genuine discount, and it has a genuine cost: you have prepaid, so leaving early means asking for a refund rather than simply not renewing. If you go that route, buy the longest term you are confident about rather than the longest term offered — and check what the rate becomes when it ends, because that is when the discount stops.
Price the add-ons, not just the plan
The plan price is rarely the whole bill. Before you compare anything, find out whether each of these is included or charged:
- SSL certificates, and whether the free one covers subdomains
- Daily backups — and separately, whether restoring one costs money
- Migration of your existing site
- WHOIS privacy on domains, which is free at some registrars and a line item at others
- Email mailboxes, and how many
- Staging environments, if you will ever need to test a change safely
A restore fee is the one to watch. A backup you have to pay to use is not really a backup — it is an insurance policy with an excess, sold to you at the worst possible moment.
Three questions to ask before checkout
- What is the renewal rate for this exact plan, in writing, before I pay?
- What does it cost to restore a backup, and how far back do the restore points go?
- If I want to leave, do I get my files and database, and is there a fee to hand them over?
Any provider worth buying from can answer all three in one reply. We publish the renewal rate next to the introductory rate on every plan for exactly this reason: it costs us some sign-ups, and it saves the conversation that would otherwise happen twelve months later.
Questions about anything above? We answer them without a sales script.