Hosting Renewal Prices, Tracked
Hosting's oldest trick is the intro price: sign up at $2.99, renew at $17.99. This tracker records the advertised entry price and the renewal price for every provider we've verified, side by side, with the date we checked. Where we haven't verified a number, the row says so — no guesses, ever.
Disclosure: Digital Hosting may earn a commission when you buy through our links. This does not affect our recommendations.
Summary verdict
The headline finding (July 2026 pass)
Among the shared web hosts we verified, renewal prices average roughly 4× the advertised intro price — SiteGround is the steepest at about 6× ($2.99 → $17.99). Registrars play the same game more quietly: Gandi registers .com at $11 and renews at $38.38, while Cloudflare ($10.46) and Porkbun ($11.08) renew at exactly what they advertise. VPS and flat-fee email providers largely don't do intro pricing at all — one reason we keep recommending them.
The dataset
Intro vs renewal, provider by provider
Generated from the same dataset that powers every price on this site.
Download CSV ↓Web Hosting
| Provider | Advertised price | Renews at | Markup | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger | $2.99/mo48-month prepay | $10.99/mo | 3.7× | |
| Cloudways | $11/mopay-as-you-go, DigitalOcean 1 vCPU / 2 GB | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| SiteGround | $2.99/mo12-month prepay | $17.99/mo | 6× | |
| DreamHost | $2.89/mofirst year, billed yearly | $10.99/mo | 3.8× | |
| A2 Hosting | $2.99/mofirst year, annual billing | $11.90/mo | 4× | |
| Bluehost | $3.99/mo36-month prepay | $9.99/mo | 2.5× | |
| InMotion Hosting | Mid tier — check current pricing | Not yet verified — check the vendor's site | ||
WordPress Hosting
| Provider | Advertised price | Renews at | Markup | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinsta | $30/mobilled annually (1 site, 20 GB) | $35/mo billed monthly | 1× (flat) | |
| WP Engine | $30/mobilled annually (1 site, 25k visits) | same at renewal | — | |
| Rocket.net | $25/mobilled annually (1 site, 10 GB) | $30/mo billed monthly | 1× (flat) | |
| Pressable | $250/yr (~$20.83/mo)Signature 1 — 1 site, 30k visits, annual billing | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Flywheel | $25/moStarter — 1 site, 25k visits | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Nexcess | Mid tier — check current pricing | Not yet verified — check the vendor's site | ||
VPS Hosting
| Provider | Advertised price | Renews at | Markup | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | $4/mo1 vCPU / 512 MiB / 500 GiB transfer | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Vultr | Entry VPS — check current pricing | Not yet verified — check the vendor's site | ||
| Linode (Akamai) | $5/moNanode 1 GB — 1 vCPU / 25 GB SSD / 1 TB transfer | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Hetzner Cloud | €5.49/mo (~$6.49) + VATEU regions, shared vCPU (CX23) | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| OVHcloud | $4.54/mo12-month upfront, 2 vCores / 4 GB | same at renewal | — | |
| Scaleway | ~€6.55/moDEV1-S, 2 vCPU / 2 GB, hourly billing | same at renewal | — | |
| AWS Lightsail | $5/mo512 MB / 2 vCPU / 1 TB transfer, with public IPv4 | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
Email Hosting
| Provider | Advertised price | Renews at | Markup | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace | $7/user/moBusiness Starter, annual commitment | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Microsoft 365 Business | $7/user/moBusiness Basic, paid yearly | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Fastmail | $3/user/moBasic, billed annually | same at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| Proton Mail Business | Per-user monthly — check current pricing | Not yet verified — check the vendor's site | ||
| Zoho Mail | Per-user monthly — check current pricing | Not yet verified — check the vendor's site | ||
| Migadu | $19/yrMicro — 5 GB, unlimited domains/addresses | same price at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
| MXroute | $59/yrSmall — 10 GB, unlimited domains & mailboxes | same price at renewal | 1× (flat) | |
Domain Registrars
| Provider | Advertised price | Renews at | Markup | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porkbun | $11.08/yr (.com) | $11.08/yr | 1× (flat) | |
| Namecheap | ~$11.28 first year (.com) | ~$18.48/yr | 1.6× | |
| Cloudflare Registrar | $10.46/yr (.com) | $10.46/yr — at cost | 1× (flat) | |
| Dynadot | $10.88/yr (.com) | $10.88/yr | 1× (flat) | |
| Hover | $18.99/yr (.com) | $18.99/yr | 1× (flat) | |
| Gandi | $11.00 first year (.com) | $38.38/yr standard | 3.5× | |
| Name.com | $12.99 first year (.com) | $17.99/yr | 1.4× |
Dedicated Server Hosting
| Provider | Advertised price | Renews at | Markup | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liquid Web | $167.50/mo16-core Xeon, 64 GB RAM, fully managed | same at renewal | — | |
| Hivelocity | $97/mo promoXeon E-2236, 16 GB, 20 TB @ 1 Gbps | $129/mo regular | 1.3× | |
| Rackspace | Enterprise tier — quote-based | Not yet verified — check the vendor's site | ||
Methodology
Every number in the table was checked on the vendor's own pricing page (or official vendor documentation, or a same-day price tracker for the few vendors that block automated access) on the verification date shown. We record the advertised entry price, the billing term required to get it, and the renewal or ongoing price.
Markup multiples are computed only where both numbers are cleanly comparable (same plan, same billing unit). Providers we could not verify this pass — including InMotion, Vultr, Nexcess, Proton Mail, and Zoho Mail — are listed as not yet verified rather than filled with third-party guesses. Rackspace publishes no dedicated-server pricing at all (quote-only).
Prices are re-verified quarterly. If you spot a change before we do, use the contact page — corrections get re-dated.
How to read the table
The 'renews at' column is the number to budget with: it's what you pay every term after the promo ends, and for multi-year prepay deals it's the rate that greets you at the end of the lock-in. A 48-month prepay at $2.99/mo is a genuinely good deal — if you still want the host in month 49.
A missing renewal price with a flat 'same at renewal' note is the pattern to look for. Cloud providers (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode), flat-fee email hosts (MXroute, Migadu, Fastmail), and at-cost registrars (Cloudflare, Porkbun, Dynadot, Hover) simply charge the same price continuously.
Best fit for
- +Anyone pricing hosting past the first invoice
- +Budgeting a three-year total cost of ownership instead of a first-year teaser
- +Journalists and forum posters who need a dated, sourced renewal-price table
Consider another option if
- −You need a price we haven't verified — check the vendor's site directly rather than trusting a stale number
- −You're comparing enterprise or custom-quoted plans; this tracker covers published entry pricing only
Questions readers ask
FAQ
Reviewed by
Digital Hosting editorial team
Independent comparisons of hosting, VPS, WordPress, business email, and domain registrars. We weight renewal pricing, real-world performance, and support quality — not marketing claims.
See our affiliate disclosure and how we test and score providers.