On October 25, 2026, Hostinger’s web hosting page advertised its Premium plan at $2.49 a month on a 48-month term, with a renewal price of $10.99 a month. SiteGround’s StartUp plan showed $2.99 a month for the first 12-month term and $17.99 a month after that. Neither renewal figure is hidden, but both are easy to miss when the big number on the banner is the introductory one.
Price is only one of six things worth checking before you commit to a host. The others decide whether your site stays online, how quickly you can recover from a mistake, where your visitors’ data lives and how painful it will be to leave.
Start with a shortlist. Besides the well-known brands, directories can surface smaller providers. The web hosting listings at MoneroDir, for instance, collect 180 providers, sort them into groups such as VPS and dedicated servers or domain and DNS services, mark 11 as verified by hand, and keep 29 flagged with questionable or scam warnings so readers know which ones to skip. Run every name, big or small, through the checks below.
1. Read the Uptime SLA, Not the Badge
An uptime figure only means something when it sits in a service level agreement with a remedy attached. DigitalOcean’s CPU Droplet SLA, last updated on June 3, 2025, commits to 99.99% monthly uptime for each Droplet. If a Droplet falls short, the customer can claim a service credit for that Droplet’s charges, but must ask within two billing cycles, and the credit only counts against future invoices.
The decimals matter. SiteGround’s own hosting page puts the gap between 99.5% and 99.9% uptime at 3.6 hours versus 43 minutes of downtime a month. At 99.99%, the allowance drops to about four minutes. Check which products the SLA covers and whether planned maintenance counts as downtime.
2. Check How Backups Work and Who Keeps Them
Backups are where similar plans differ most. Hostinger’s Premium plan includes free weekly backups, while its Unlimited plan steps up to daily backups with easier restores. SiteGround includes free daily backups of the website, email and files on every plan, keeping up to 30 days of history, and adds on-demand backups from its GrowBig plan upward.
Ask three questions: how often backups run, how long they are kept, and whether you can restore a single file or database without opening a ticket. Then keep your own copy somewhere else. A host’s backup is no help if your account is suspended or the provider closes.
3. Compare the Renewal Price, Not the Intro Price
Introductory rates usually depend on a long prepaid term. Hostinger’s $2.49 Premium rate is tied to 48 months, and its $10.99 renewal is more than four times that rate. SiteGround’s StartUp renews at six times its first-term price. Free extras expire as well: SiteGround’s free domain covers one year of registration, and so does Hostinger’s.
Work out the cost over three years, not one. If the total after renewal is higher than a plain monthly plan elsewhere, the discount was not much of a deal.
4. Pick a Data Centre Near Your Visitors and Check GDPR
Server location affects load times and, for European sites, data protection. Hetzner, for example, runs data centre parks in Nuremberg and Falkenstein in Germany and in Helsinki, Finland, plus sites in Ashburn, Virginia, Hillsboro, Oregon and Singapore. Hostinger lets customers pick a server location during setup, though the options vary by plan.
If you handle personal data from people in the EU, ask where it is stored and whether the host offers a data processing agreement. The European Commission’s adequacy list recognises the United States only for commercial organisations that take part in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, so a US host’s status matters. Requirements differ between countries, so ask an adviser if you are unsure.
5. Test the Support Before You Need It
Most hosts promise round-the-clock help. Hostinger offers 24/7 support through live chat in several languages, and SiteGround advertises 24/7 live support, with chats and tickets from GoGeek customers sent to its most experienced agents first. Promises are easy to print, so test them.
Before you sign up, send a pre-sales question at an awkward hour, such as how to restore yesterday’s backup or which PHP versions are available. Note how long the reply takes and whether it answers the question or just pastes a help article.
6. Ask How Migration Works
Moving an existing site is the step most people dread. Hostinger offers free website migration, requested from its hPanel dashboard once a plan is active. SiteGround offers a WordPress Migrator plugin for do-it-yourself moves, or a transfer handled by its own staff.
Whoever does the move, keep the old hosting account live until the new site is tested and DNS has switched over. Lowering your domain’s TTL a day before the move shortens the changeover, and a full backup taken just before it gives you a way back.
Final Thoughts
Choose a host by the three-year total, the SLA wording, the backup schedule, the server location, the speed of a real support reply and the migration path. A few minutes on each provider’s own pages, plus one test question to support, will tell you more than any discount banner.
