A2 Hosting (now hosting.com) renewal price — official policy and real user billing reports
It resets, and the refund does not cover the gap. hosting.com's own renewal page says it plainly: "If you choose monthly, or after that prepaid period ends, your website plans will renew at our regular pricing." On the Starter shared plan that is $2.99/mo for the first 12-month term against a $13.99/mo standard rate — about 4.7×. The 30-day money-back guarantee is real but scoped: it covers the hosting plan fee, not the domain registration or paid add-ons, and VPS plans are excluded. Below: the official policy sentence, a dated price check from hosting.com's own price engine, eight verbatim billing reports from users, and exactly what the guarantee does and does not return.
Read hosting.com's renewal policy →hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting) publishes a dedicated renewal pricing page. The policy statement, reviewed 2026-10-13, is short and direct:
"We offer a variety of products, services, and plans to fit just about anyones web hosting needs. Throughout the year we offer sales and promotional prices on our products to help folks get started the right way with their websites. As part of these offerings we offer incredible savings when paying for a year or two or three in advance. If you choose monthly, or after that prepaid period ends, your website plans will renew at our regular pricing."
What that means in practice: the discount is a first-term benefit, not a permanent price. The specific dollar amount you will pay at renewal depends on the plan and the term you chose at signup — confirm the exact renewal figure in the order summary before paying, or on hosting.com's published renewal page. The coupon half of the same question — whether any code beats the auto-applied rate — is answered on the hosting.com discount page.
We used to refuse to print a dollar figure here. We've changed that: below is a verified price check we pulled straight from hosting.com's own price engine (the data behind the price widget on hosting.com/hosting/) on 2026-10-13. The mechanism has not changed — promo first term, then regular pricing — but the numbers are now shown, dated, and sourced. They do change over time, so always re-confirm in the order summary before paying.
What we can confirm on official hosting.com pages, reviewed 2026-10-13:
These figures come straight from hosting.com's own price engine (the data behind the price widget on hosting.com/hosting/), captured 2026-10-13. All amounts are USD. hosting.com's prices change, so always re-confirm in the order summary before paying.
| Plan | Term | Promo price (first term only) | Renews at (standard rate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter (Shared) | 1 month | $13.99/mo (no discount) | $13.99/mo |
| Starter (Shared) | 12 months | $2.99/mo ($35.88/yr, promo WH1YAL auto-applied) | $13.99/mo |
| "Starting from" headline | 48 months | $1.99/mo | — |
The promo rate is a first-term benefit only: hosting.com's own renewal policy (quoted above) states plans renew at regular pricing after the prepaid period ends, and the promo on this plan is set not to recur. After the first term, Starter bills at the standard rate of $13.99/mo — about 4.7× the $2.99/mo intro price. That gap is exactly the "renewal shock" the user quotes below describe. The $1.99/mo "Starting from" figure is the deepest discount, shown for the 48-month term.
Official policy tells you the mechanism. Real-user reports tell you what the mechanism feels like in practice. Below are verbatim quotes — copied word-for-word, not paraphrased — from verified reviewers and community members, each with a link and date. We are not claiming these are "everyone's" experience; these are specific people reporting their own bills.
"I was disappointed that they raised their prices significantly when it came time to renew my agreement."
"One aspect I find disappointing about A2 Hosting is the significant increase in renewal prices compared to the initial promotional rates, which may catch new users off guard."
"One thing I dislike about A2 Hosting is that the renewal prices are quite high compared to the initial discounted rates."
"I've noticed that renewal prices are significantly higher than the initial sign-up cost, which can be a surprise if you're not expecting it."
"My main concern was value over time: pricing kept increasing, which eventually made it too expensive for me even though I liked the service."
"was on their turbo boost plan paying like $12 a month after renewal. last month i get this email saying theyre migrating me to hosting.com and my price is going to $24."
"i had the opposite experience actually. migration went smooth for my two shared accounts, panel is faster than the old one. price did double though which is why im moving one of them to racknerd next month."
The forum quotes are individual billing experiences — not a vendor average. We report them as "this person reported this on this date," not as "everyone pays this." The G2 quotes are from independent reviewers rating the product. Together they show a consistent pattern: the renewal number is higher than the signup number, and the jump can be large enough to change whether the user stays.
None of the three is wrong — they list genuine first-term discounts. The difference is what they don't show:
If your question is "what's the best code today," the aggregators answer it. If your question is "what will this cost me at renewal, and is anyone reporting a shock," that answer lives here.
hosting.com hosting pages and terms, reviewed 2026-10-17
Yes, there is a guarantee. hosting.com (the brand formerly known as A2 Hosting) states a 30-day money-back guarantee on its hosting plans. It is your genuine safety net: if the service, speed or support isn't what you expected — or a renewal price surprises you — you can cancel inside the first 30 days and get your hosting plan fee back. But "money-back" is scoped to the hosting plan; things billed separately (a domain name registration, paid add-ons) are often not refundable, and the exact full-versus-prorated rules live in hosting.com's own Terms of Service. Coupon sites push codes and headline "% off" and almost never explain this — so the real risk-free lever is the guarantee, not the coupon.
hosting.com's own hosting page lists, among its promises, a "30 day money-back guarantee" — stated next to a "99.9% uptime SLA." That is the single verified claim this article rests on; we are not inventing a longer window or a bigger refund than the provider advertises. The guarantee is a property of the hosting plan, not of any coupon code you might apply at checkout.
What that means in plain terms: the guarantee is the part of the purchase that actually de-risks your budget. A coupon code only changes the first-term headline price. The 30-day window is what lets you walk away cleanly if the deal, the speed, or the renewal math doesn't add up.
This is the part almost no coupon page spells out. A money-back guarantee on a hosting plan is not the same as a refund of your entire order. The common structure — which you must confirm against hosting.com's Terms of Service, because the specifics are governed by the provider's policy and not shown on the public plan page — typically works like this:
| Item in your order | Usually covered by the 30-day guarantee? | Why / what to check |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting plan fee | Yes — within 30 days | This is the core of the guarantee. Cancel inside the window and the plan fee is the part designed to come back. Confirmed: hosting.com states a 30-day money-back guarantee on its plans. |
| Domain name registration | Often not refundable | A domain is typically a separate purchase; the registry fee is paid on your behalf at registration, so providers usually treat it as non-refundable. Unconfirmed specifics — governed by hosting.com's Terms of Service. |
| Paid add-ons / upgrades | Often excluded | One-time or recurring add-ons (extra backups, premium SSL, site-lock type services) are frequently carved out of the refund. Unconfirmed specifics — check the terms. |
| Full vs prorated | Set by the provider's terms | Whether you get the whole plan fee or a calculated amount is defined in hosting.com's refund policy. Unconfirmed specifics — we do not publish a refund percentage we cannot verify. |
None of the "Unconfirmed" rows above are facts we are asserting about hosting.com — they are the typical shape of hosting refunds, flagged so you know to read the provider's own Terms of Service before relying on them. The only confirmed line is the existence of the 30-day guarantee itself.
A first-term coupon looks generous on the order page and then the plan renews at the standard rate — the renewal-price gap we covered in our renewal-price article. The money-back guarantee is what makes that gap survivable: you can cancel inside the first 30 days, before any renewal is ever charged, if the renewal math or the day-to-day service isn't right for you.
Put differently: a coupon code optimises the price you see today. The 30-day guarantee protects the decision you're making for the whole year. For a budget-minded buyer, the guarantee is the more important lever — and it's the one coupon aggregators almost never put next to their codes.
The gap this article covers is factual, not a grudge. As of our review (2026-10-17), the three benchmark aggregators optimise their A2 Hosting / hosting.com pages for one thing — a list of codes and a headline percentage-off — and they almost uniformly skip the money-back mechanics:
That is the gap: searchers want to know "if this deal goes bad, can I get my money back, and what's excluded?" — and the aggregators optimise for the code, not that answer.
It resets. Per hosting.com's official renewal pricing page, plans renew at regular pricing after the prepaid promotional period ends. The promo rate is tied to the prepaid term; once it ends, the plan reverts to the standard rate.
Hosting providers price by term: a discounted intro rate buys the first contract (often 12 or more months), and the renewal is billed at the provider's standard rate. hosting.com's own page says: "If you choose monthly, or after that prepaid period ends, your website plans will renew at our regular pricing."
Open hosting.com's order page and read the order summary before paying — it lists both the promo term price and the renewal price. hosting.com also publishes a dedicated Renewal Pricing page at hosting.com/about/renewal-pricing/.
hosting.com states a 30-day money-back guarantee on its hosting plans, so you can test the service within the first 30 days. It does not refund the difference between promo and renewal rates after the term ends — that is why checking the renewal price beforehand matters.
Yes. Multiple verified users on G2.com report that renewal prices were significantly higher than the initial sign-up cost, and some users on community forums report their bill roughly doubled after the A2 Hosting to hosting.com migration. The verbatim quotes with links are listed above.