Independent · No paid placement

What web hosting costs in year two

Hosting has two different costs: what you are charged when you sign up, and what you are charged when the introductory term ends. We record both from the hosts' own pricing pages, including the billing term behind each price.

For every plan we separate cash due today, the service cost allocated to the period you choose, and the next renewal invoice. Prices change, so every figure carries a check date.

How to use this

1. Decide how long you actually want the site up. One year and five years give different winners.
2. Read the renewal column, not the advertised one. Every host page has both.
3. Check the date next to each figure — if it is old, we say so rather than letting you assume it is current.

Start here

How much web hosting costs after the first year works the whole thing through on one page: the median renewal, the three-year figures for every US shared host here, and the arithmetic to redo it for your own period.

The hosts that stay cheap in year two takes the same plans and ranks them by the renewal rate itself, the rate that applies once the introductory term ends.

What this is not

It is not a review site. We have not hosted a site on any of these and we do not rate them. There are no stars, no badges and no “editor's choice”. If you want to know whether a host is fast or answers the phone, this is the wrong site.

It is not complete. It holds 36 hosts, of which 8 publish no renewal price and therefore cannot be compared on what they really cost. The list says which.

And no host has paid to be on it, to be ordered above another, or to have anything removed. The method page sets out the arithmetic in full so you can check it.