Switching hosts to escape a renewal: what it actually costs

This page exists because a table full of renewal multiples is an argument for switching, and we would rather not make that argument by omission.

What does moving a live site actually involve?

Because a website is not a file, five things have to happen in order, and each can go wrong quietly.

The files and database have to move. Most hosts offer a migration tool or a free managed migration, and most of the time it works. When it does not, the failure is usually silent — a plugin that stores absolute paths, a database prefix mismatch, a cron job nobody remembered.

DNS has to change, and it does not change instantly. For a period measured in hours, some visitors reach the old host and some reach the new one. Anything written to the site during that window — an order, a comment, a form submission — can land on the server you are abandoning.

Bundled email breaks, because hosting-provided mailboxes do not travel with the site. If your address is on the domain and the old host was serving it, that has to be moved separately or you lose mail during the switch.

Certificates and redirects have to be rebuilt. Free certificates are standard now, but they are issued per host, and any redirect rules living in server configuration rather than the application need re-entering.

Then somebody has to check it afterwards — not the home page, but the forms, the checkout, the login, the things that only fail under real use.

When is switching clearly worth it?

Almost always when the renewal is steep and the site is simple. A static or small WordPress site moving off an 8x renewal is straightforward, the tooling is good, and the saving compounds every year you stay.

The arithmetic is one line:

Suppose moving costs six hours of your own time, valued at whatever your time is worth, plus a small risk of downtime. A host renewing at $9.99 against an alternative at $2.99 saves $7 a month, so the move pays for six hours somewhere in the first year. A host renewing at $8.00 against an alternative at $6.00 saves $2, and the same six hours takes three years to earn back.

That figure is an illustration, not a finding. Substitute your own. The point is the shape: steep renewals justify moving, mild ones usually do not, and most people never run the calculation.

Is there a cheaper option than moving?

Yes, and it is the one most people skip. Ask the host to hold the introductory rate, before the renewal processes.

Hosting has high customer acquisition costs and unusually low marginal costs, which means retaining you at a discount is often better business for the host than losing you. None of them publish this, and we have not surveyed how often it works, so treat it as worth an email rather than as a reliable outcome. What we can say is that it takes ten minutes against a day of migration, and the worst case is that they say no and you move anyway.

Two things make that email stronger:

1. A specific competing figure. "Host X will run this for $70 of service over three years" is a different message from "this feels expensive". The calculator produces that number.
2. Sending it before the renewal charges. After the card is charged you are asking for a refund, which is a different conversation with a different department.

When switching is the wrong move

When the renewal is close. Cancel first, move second. Moving a site three days before a forty-eight-month renewal processes is how people end up paying for both.

Mid-term is the second case. The money is already spent and most long terms are not refunded pro-rata. Wait for the renewal date, then decide.

When the problem is not price. If the host is slow or unreliable, the comparison is not between two monthly figures and this site is the wrong tool. Cost is one column and we only hold that column.

Complexity is the last of them. Multiple applications, custom server configuration, compliance requirements — the migration cost is not six hours and no published price difference will cover it.

What we do not know

Whether moving costs you six hours or thirty. Whether your current host makes the export easy or awkward. Whether the new host's migration service is any good. We have not run a site on any of these hosts and we have not surveyed anyone who has, so anything we said about that would be invention rather than information.

What this site holds is the published price side of the equation, checked and dated, with the source for every figure. The other side you supply.

Who this is not for

This is not for anyone setting up a first site. None of it applies — there is nothing to migrate and no DNS to cut over. Go straight to the host list and compare on three-year cost, because for you the published cost is close to the whole cost.

It is also not for anyone whose renewal has already processed. At that point the money is gone, the term has restarted, and the useful question is what to do twelve or thirty-six months from now — which is a calendar reminder, not a comparison table.

Sources

The price figures used in the examples ($3.99 to $9.99 on Bluehost Starter, $2.99 on Hostinger Premium) are published prices read on those hosts' own pages on 20 August 2026 and recorded in /data.json. The valuation of your own time in the break-even illustration is an assumption stated as such and drawn from no source. How we handle figures we cannot source is set out on the method page.

Last updated: 2026-09-07