This site is funded by commission from the companies listed, when you sign up through “Visit site”. No agreement has started yet. Rankings are computed from the score alone. Link disclosure
#1
ScalaHosting Highest score on the list
The price is $19.95 a month, then $24.95 on renewal, with both numbers on every card. It describes its guarantee as anytime, and its terms say the refund is full within a month and prorated for the unused part after that.
The renewal price sits under the price on every card
Free snapshots, root access and an operating-system list
One number on the page: $9.00 a month, with no offer price, no strike-through and no renewal figure, because there is no second number. Its own questions page says with equal plainness that there is no trial period and no money-back guarantee on virtual servers.
One printed number with no intro offer and no jump after it
Monthly billing and cancel whenever you like
renews at 1.0× the opening price
support around the clock
Price9.9
Support6.0
Features4.0
Refund6.8
Raised from 6.9 to 7.0 on : Price 9.6 → to 9.9. We re-read its page and found the first payment we had recorded appears on no page of it, while the page itself says twelve months costs thirty dollars, so we corrected the figure.
Its card says $8.99 a month then $14.99 on renewal, and names how long the renewal rate lasts. Of the twenty-one pages we read it is the one that states both.
The renewal price and its length are on the card itself
Weekly backups and manual snapshots inside the plan
The headline on its page buys a very small server; the machine we hold every company to costs $24.00 a month. There is no term to commit to: it bills by the hour and you destroy the server when you like.
Hourly billing with no commitment, so an hour is all you risk
Root access and a published list of operating systems
Anyone who can run their own server and wants to pay by the hour.
Who it is not for
Anyone who wants a ready control panel or a refund guarantee.
Plan tested
Entry plan, billed monthly
What we read
Opening price
$24.00
Renewal price
$24.00
Renewal vs opening
1.0×
Term demanded (months)
1
Paid today
$24.00
36-month average
$24.00
Renewal on the pricing page
Arabic
Published support hours
support around the clock
Contact channels
tickets
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
0 days
Refund exclusions written
Arabic
Billing states the renewal
Clear
Pros
renews at 1.0× the opening price
support around the clock
a 1-month term is available
Hourly billing with no commitment, so an hour is all you risk
Root access and a published list of operating systems
Cons
A refund window of only 0 days
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Contact by tickets only
Its own page says plainly that it does not refund
Backups are a paid service priced as a percentage of the server
#5
Kamatera Published features: 0/7
One price of $39.00 a month with no intro offer, and it publishes a long operating-system list. Its page states an uptime figure different from the one written in its own service level agreement.
A service level agreement that names a credit, which few companies here do
A published operating-system list and hourly billing
renews at 1.0× the opening price
support around the clock
Price9.6
Support6.0
Features4.5
Refund6.2
6.9FairChecked
Visit site Kamatera$39.00/mo with no prepayment: $39.00 today, renews at $39.00/mo
Details and figures Kamatera
Who it is for
Anyone wanting fine-grained resources and hourly billing.
Who it is not for
Anyone relying on a credit when things break.
Plan tested
Entry plan, billed monthly
What we read
Opening price
$39.00
Renewal price
$39.00
Renewal vs opening
1.0×
Term demanded (months)
1
Paid today
$39.00
36-month average
$39.00
Renewal on the pricing page
Arabic
Published support hours
support around the clock
Contact channels
tickets, phone
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
0 days
Refund exclusions written
Arabic
Billing states the renewal
Clear
Pros
renews at 1.0× the opening price
support around the clock
a 1-month term is available
A service level agreement that names a credit, which few companies here do
A published operating-system list and hourly billing
Cons
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
A refund window of only 0 days
Publishes no Arabic support
Contact by tickets, phone only
The uptime figure on the page disagrees with the one in the agreement
Its own wording lets the company decline the credit whenever it chooses
#6L
Liquid Web Lowest first payment on the list
The advertised $8.50 a month becomes $17.00 on renewal, and it prints both numbers on the card. It advertises a high uptime figure, and we found no clause in its terms saying what it pays if it misses it.
The renewal price sits beside the offer price on the card
Phone and ticket support around the clock
Cons
A refund window of only 0 days
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Contact by tickets, phone only
An advertised uptime figure with no compensation clause in any document we found
Its terms state fees are non-refundable and require notice before cancelling
Price8.7
Support6.0
Features5.0
Refund7.0
#7
Hetzner Published features: 0/7
It bills by the hour under a monthly cap of $22.78, so there is no term and no different renewal price. It prices in euros; what we show is converted at the dated rate on our methodology page.
6.8FairChecked
Visit site Hetzner$22.78/mo with no prepayment: $22.78 today, renews at $22.78/mo
Details and figures Hetzner
Who it is for
Anyone wanting a European server who administers it themselves.
Who it is not for
Anyone needing Arabic support or a bundled control panel.
Plan tested
Entry plan, billed monthly
What we read
Opening price
$22.78
Renewal price
$22.78
Renewal vs opening
1.0×
Term demanded (months)
1
Paid today
$22.78
36-month average
$22.78
Renewal on the pricing page
Arabic
Published support hours
support around the clock
Contact channels
tickets
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
14 days
Refund exclusions written
Arabic
Billing states the renewal
Clear
Pros
renews at 1.0× the opening price
support around the clock
a 1-month term is available
A monthly cap with hourly billing, so an hour is all you risk
A published operating-system list and root access
Cons
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Contact by tickets only
A refund window of only 14 days
The product page promises credits for downtime while its terms speak of economically reasonable efforts and name no credit
Prices are in euros, so what you pay moves with the exchange rate
Price9.8
Support5.0
Features2.5
Refund8.4
#8
IONOS Published features: 0/7
The advertised $5.00 a month runs for three months of a 12-month term, then becomes $14.00. The large number on the card describes a quarter of the term you are buying.
A managed server at $32.95 a month renewing at $59.95. Its written clause splits the guarantee in two: a long window for its shared plans and a short one for virtual servers, in the same paragraph.
One price of $20.00 a month with no intro offer and no renewal jump, billed hourly. Its machine runs previous-generation processors and a regular disk, where the rest of the plans on this page use NVMe.
6.1Fair · provisionalChecked
Visit site Vultr$20.00/mo with no prepayment: $20.00 today, renews at $20.00/mo
Details and figures Vultr
Who it is for
Anyone who wants a flat price known in advance.
Who it is not for
Anyone weighing the hardware against the price.
Plan tested
Entry plan, billed monthly
What we read
Opening price
$20.00
Renewal price
$20.00
Renewal vs opening
1.0×
Term demanded (months)
1
Paid today
$20.00
36-month average
$20.00
Renewal on the pricing page
Arabic
Published support hours
no published support hours
Contact channels
tickets
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
0 days
Refund exclusions written
Arabic
Billing states the renewal
Clear
Pros
renews at 1.0× the opening price
a 1-month term is available
The renewal price is on the pricing page
One printed price with no intro offer and no jump after it
Hourly billing with no term to commit to
Cons
Features not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
no published support hours
A refund window of only 0 days
Publishes no Arabic support
Contact by tickets only
Its terms state that fees are not refunded in whole or in part
Previous-generation hardware and a regular disk at a price matching newer plans
Price9.8
Support1.0
FeaturesNot yet checked
Refund7.0
#11C
Cloudways Published features: 0/7
It sells the management on top of other companies’ servers, and the price you meet on opening the page is $54.00 a month because the switch arrives set to the higher tier. The lower tier for the same machine costs less, and anyone who misses the switch compares the higher number.
6.1FairChecked
Visit site Cloudways$54.00/mo with no prepayment: $54.00 today, renews at $54.00/mo
Details and figures Cloudways
Who it is for
Anyone who wants a managed server and does not want to manage it.
Who it is not for
Anyone comparing prices quickly without opening the options.
Plan tested
Entry plan, billed monthly
What we read
Opening price
$54.00
Renewal price
$54.00
Renewal vs opening
1.0×
Term demanded (months)
1
Paid today
$54.00
36-month average
$54.00
Renewal on the pricing page
Arabic
Published support hours
support around the clock
Contact channels
chat, tickets
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
7 days
Refund exclusions written
English
Billing states the renewal
Clear
Pros
renews at 1.0× the opening price
support around the clock
a 1-month term is available
Full management and backups without running a server
Hourly billing with no term to commit to
Cons
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
A refund window of only 7 days
The refund exclusions are not written down
Contact by chat, tickets only
The page opens on the more expensive tier by default
We did not reach its refund terms
Price9.5
Support6.0
Features1.0
Refund5.7
#12
Verpex Published features: 0/7
The price is $10.00 a month, then $19.99 on renewal. That renewal figure is published in the page data rather than in the card a buyer sees, so anyone reading the card alone will not find it.
No price on its page. The plan grid renders empty in a browser and its managed page contains not one dollar figure, so a buyer cannot learn what the server costs before opening an account.
Its card prints the term, the amount due today and the renewal price in one line, and it is alone among the twenty-one in doing so. The price is $9.49 a month, then $11.99 after the term.
The price is $53.87 a month and the renewal $76.95. It is the one page here that writes down what it pays you when the server goes down: a share of the month’s bill for every hour of outage.
A managed server at $69.95 a month. The page names no term, no renewal price and no traffic figure, so the advertised price is all you know before buying.
The advertised $4.18 a month renews at $9.35, and the term that price buys never appears on the card at all, only inside the purchase link. The asterisk beside the price opens text saying the discount covers the first invoice alone and that tax is charged on top.
Raised from 5.0 to 5.1 (provisional) on : Price 6.3 → to 6.7. We re-read its page and found the first payment we had recorded matches no published figure, and found no setup fee on the page to explain the difference, so we corrected the total to the advertised rate times the term.
Its page says the price starts from $4.54 a month, and never names the term that price buys or what it becomes afterwards. A daily backup is included in the plan, which few plans here do.
5.1Poor · provisionalChecked
Visit site OVHcloud$4.54/mo on a term it does not publish: not published today, renews at not published
Details and figures OVHcloud
Who it is for
Anyone wanting backups included and a European company.
Who it is not for
Anyone who wants to know the second bill before the first.
Plan tested
The entry plan; the company publishes no commitment term
What we read
Opening price
$4.54
Renewal price
—
Renewal vs opening
—
Term demanded (months)
—
Paid today
—
36-month average
—
Renewal on the pricing page
English
Published support hours
no published support hours
Contact channels
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
7 days
Refund exclusions written
English
Billing states the renewal
Unclear
Pros
A daily backup included inside the plan
Unlimited traffic on its European locations
Cons
Support not yet measured
Price not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
A refund window of only 7 days
The refund exclusions are not written down
Billing does not state the renewal and its price
A "from" price with no term and no renewal figure anywhere
Its Asia-Pacific locations carry a quota, after which the speed is throttled
PriceNot yet checked
SupportNot yet checked
Features4.5
Refund5.6
#19
DreamHost A refund window of only 0 days
A managed server at $20.00 a month for 36 months, then $46.99 on renewal. Its page says a money-back guarantee applies, while its terms exclude virtual servers from that guarantee by name, twice.
A managed server at $13.99 a month for a paid 24-month term, then $26.99 on renewal, with both numbers on the card. Its machine sits above the reference machine, because no smaller plan reaches it.
Lowered from 5.3 to 4.9 on : Price 7.2 → to 6.1. We re-read its page and found the first payment we had recorded matches no published figure, while the page advertises four dollars seventy-nine a month on a one-year term, so we corrected the total to the product of the two.
The advertised $5.72 a month buys 24 months, and the page never says what the price becomes afterwards. Its card prints three different numbers for one plan: an unlabelled one, one including tax and one excluding it.
4.9Poor · provisionalChecked
Visit site Contabo$5.72/mo on a 24-month prepayment: $137.28 today, then not published
Details and figures Contabo
Who it is for
Anyone wanting plenty of resources on a small budget who accepts running the server.
Who it is not for
Anyone who wants to know the third year’s cost before buying.
Plan tested
Entry plan on a 24-month prepayment
What we read
Opening price
$5.72
Renewal price
—
Renewal vs opening
—
Term demanded (months)
24
Paid today
$137.28
36-month average
—
Renewal on the pricing page
English
Published support hours
no published support hours
Contact channels
Arabic support published
English
Published features
0/7:
Refund window
14 days
Refund exclusions written
Arabic
Billing states the renewal
Unclear
Pros
The refund exclusions are written down
Generous resources for the price beside neighbouring plans
Root access and an operating-system list
Cons
Support not yet measured
Price not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
A refund window of only 14 days
Billing does not state the renewal and its price
No price published anywhere for what follows the first term
Its cancellation right covers consumers and not businesses
PriceNot yet checked
SupportNot yet checked
Features4.0
Refund5.7
The companies, one by one
We read every one of these companies’ own pages: the pricing page, the cart, the refund terms, the support page. What follows is not a summary of what a company says about itself, it is what we found written there and what we did not find. The order is the order of the scores, and the card under each name redoes the arithmetic in front of you.
This site is funded by commission from the companies listed, when you sign up through “Visit site”. No agreement has started yet. Rankings are computed from the score alone. Link disclosure
#1
ScalaHosting
Tells you the amount seven days before it takes it
8.1Very good
The cart is entirely clean, and an invoice reaches you seven days before renewal carrying the amount — a commitment few companies on this list make. The flaw is that the plan’s real ceiling is published only in the terms, and that declining a renewal blocks you from buying a new package for the same domain for a full year.
Refund and billing9.620%
Price and renewal transparency9.533%
Published features7.020%
Support availability6.027%
Term demanded
1 month
Paid today
$19.95
Then per month
$24.95
Three years
$893.20
Renewal against the opening price
1.3×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: The page does not say that this plan is capped at a percentage of CPU and memory, nor that its email is limited to a number of messages an hour — both written out, with numbers, in the terms.
The advertised $19.95/mo on 1 months is $19.95 today, and the $24.95/mo renewal is printed under the button on the card itself. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups, email, a CDN, free migration and a staging site. The free domain is not among them — it starts one plan up. Their control panel is their own rather than cPanel, and it is what the cart selects by default even though the card offers both.
The hero calls the guarantee "anytime" and "unconditional"; the terms give it a full 30 days window then a pro-rata refund, restrict it to new clients, and exclude dedicated servers, certificates, domains and licences. Cancellation is not accepted by email: "Cancellation requests sent via e-mail will not be considered legitimate and you will still be billed." And anyone declining the standard renewal price may be refused a new package for the same domain for twelve months.
The contact page opens by saying support is available around the clock, then its own table beneath says billing and pre-sales run on weekdays within set hours on a US clock. The published number is for pre-sales, not support. No language is named, the page declares English alone, and there is no Arabic site. There is no currency switcher anywhere, and payment is by card, PayPal or bank transfer.
In its favour
Support around the clock
A refund window of 30 days
A 1-month term is available
Against it
Publishes no Arabic support
Contact by chat, tickets only
Suits: Anyone who wants to be told the amount before it is taken, and does not mind a control panel that is not cPanel.
Does not suit: Anyone who might come back to the same domain within a year, or who needs to know their CPU share before buying.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
Their order form writes, for every term, its price and its renewal in the same sentence — which nobody else on this list does — and the renewal is the same whatever term you pick. The flaw is that the cart opens with a domain and Whois privacy already ticked, and that backups are weekly.
Price and renewal transparency9.933%
Refund and billing6.820%
Support availability6.027%
Published features4.020%
Term demanded
1 month
Paid today
$9.00
Then per month
$9.00
Three years
$324.00
Renewal against the opening price
1.0×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: The page leads with "$2.50 first month" while the order form opens on 1 months, not one. Nor does the page say the cart will be carrying two other lines before you reach it.
The advertised $9.00/mo on 1 months, renewing at $9.00/mo — a jump of 1.0×, and the same across all four terms they offer. Three years costs $324.00. But $9.00 is what the cart asks today, not the hosting price alone: the difference is a domain and Whois privacy ticked for you. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, email, a CDN and free migration.
Backups are weekly, and the terms state plainly that the customer is responsible for backing up their own files and that the company is not answerable for their deletion. "Unlimited" meets a file-count cap in those terms, a ceiling on server resources, and a per-gigabyte fee for anyone using "an unreasonable amount". The refund window is 0 days and covers hosting alone; cancelling must happen three days before the renewal date, or the cancellation takes effect only after the next one.
Their contact page publishes six phone numbers — New Jersey, a US toll-free line, London, Tel Aviv, São Paulo and Mexico City — and none in the Gulf or North Africa. The currency in the cart is a dropdown with one option: dollars. No support language is named, and the arbitration clause in their terms states that proceedings are conducted in English. There is no Arabic site.
In its favour
Renews at 1.0× the opening price
Support around the clock
A 1-month term is available
Against it
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
A refund window of only 0 days
Suits: Anyone who wants to see every term’s renewal before picking one, and who deletes what was placed in their cart.
Does not suit: Anyone who relies on a daily backup, or who pays in their own currency.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
Names Arabic, and answers it with a bot rather than a person
6.3Fair
The one company on this list that names Arabic on its own pages, and its plan carries a CDN and unlimited free migrations. The flaw is in the detail: the Arabic is for the automated agent, the support specialists answer in English with machine translation, and the backups run weekly, not daily.
Published features7.020%
Price and renewal transparency6.433%
Support availability6.027%
Refund and billing5.720%
Term demanded
24 months
Paid today
$215.76
Then per month
$14.99
Three years
$395.64
Renewal against the opening price
1.7×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
Hostinger CDN is available on Premium Web, Business Web, Cloud, and Agency hosting plans.
And what it does not say: The pricing page names no guaranteed uptime at all; the figure sits in the hosting agreement alone, together with the line that a failure is determined "as solely determined by us". Nor does the page say that a staging site starts on a higher plan.
We price their plan on 24 months because that is our cap, though their page opens on twice that. The advertised $8.99/mo means $215.76 today, then $14.99/mo, and three years costs $395.64. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, a domain for a year, email, a CDN of their own making, and free migrations with no cap on how many sites. The renewal is 1.7× the opening price, and it is on the card before you buy, not after.
The two mailboxes are free for one year, and neither the cart nor the pricing page says what they cost in the second. Their agreement puts the backup at "once a week", overwriting the previous one, with only two weeks kept. And "unlimited" meets a cap in the same agreement: on database size and count, on file-transfer accounts, and on scheduled jobs. The refund window is 30 days, and cryptocurrency is always outside it.
Here it gets strange. Their page at the address ending in "ar" is not Arabic: it is Argentina, in Spanish, and the Arabic site sits at the Egypt address. In their own location list, searching for "Saudi" returns not one result, and the UAE is listed in English while Egypt and Morocco are in Arabic. The Arabic page then sells a fourth, cheaper plan that does not exist on the English page at all — and it comes with no free domain. Your account currency is fixed when the account is created and can never be changed after.
In its favour
Support around the clock
A refund window of 30 days
The renewal price is on the pricing page
Against it
Publishes no Arabic support
$215.76 leaves your account today
Suits: Anyone who wants a CDN and uncapped migrations inside the price, and accepts a human answering in English.
Does not suit: Anyone expecting a person to write to them in Arabic, or who wants a daily backup.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
A narrow renewal step, and "unlimited" at six gigabytes
6.7Fair
They publish a complete numeric spec table that nobody else does: the file limit, the size of each mailbox, the number of databases. Their renewal step is narrow by the standards of this list. The flaw is that the general terms cap "unlimited traffic" at six gigabytes a month, and that the entry plan has no CDN.
Refund and billing8.820%
Support availability7.027%
Price and renewal transparency6.933%
Published features4.020%
Term demanded
12 months
Paid today
$60.00
Then per month
$14.00
Three years
$396.00
Renewal against the opening price
2.8×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
Web Hosting Essential — Pay $48 today, renews for $96.
And what it does not say: The two longer term tiles also say "for 12 months": the discount runs for a single year whatever you commit to, and the rest is charged at the renewal rate. The page explains this nowhere.
The advertised $5.00/mo on 12 months is $60.00 today, then $14.00/mo — a jump of 2.8× alone. Three years costs $396.00. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups, a domain for a year, and email. What sets it apart is that the table gives you the figures others hide: the file limit, the number of databases and the size of each, the capacity of a single mailbox, and the guaranteed uptime.
The page says "we don’t meter bandwidth or limit traffic to your site", and the general terms say bandwidth use "shall not exceed six gigabytes per month". The FAQ on that same page warns the reader about the word "unlimited" without connecting it to its own clause. The guarantee is described as "no questions asked", and its terms limit it to setup fees plus one billing cycle’s monthly fee — where the cart states billing is "12 months in advance". Switching from one package to another voids eligibility entirely. The refund window is 30 days.
The environment switcher in their footer offers ten countries, not one of them Arab, and the language switcher offers English and Spanish only. The tax named is US sales tax, not VAT. Support phone numbers are published for twelve countries and none is in the Gulf. Live chat was shown as unavailable when we read it, and no support email address is published — while the page promises help "by phone, chat or email".
In its favour
Support around the clock
A refund window of 30 days
The renewal price is on the pricing page
Against it
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who reads the terms and wants a numeric limits table before buying.
Does not suit: Anyone expecting traffic without a ceiling, or who needs a CDN in the entry plan.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
An extended refund window, with its exclusions named one by one
6.3Fair
The refund window here runs beyond what the rest of the list publishes, their terms name every exclusion rather than gesturing at it, and they commit to ten days’ notice before an invoice and thirty before a price rise. The flaw is that the pricing page names the renewal figure in no sentence at all.
Price and renewal transparency8.733%
Refund and billing7.020%
Support availability6.027%
Published features2.020%
Term demanded
1 month
Paid today
$32.95
Then per month
$59.95
Three years
$2131.20
Renewal against the opening price
1.8×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
will automatically renew after the initial term at the regular rate found in your control panel
And what it does not say: That control panel does not open before you buy. The figure does exist — inside the cart, and only after you have given it a domain — and the page gives no hint that it is there.
The advertised $32.95/mo on 1 months is $32.95 today, renewing at $59.95/mo — a jump of 1.8×. Three years costs $2131.20. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups, a domain for a year, email, a CDN and free migration. The cart offers not one add-on and no upsell step.
The refund window is 7 days, and its exclusion list names about twenty items, among them the Inodes Add-on and the Disk Space Add-on — the things you buy when the plan runs out. It is for "first-time accounts" only, and the company is "the sole arbiter" of it. The backup text says thirty days in the prose and ten in the comparison table for this plan, and one-click restore is a feature of the plans above it, not of this one.
The page title advertises a monthly price that appears nowhere inside it. The card says the nearest data centre is Frankfurt, then the cart selects Portland in the United States by default. The free-domain list runs to twenty-seven extensions with no Saudi, Emirati or Egyptian one among them. There is no currency switcher, no tax appears whatever country you pick, and the two payment methods are card and PayPal. There is no Arabic site.
In its favour
Support around the clock
A 1-month term is available
The renewal price is on the pricing page
Against it
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who reads refund terms and wants them written out in detail, and accepts learning the renewal from the cart.
Does not suit: Anyone who wants the renewal figure on the pricing page before handing it a domain.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
One year, and the renewal is double the opening price
6.1Fair
The plan card says all three figures in one sentence: what you pay today, how many months it covers, and what it renews at. The flaw is that the entry plan is guaranteed less uptime than the plans above it, and that the renewal figure is printed two different ways on the same page.
Price and renewal transparency8.733%
Support availability6.027%
Refund and billing5.520%
Published features2.520%
Term demanded
1 month
Paid today
$10.00
Then per month
$19.99
Three years
$709.65
Renewal against the opening price
2.0×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
For a 1-year term. Pay $36 today, then $6/mo on renewal.
And what it does not say: The page does not say that this plan is guaranteed less uptime than the two above it, nor that the contact page offers live chat alone while the plan table promises phone and tickets beside it.
The advertised $10.00/mo on a 1-month term means $10.00 leaves your account today, then $19.99/mo. Over three years that comes to $709.65, under what the rest of this list asks, because the renewal here is only 2.0× the opening price. The entry plan carries 0/7 of the items we count: a certificate, daily backups, a domain for a year, email and free migration. What it does not carry is a CDN and a staging site, both of which start one plan up.
The refund window is 7 days, but the terms add two limits the card does not mention: it may be used once only, and it covers the first term, not a renewal of it. Domain fees sit outside it, and the free domain itself does not come with monthly billing. The acceptable-use policy then puts numbers behind the word "unlimited": a cap on multimedia, a cap per mailbox, a cap per database, and a comparison against what other customers use.
The checkout offers thirteen currencies, and the riyal, the dirham and the Egyptian pound are not among them: you can pay in Rwandan francs and Ugandan shillings but not in your own. The only published phone number is a British one, and their contact page returns a 404. They name no language they answer in, and there is no Arabic site.
In its favour
Support around the clock
A 1-month term is available
The renewal price is on the pricing page
Against it
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who wants to read both figures before paying either, and accepts a one-year commitment.
Does not suit: Anyone who needs a CDN or staging in an entry plan, or who wants to pay in their own currency.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
Theirs is the only policy on this list that promises to name the renewal amount before taking it, and their support explicitly covers billing around the clock. The flaw is that the default term is four years, that the renewal is a single charge about five times what you paid, and that the subscription renews for "successive periods of equal duration".
Support availability7.027%
Published features4.520%
Term demanded
not published
Paid today
—
Then per month
—
Three years
—
Renewal against the opening price
—
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: The page writes "Honest pricing… no lock-ins or minimum terms" above a default option of forty-eight months. Nor does it say that their uptime figure appears as three different values on three of their own pages.
The advertised —/mo on — months is — today, then —/mo — a jump of —, paid as one charge every four years. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups kept thirty days with self-serve restore, a domain for a year, email and free migration. Their own plan data publishes what others hide: the processor count, the memory, the file limit, and the number of mailboxes and the capacity of each.
"Unlimited" bandwidth and a specific monthly page-view count are two fields in the same plan record. The guarantee runs 7 days and "applies to only your first term, not to subsequent extended terms" — in a product whose first term is four years. Setup, domain and migration fees are "not refundable at any circumstance", while migration is sold as free on the same page. The company is the former A2 Hosting, registered in Delaware.
Their domains page carries the heading "No surprise renewals" and publishes first-year prices only, with not one renewal price for any extension. No page names a support language. All fees "are calculated in US Dollars", with a warning that non-dollar prices may rise or fall. There is no Arabic site, and the only regional editions are in English.
In its favour
Support around the clock
The refund exclusions are written down
Contact by chat, tickets, phone
Against it
Refund not yet measured
Price not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who wants to know the renewal amount before it is taken, and accepts a four-year cycle.
Does not suit: Anyone who does not know where their site will be in four years.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
The entry plan carries a staging site and a CDN, the renewal is written down, and notice comes thirty days before it falls due. The flaw is that the figure written down is true for two of four terms, and that the plan card says phone support is not included while the contact page advertises phone around the clock.
Price and renewal transparency6.933%
Refund and billing5.420%
Published features4.020%
Term demanded
24 months
Paid today
$227.76
Then per month
$11.99
Three years
$371.64
Renewal against the opening price
1.3×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: The page does not say that this figure belongs to the two long terms alone; anyone picking a single year renews higher, and that only appears inside the cart. Nor does it say that the renewal arrives as one charge rather than a monthly one.
We price it on 24 months under our cap. The advertised $9.49/mo means $227.76 today and a $11.99/mo renewal, a jump of 1.3×. Three years costs $371.64. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, a domain for a year, a CDN, free migration and a staging site. Professional email is a one-month trial, not a line in the price.
Their agreement says the money-back guarantee is "valid for credit card payments only", and the cart offers you PayPal and Google Pay. The monthly plan sits outside the guarantee altogether and carries no free domain. At the domain step you find Domain Privacy already ticked before its price appears, and it is not free on this plan. Backups are weekly; daily ones are sold as a separate yearly subscription. The refund window is 30 days.
Their currency and language switcher offers eleven combinations, and Arabic, the riyal, the dirham and the Egyptian pound are not among them. The Arabic page returns a 404. No page of theirs names a language their staff answer in. The cart puts your server in Frankfurt by default, and VAT shows as zero whatever your country.
In its favour
A refund window of 30 days
The renewal price is on the pricing page
The refund exclusions are written down
Against it
Support not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
$227.76 leaves your account today
Suits: Anyone picking a long term, paying by credit card, who wants a staging site in an entry plan.
Does not suit: Anyone who wants phone support on this plan, or who pays by PayPal.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
The term ladder runs backwards: a year costs less per month than two
5.7Poor · provisional
Daily backups, a staging site and a CDN inside the entry plan, and a clean cart with nothing ticked for you. The flaw is that the page never names the term attached to the advertised price, and that the backups it sells cannot be restored by you on this plan.
Support availability6.027%
Refund and billing5.920%
Published features5.020%
Term demanded
not published
Paid today
—
Then per month
$76.95
Three years
—
Renewal against the opening price
1.4×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: The page does not say how many months that sum covers. You learn it in the cart alone — and there you also discover that committing two years costs more per month than committing one.
The advertised $53.87/mo and the $76.95/mo renewal are both written on the page. Only the term is missing: — months, which you learn in the cart, where you pay —. Three years costs —, and the renewal is 1.4× the opening price. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups, email, a CDN, free migration and a staging site. And the cart adds nothing to it that you did not ask for.
The card ticks "Performance Boost" on this plan, and that item’s own tooltip says the plan has no performance boost and no additional guaranteed resources. The page promises thirty daily backups and "unlimited full or incremental restores", and the entry plan’s tooltip puts free restore outside it. The refund covers 0 days from the initial payment alone, and the domain fee "is always withheld, even if this fee was waived at the time of purchase". Miss a renewal by five days and the account and every backup copy are deleted.
The data centres offered in the shared-hosting cart number six, none of them in the Middle East, while the page advertises twelve-plus centres across fourteen countries. An account is required before the payment step, so you see no payment method and no tax before it. There is no Arabic site and no alternate-language tag on the page at all. And "We Speak Your Language" on their page is about programming languages, not human ones.
In its favour
Support around the clock
The refund exclusions are written down
Billing states the renewal and its price
Against it
Price not yet measured
A refund window of only 0 days
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Suits: Anyone who wants backups and staging at a low opening price, and reads the cart before paying.
Does not suit: Anyone who assumes a longer term lowers the monthly price, or who needs to restore a backup themselves.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
The only plan on this list that names all seven items on its own page, and its cart holds what you chose and not one thing more. The flaw is that the renewal jumps to — the opening price, and that the backup the card sells is deleted after two days.
Refund and billing8.620%
Support availability5.027%
Published features2.520%
Term demanded
not published
Paid today
—
Then per month
—
Three years
—
Renewal against the opening price
—
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
Total due today $35.40. Renews at $13.95/mo after your first term.
And what it does not say: The pricing page has no term selector at all: every button goes to the annual term, and you do not see the other two until you have started an order — where they cost several times the annual rate per month.
The advertised $69.95/mo on a —-month term is — today, then —/mo, and three years comes to —. For that you get 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups, a domain for a year, a staging site, email, a CDN and free migration. No other plan on this list gathers all of them, and the cart itself offers you not one paid add-on.
"Daily backups" on the card, and in their own backup article: the copies are removed after forty-eight hours, the first restore in a month is free and the ones after it carry a fee, and their policy forbids you to store your own backups on the account. Then they write, themselves, that relying on their backups alone is not safe. The refund window is 30 days, and it covers neither setup fees nor add-ons nor renewals.
The order form defaults your country and your server to Singapore, not to where you are; miss it and your billing address and your server both end up there. One payment method is offered — a credit card, no PayPal and nothing local — and no tax line appears whatever country you pick. There is no Arabic site, and no language switcher anywhere on the site.
In its favour
Support around the clock
A refund window of 30 days
The refund exclusions are written down
Against it
Price not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who wants everything inside the advertised price and never needs to restore a backup themselves.
Does not suit: Anyone who relies on the backups, or who pays by anything other than a credit card.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
Three years up front, and no term selector before the cart
5.1Poor · provisional
The card prints the renewal beside the offer, and the plan carries a domain, a staging site and a CDN. The flaw is that the page offers no term selector at all and the cart opens on three years, and that domain privacy arrives ticked before its price appears.
Price and renewal transparency6.733%
Published features4.020%
Refund and billing3.720%
Term demanded
24 months
Paid today
$100.32
Then per month
$9.35
Three years
$212.52
Renewal against the opening price
2.2×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
Now 66% off! $3.75/mo* For 36 month term. Renews at $10.99/mo
And what it does not say: The asterisk leads to a line saying prices reflect a first-term discount. The page does not say that buying month to month costs more than the renewal price itself, nor that the plan is described as "when you just need one site" above a line promising ten.
The advertised $4.18/mo on 24 months renews at $9.35/mo, a jump of 2.2×. The cart asks $100.32 today, above the price times the term: the difference is a yearly domain privacy add-on ticked at an earlier step. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, a domain for a year, email, a CDN, free migration and a staging site.
The terms exclude from the guarantee "Services with a monthly term, domain registration fees, administrative fees, install fees… or any fees for additional Services" — and domain privacy is an additional service by definition. The domain fee deducted from a refund in the terms is nearly twice the figure the cart struck through. Backups are described as a "courtesy" with no stated frequency, and the terms reserve a restoration fee. Exceed your plan’s limits and the company may automatically upgrade you to a higher tier at an additional fee. The refund window is 7 days.
The country in the cart is filled by geolocation, sales tax shows as zero, and there is no currency option. Payment is by card or PayPal. The marketing consent box arrives pre-ticked. The plan table says "Chat Only" for the entry plan while the page header and footer both advertise phone. No support language is named, and there is no Arabic site.
In its favour
The renewal price is on the pricing page
Billing states the renewal and its price
Against it
Support not yet measured
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
A refund window of only 7 days
Suits: Anyone who wants a domain, staging and a CDN in an entry plan, and accepts three years up front.
Does not suit: Anyone who wants phone support on the entry plan, or a shorter term without entering the cart.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
A Black Friday code from a year gone, with no expiry
5.0Poor
Daily backups inside the entry plan, a cart that holds only what you chose, and a card that prints both figures. The flaw is that the term selector offers two while the page’s own data carries four, and that backup retention is not published for this plan at all.
Published features6.520%
Support availability6.027%
Price and renewal transparency5.233%
Refund and billing2.020%
Term demanded
36 months
Paid today
$720.00
Then per month
$46.99
Three years
$720.00
Renewal against the opening price
2.3×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: The page does not say that every one of its sale buttons carries a seasonal promo code from last year, and it shows no expiry date for it anywhere.
The advertised $20.00/mo on 36 months is $720.00 today, then $46.99/mo — a jump of 2.3×. Three years costs $720.00. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, daily backups and a domain for a year. Email is a three-month trial added by a separate button and then billed yearly, not a line inside the price. There is no CDN and no staging site on this plan.
Their own FAQ says every card shows the exact renewal rate and "you will never have to dig through fine print", while their terms bind you to "the then-current, non-promotional rate" with no notice and no amount. The refund window is 0 days and covers card and PayPal payments only: "other forms of payment are non-refundable". Domain fees are "not refundable under any circumstances". Their uptime guarantee is a hundred per cent, the count of an outage starts when you open a ticket rather than when the site goes down, and the credit is capped at a tenth of your next renewal.
Their prices in dollars, euros and pounds are identical numerals: only the symbol changes, so a euro buyer is not paying a converted price. There is no support phone number — chat and email only. They write that their support representatives are "multilingual" without naming a single language, and Arabic appears on no page. The Arabic address redirects to a 404, and the hosting page carries no alternate-language tag at all.
In its favour
Support around the clock
The renewal price is on the pricing page
The refund exclusions are written down
Against it
A refund window of only 0 days
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who wants daily backups and a cart that adds nothing, on a one-year commitment.
Does not suit: Anyone who needs email or a CDN inside the price, or who wants to know what happens to their backup.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
A refund window stretching ninety days, and a cart that adds a subscription
4.9Poor
Their refund window runs well beyond what the rest of the list publishes, and its terms are published with their exclusions. The flaw is that the cart arrives with a yearly backup subscription and an email trial ticked, lifting the total by about a third above the advertised price.
Support availability7.027%
Price and renewal transparency6.133%
Refund and billing2.720%
Published features2.520%
Term demanded
24 months
Paid today
$335.76
Then per month
$26.99
Three years
$659.64
Renewal against the opening price
1.9×
VAT is added at the checkout according to your billing country. We have not walked this company’s cart to measure it.
And what it does not say: That line is not an option the page offered; it is an item that arrived ticked in the cart. Nor does the page say the plan carries no backup at all, or that the product page selling it publishes no price for it.
The advertised $13.99/mo on 24 months means $335.76 in the cart, and the advertised price alone is well under that: the difference is the backup subscription. The renewal is $26.99/mo, a jump of 1.9×, and three years costs $659.64. The plan carries 0/7 of the items: a certificate, a domain for a year, email with unlimited addresses, and free migration. There is no CDN anywhere on the page, and no staging site.
The refund window is 7 days, and "add-ons, domain fees, and professional services are non-refundable" — and the subscription that arrived ticked is an add-on. The contract links the words "Money Back Guarantee" to an About page rather than to the policy, and their document centre lists eight legal documents, none of them a refund policy. Cancelling outside the window carries "a minimum $50.00 charge as an early cancellation fee", and a refund excludes "the regular cost of any free services".
The checkout carries a language switcher offering sixteen languages, and Arabic is not among them. The two published support numbers are American and British, with none in the Gulf. The page advertises human support around the clock, then its own table spells out that phone runs on weekdays within set hours, and that Saturday is absent from the sales schedule. Choosing Saudi Arabia as your country changes neither the total nor adds tax, and the currency is a fixed label that does not open.
In its favour
Support around the clock
The renewal price is on the pricing page
The refund exclusions are written down
Against it
The plan names no free certificate, daily backups, free domain year, staging site, email, CDN or free migration
Publishes no Arabic support
Suits: Anyone who values an extended refund window and deletes what was placed in their cart before paying.
Does not suit: Anyone who wants backups inside the price, or phone support on the entry plan.
Not yet measured: speed, uptime, support reply time, the control panel, and a refund actually claimed. Those five need a bought plan and a measurement round, and none of them is in the score today.
Use this table once you know what matters to you. Start with the column that fits your project: response from your audience's city, the first payment and renewal if budget is the constraint, or the reply language if you will lean on support. Narrow the list with the filters below. Every “Not yet measured” cell is a criterion left out of the score until we check it, not a zero. Reading one row: ScalaHosting scores 8.1, it scores 9.6 on refund, it answers from Riyadh in 0 ms, you pay $19.95 today and then $24.95/mo, and it was checked on 23 September 2026.
Arabic support: all three support replies came in Arabic. Servers in the region: a data centre in the Gulf or Egypt on the tested plan. WordPress-ready: a one-click WordPress install on the tested plan. Renewal under $8: the monthly renewal price.
The table is wider than the screen: scroll sideways for the entry and renewal prices, the first payment, published support hours and channels, and the refund window
Service
Score
Price
Support
Features
Refund
Renewal jump
Term demanded
Entry
First payment
Renewal
Refund window
Published features
Support hours
Arabic support
Checked
ScalaHosting
8.1
9.5
6.0
7.0
9.6
1.3×
1
$19.95/mo monthly
$19.95
$24.95/mo
30 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
InterServer
7.0
9.9
6.0
4.0
6.8
1.0×
1
$9.00/mo monthly
$9.00
$9.00/mo
0 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Hostinger
6.3
6.4
6.0
7.0
5.7
1.7×
24
$8.99/mo 24 mo
$215.76
$14.99/mo
30 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
DigitalOcean
7.0
9.8
5.0
5.0
7.0
1.0×
1
$24.00/mo monthly
$24.00
$24.00/mo
0 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Kamatera
6.9
9.6
6.0
4.5
6.2
1.0×
1
$39.00/mo monthly
$39.00
$39.00/mo
0 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
LLiquid Web
6.9
8.7
6.0
5.0
7.0
2.0×
1
$8.50/mo monthly
$8.50
$17.00/mo
0 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Hetzner
6.8
9.8
5.0
2.5
8.4
1.0×
1
$22.78/mo monthly
$22.78
$22.78/mo
14 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
IONOS
6.7
6.9
7.0
4.0
8.8
2.8×
12
$5.00/mo 12 mo
$60.00
$14.00/mo
30 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
ChemiCloud
6.3
8.7
6.0
2.0
7.0
1.8×
1
$32.95/mo monthly
$32.95
$59.95/mo
7 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Vultr
6.1
9.8
1.0
Not yet checked
7.0
1.0×
1
$20.00/mo monthly
$20.00
$20.00/mo
0 days
0/7
no published support hours
English
CCloudways
6.1
9.5
6.0
1.0
5.7
1.0×
1
$54.00/mo monthly
$54.00
$54.00/mo
7 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Verpex
6.1
8.7
6.0
2.5
5.5
2.0×
1
$10.00/mo monthly
$10.00
$19.99/mo
7 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
hosting.com
5.9
Not yet checked
7.0
4.5
Not yet checked
—
—
—/mo not published
—
—/mo
7 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Bluehost
5.7
6.9
Not yet checked
4.0
5.4
1.3×
24
$9.49/mo 24 mo
$227.76
$11.99/mo
30 days
0/7
no published support hours
English
FFastComet
5.7
Not yet checked
6.0
5.0
5.9
1.4×
—
$53.87/mo not published
—
$76.95/mo
0 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
GreenGeeks
5.3
Not yet checked
5.0
2.5
8.6
—
—
$69.95/mo not published
—
—/mo
30 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
HostGator
5.1
6.7
Not yet checked
4.0
3.7
2.2×
24
$4.18/mo 24 mo
$100.32
$9.35/mo
7 days
0/7
no published support hours
English
OVHcloud
5.1
Not yet checked
Not yet checked
4.5
5.6
—
—
$4.54/mo not published
—
—/mo
7 days
0/7
no published support hours
English
DreamHost
5.0
5.2
6.0
6.5
2.0
2.3×
36
$20.00/mo 36 mo
$720.00
$46.99/mo
0 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
InMotion Hosting
4.9
6.1
7.0
2.5
2.7
1.9×
24
$13.99/mo 24 mo
$335.76
$26.99/mo
7 days
0/7
support around the clock
English
Contabo
4.9
Not yet checked
Not yet checked
4.0
5.7
—
24
$5.72/mo 24 mo
$137.28
—/mo
14 days
0/7
no published support hours
English
No service matches these filters.
Reading window: 16 to 16 September 2026 · every figure read on the company’s own pageNot yet checked means the criterion is excluded from the score until we check it
Which host for your project?
No single host suits every project. These are cases we hear about often, each with the criterion that decides it, the host that leads on it among the ones we recommend, and what to watch for.
A blog or brochure site kept for years
A site you keep for years is paid for twice: the first-year price, then the renewal. What matters here is what you pay after the offer ends, not before.
Lowest 36-month cost among the hosts we recommend ($324.00): InterServer, scoring 7.0. What to watch for: a refund window of only 0 days.
For a first site, what protects you is being able to back out: a published refund window, written exclusions, and billing that states the renewal and its price.
Longest published refund window among the hosts we recommend (30 days): ScalaHosting, scoring 8.1. What to watch for: publishes no Arabic support.
“From $8.99 a month” is true and misleading at the same time. That price usually comes only with a prepayment of several years, and it rises at renewal. Before you compare monthly prices, compare two numbers: what you pay today, and what you pay in the first 36 months.
Take the services that led a criterion this round and compare the first-payment column with the first-36-months column before you decide: a small first payment does not mean a small cost.
Scroll the table sideways for the 36-month total and the monthly average.
Service
You pay today
First 12 months
First 36 months
Monthly average over the first 36 months
ScalaHosting
$19.95
$294.40
$893.20
$24.81
InterServer
$9.00
$108.00
$324.00
$9.00
Hostinger
$215.76
$215.76
$395.64
$10.99
DigitalOcean
$24.00
$288.00
$864.00
$24.00
The table shows US dollars before VAT, as the hosts list them. Add VAT for your country, convert at the rate on the day you pay, and remember that your card fees can add a little. In your currency: ScalaHosting's first payment of $19.95 is about 75 SAR before VAT, and about 86 SAR with 15% VAT in Saudi Arabia, at the rate on 24 September 2026.
Choose the prepayment length you are sure to stay for. If you might leave within a year, compare the first-12-months column, not the 36.
Where the prepayment is longer than the period, the whole prepayment is shown because nothing shorter can be bought at that price. Prices in US dollars as shown on the providers' sites. For reference, $1 ≈ 3.75 SAR ≈ 3.67 AED ≈ 48.5 EGP at the rate on . Add VAT (15% in Saudi Arabia, 5% in the UAE, 14% in Egypt) where not included. mada and Fawry are accepted by: .
What the small print means
Plans pages use words that sound clear, but what they mean is in the terms. These are five we read in every review, what they usually mean, and what to do before you believe them. These definitions are a general guide from the terms we read, not measured figures. Every number on this page comes from the company’s own page.
“Unlimited”: Unlimited storage and data transfer come with a file-count (inode) cap and a CPU cap, and an active store can hit the cap within the first year. Ask about the file-count cap before buying if you are building a shop.
“24/7 support”: Means the chat is open, not that anyone answers in Arabic or within minutes. We read the hours, the channels and the languages a support page names. Reply time we have not measured: that needs a paid account, and it is not in the score today. Try it yourself: send a question in Arabic before you pay. What we found: 0 of 21 services state on their support page that they reply in Arabic.
“Free domain”: First year only, then renewed at market price ($12 to $20). It may be held back if you cancel. Register the domain in your own name, and check its renewal price.
“Money-back guarantee”: Usually excludes the domain and add-ons, and runs from the purchase date, not the activation date. Read what is excluded, and count the window from the purchase date.
“Free migration”: Usually cPanel to cPanel only. Moving from a site builder or a dedicated server is paid. Check that your site is the kind they move for free. What we found: 0 of the 21 hosts on the list advertise free migration.
Before you pay
Before you type in your card number, take ten minutes for these steps. Each one protects you from a mistake that recurs across these companies’ pages. Every review on this site lists the refund window, how to cancel and the renewal price for its host.
Confirm the refund window and whether it covers what you bought. Many hosts exclude the domain and add-ons, so only part of the money comes back.
Know how to cancel: from the panel or by phone only. Some hosts cancel only by ticket or phone, which eats into the refund window.
Put the renewal date in your calendar with the new price. The new price is charged automatically, often without a clear reminder.
Confirm you can export a full backup yourself. That copy is what lets you leave if the service goes bad.
Choose the server region before paying; some services will not change it afterwards. Changing region after the account exists means moving the site all over again.
Message support in Arabic before buying and time the reply. What happens with a pre-sales question tells you what will happen after the sale.
What these companies’ own pages said
We read the pages of 21 companies in one day. We bought no plan and wrote to no support desk. What follows is not a judgement of service quality; it is a count of what each company says about itself on its own page: how far the price rises, how long it demands up front, what it promises, and what it does when you ask for your money back.
Three numbers summarise what we found, all computed from the same list you are about to read.
1.4×median renewal jumpwhat the offer price becomes at renewal, in the middle of the list
17/21print the renewal on the pricing pageof the 21 companies we read
0/21publish Arabic supportof the 21 companies we read
The third number is the one that matters to an Arabic-speaking reader: nothing on this list promises Arabic on its own page. The companies that publish their support languages name English, Spanish and German, and the list ends there.
What the score means, criterion by criterion
The score is out of ten: four sub-scores multiplied by their weights. For each criterion below: what it means in a buyer’s terms, where every company stands on it, and the formula that produced the number.
Price and renewal transparency
33%
The renewal jump alone is not enough: a company demanding four years up front at a flat price can cost you more than one that raises its price after a single year. So this criterion adds four things — the jump, the term demanded, whether the renewal is written down at all, and how much leaves your card today.
InterServer9.9
DigitalOcean9.8
Hetzner9.8
Vultr9.8
Kamatera9.6
Cloudways9.5
ScalaHosting9.5
ChemiCloud8.7
Liquid Web8.7
Verpex8.7
Bluehost6.9
IONOS6.9
HostGator6.7
Hostinger6.4
InMotion Hosting6.1
DreamHost5.2
InterServer sits at the head here (9.9); DreamHost sits at the foot here (5.2).
The formula as we apply it: The plan we price: the entry plan on the longest prepayment a company offers, capped at 24 months, because a four-year commitment and a one-year one are not the same product; each term is on its card. Renewal jump: 10 points when the renewal equals the opening price, minus 3.0 per extra multiple. Term demanded: 10 points for monthly billing, minus 1 per 6 months demanded up front. Renewal price on the pricing page: 10 or 0. Paid today: 10 points at nothing, minus 1 per $20 of first payment. Price transparency = 40% jump + 20% term + 20% published + 20% paid today.
Support availability
27%
We do not know how long they take to reply, because that needs a paid account. What we do know is what they publish: when you can reach them, on how many channels, and in what language.
hosting.com7.0
InMotion Hosting7.0
IONOS7.0
ChemiCloud6.0
Cloudways6.0
DreamHost6.0
FastComet6.0
Hostinger6.0
InterServer6.0
Kamatera6.0
Liquid Web6.0
ScalaHosting6.0
Verpex6.0
DigitalOcean5.0
GreenGeeks5.0
Hetzner5.0
Vultr1.0
hosting.com sits at the head here (7.0); Vultr sits at the foot here (1.0).
The formula as we apply it: Published support hours: 10 points for around the clock, 5 for business hours, 0 when none is published. Channels: 10 points for all three (chat, tickets, phone). Arabic support published: 10 or 0. Support availability = 40% hours + 30% channels + 30% Arabic.
Published features
20%
The seven items are not worth the same to someone running a small site: a daily backup saves a site, an email address does not. So each feature is weighted by what it is worth, not counted.
Hostinger7.0
ScalaHosting7.0
DreamHost6.5
DigitalOcean5.0
FastComet5.0
Liquid Web5.0
hosting.com4.5
Kamatera4.5
OVHcloud4.5
Bluehost4.0
Contabo4.0
HostGator4.0
InterServer4.0
IONOS4.0
GreenGeeks2.5
Hetzner2.5
InMotion Hosting2.5
Verpex2.5
ChemiCloud2.0
Cloudways1.0
Hostinger sits at the head here (7.0); Cloudways sits at the foot here (1.0).
The formula as we apply it: Published features: the seven items are not equal. Daily backups are worth 2.5 points, a free domain year, a CDN and a staging site 1.5 each, and a certificate, email and migration one apiece. Ten in total, and an item the page does not name does not count.
Refund and billing
20%
A refund window on its own is a promise. Two things make it usable: the exclusions being written down, and knowing the renewal figure before it is charged rather than after.
ScalaHosting9.6
IONOS8.8
GreenGeeks8.6
Hetzner8.4
ChemiCloud7.0
DigitalOcean7.0
Liquid Web7.0
Vultr7.0
InterServer6.8
Kamatera6.2
FastComet5.9
Cloudways5.7
Contabo5.7
Hostinger5.7
OVHcloud5.6
Verpex5.5
Bluehost5.4
HostGator3.7
InMotion Hosting2.7
DreamHost2.0
ScalaHosting sits at the head here (9.6); DreamHost sits at the foot here (2.0).
The formula as we apply it: Refund window: 10 points at 30 days, minus 1 per 3 days short. Exclusions written: 10 or 0. Billing states the renewal: 10 or 0. Refund and billing = 50% window + 30% exclusions + 20% billing.
How to read a number out of ten
Eight and above: the company writes down what you will pay and when, and gives you a way out. There is no nine on this list, and that is not modesty on our part — we did not find a page that earned one.
Seven to eight: a mostly clear page with one flaw worth reading before you pay.
Six to seven: the advertised price is far from the real one, or the term demanded is long, or something basic goes unmentioned.
Under six: the page hides more than it says. The company still has a link here, because the decision is yours, but read the weaknesses first.
Where two scores tie after rounding, the higher unrounded sum ranks first. No position is moved by hand.
What we did not measure, and why you should know
We bought no plan from anyone on this list, ran no site on one, and sent no question to a support desk. That means speed, uptime and real reply times enter no score on this page.
That is a choice, not a hidden gap: we published what can be verified today instead of waiting for a purchase budget, and we state its limits. When we buy and measure, those criteria enter the arithmetic, the scores move, and the change appears in the changelog with its date.
Until then, what you are reading answers one question precisely: what does this company say about itself, and does it say it clearly?
▼Down: InMotion Hosting 5.3 → to 4.9: Price 7.2 → to 6.1. We re-read its page and found the first payment we had recorded matches no published figure, while the page advertises four dollars seventy-nine a month on a one-year term, so we corrected the total to the product of the two.
▲Up: HostGator 5.0 → to 5.1 (provisional): Price 6.3 → to 6.7. We re-read its page and found the first payment we had recorded matches no published figure, and found no setup fee on the page to explain the difference, so we corrected the total to the advertised rate times the term.
▲Up: InterServer 6.9 → to 7.0: Price 9.6 → to 9.9. We re-read its page and found the first payment we had recorded appears on no page of it, while the page itself says twelve months costs thirty dollars, so we corrected the figure.
The scoring model changed: five criteria that assumed we had bought the plan became 4 that are read from the companies’ own pages — price 33%, support 27%, features 20%, refund 20%. Speed and uptime left the score entirely until they can be measured on a bought plan, and the page says so everywhere.
Each measurement's points are now rounded to two decimals before they are weighted; no score changed.
Frequently asked
What does hosting really cost in the first year?
Among the hosts we recommend, the first 12 months cost between $108.00 (InterServer) and $294.40 (ScalaHosting), counting the whole prepayment where it runs past a year. That is roughly 405 to 1104 SAR before VAT.
How much does the price rise at renewal?
The gap varies widely from one service to the next. Largest renewal increase on the list: IONOS renews at 2.8× its opening price, then DreamHost at 2.3× and HostGator at 2.2×. Read the renewal price before the first-year price.
Should I buy the domain from the host?
Not necessarily. The free first-year domain is convenient, then it renews at market price, and some terms hold it back or deduct its fee from any refund. Registering it with an independent registrar keeps the domain separate from the hosting and makes moving later easier.
Can I move later, and what does it cost?
0 of the 21 companies on this list publish free migration on their plan page: . It is usually cPanel to cPanel only; moving from a site builder or a dedicated server is a paid service, and some terms cap how many sites move free.
Is free hosting enough for my site?
For a simple portfolio, perhaps. For a site that receives customers, no; free services usually come with ads and no backups. We did not measure any of them in this round.
Why is ScalaHosting first when it renews at $24.95/mo and InterServer renews at $9.00/mo?
Price transparency is 33% of the score: ScalaHosting gets 9.5 there and InterServer gets 9.9. On support availability it is 6.0 against 6.0, on published features 7.0 against 4.0, and on refund and billing 9.6 against 6.8. The sums are 8.1 and 7.0.
