Hostinger Review 2026: 30 Days of Real Testing
We spent 30 days on a Hostinger Premium and Unlimited account. Here is what the $2.99 price really buys, where the plan runs out of headroom, and who should look elsewhere.
Live:Hostinger's 48-month pricing is down to$2.99/mo— free domain + SSL included.
See the dealPrices verified 2026-09-17
Every plan, every spec and — crucially — every renewal price, laid out side by side. Then plain-English guidance on which tier you actually need and how to pay the least for it.
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The middle rung that most people should actually buy — double the resources of Premium for one dollar more, with daily backups and Node.js.
$191.52 upfront · renews at $16.99/mo
We publish the renewal price
Every plan page shows the intro rate and what you pay after it ends.
We publish the limits
Inodes, PHP workers, memory caps, backup frequency — the specs marketing pages skip.
We say when not to buy
Each plan page lists who it is wrong for. Sometimes the answer is "spend $1 more".
Live pricing
Switch between product families, and flip the price view to see what you pay after the intro term ends. Nothing is hidden behind a 'contact us'.
Prices are the introductory rates, which require paying the full term upfront. Hostinger charges the whole term at checkout — the "per month" figure is the total divided by the number of months.
The cheapest sensible way to get a real website online — 3 sites, a free domain and a year of email.
Billed as $143.52 upfront · renews at$10.99/mo
The middle rung that most people should actually buy — double the resources of Premium for one dollar more, with daily backups and Node.js.
Billed as $191.52 upfront · renews at$16.99/mo
| Spec | PremiumCheapest start | UnlimitedBest value |
|---|---|---|
| Websites | 3 | Unlimited |
| CPU cores | 1 | 2 |
| RAM | 2 GB | 3 GB |
| Storage | 20 GB SSD | 50 GB NVMe |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Inodes | 400,000 | 600,000 |
| PHP workers | 40 | 60 |
| Databases | 10 | 150 |
| Database size | 3 GB | 3 GB |
| Mailboxes | 2 per website | 5 per website (free for 1 year) |
| Backups | Free weekly backups | Daily backups with easy restore |
| Dedicated IP | Not included | Included |
| Free CDN | Included | Included |
| Free SSL | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| AI Builder credits | 5 website/app credits | 15 website/app credits |
| Free domain | 1 year | 1 year |
| Money-back window | 30 days | 30 days |
| Intro price | $2.99/mo | $3.99/mo |
| Renewal price | $10.99/mo | $16.99/mo |
Dedicated cloud resources for the price of a mid-range shared plan — 4 cores, 4 GB RAM and 100 GB NVMe with no noisy neighbours.
Billed as $383.52 upfront · renews at$25.99/mo
Double the PHP workers and database size of Cloud Startup — for stores and content sites that have real concurrent traffic.
Billed as $767.52 upfront · renews at$39.99/mo
The top published cloud tier — 12 GB of RAM, 300 PHP workers and a 12 GB database ceiling for sites that cannot afford to queue.
Billed as $1439.52 upfront · renews at$65.99/mo
| Spec | Cloud StartupMost popular cloud | Cloud Professional | Cloud Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| CPU cores | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| RAM | 4 GB | 6 GB | 12 GB |
| Storage | 100 GB NVMe | 200 GB NVMe | 300 GB NVMe |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Inodes | 2,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 |
| PHP workers | 100 | 200 | 300 |
| Databases | 300 | 300 | 300 |
| Database size | 6 GB | 9 GB | 12 GB |
| Mailboxes | 10 per website (free for 1 year) | 10 per website | 10 per website |
| Backups | Daily and on-demand backups | Daily and on-demand backups | Daily and on-demand backups |
| Dedicated IP | Included | Included | Included |
| Free CDN | Included | Included | Included |
| Free SSL | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| AI Builder credits | 15 website/app credits | 15 website/app credits | 15 website/app credits |
| Free domain | 1 year | 1 year | 1 year |
| Money-back window | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Intro price | $7.99/mo | $15.99/mo | $29.99/mo |
| Renewal price | $25.99/mo | $39.99/mo | $65.99/mo |
A full root-access server with 4 GB of RAM for less than a shared plan — if you are willing to manage it yourself.
Billed as $155.76 upfront · renews at$11.99/mo
Hostinger's most popular VPS — 2 cores and 8 GB of RAM with root access, at a price shared hosting cannot match per gigabyte.
Billed as $215.76 upfront · renews at$14.99/mo
Four cores and 16 GB of RAM — the point where a VPS stops being a side project and starts being infrastructure.
Billed as $311.76 upfront · renews at$28.99/mo
Eight cores and 32 GB of RAM for $25.99 — the top of the KVM range and the cheapest big machine Hostinger sells.
Billed as $623.76 upfront · renews at$49.99/mo
| Spec | KVM 1 VPS | KVM 2 VPSMost popular VPS | KVM 4 VPSBest for scaling | KVM 8 VPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | Self-managed — host as many as the resources allow | Self-managed — host as many as the resources allow | Self-managed — host as many as the resources allow | Self-managed — host as many as the resources allow |
| CPU cores | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Storage | 50 GB NVMe | 100 GB NVMe | 200 GB NVMe | 400 GB NVMe |
| Bandwidth | 4 TB | 8 TB | 16 TB | 32 TB |
| Inodes | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| PHP workers | — | — | — | — |
| Databases | — | — | — | — |
| Database size | — | — | — | — |
| Mailboxes | Not included — self-managed | Not included — self-managed | Not included — self-managed | Not included — self-managed |
| Backups | Free weekly backups | Free weekly backups | Free weekly backups | Free weekly backups |
| Dedicated IP | Not included | Not included | Not included | Not included |
| Free CDN | Add your own | Add your own | Add your own | Add your own |
| Free SSL | Install your own | Install your own | Install your own | Install your own |
| AI Builder credits | — | — | — | — |
| Free domain | 1 year | 1 year | 1 year | 1 year |
| Money-back window | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Intro price | $6.49/mo | $8.99/mo | $12.99/mo | $25.99/mo |
| Renewal price | $11.99/mo | $14.99/mo | $28.99/mo | $49.99/mo |
Describe the site you want and let the AI build it, or drag it together by hand — with hosting, a domain and email bundled in.
Billed as $143.52 upfront · renews at$10.99/mo
Not sure which plan fits?
Answer three questions and we'll point you at the right tier — or run the numbers in the cost calculator first.
Start here
Four realistic scenarios and the plan we would buy for each. If you want a personalised answer, the plan finder takes about 20 seconds.
A blog, portfolio or CV site that needs to be online, fast, with a real domain and professional email.
WooCommerce with daily backups, a dedicated IP and enough PHP workers to survive a sale.
Steady traffic, real revenue, no appetite for resource ceilings. Four cores and 100 GB NVMe.
Full root access, dedicated RAM and 1 Gbps networking at a fraction of managed prices.
What you're paying for
Strip away the discount and this is what is left. These are the features that genuinely change what a year of hosting costs you elsewhere.
Included on every annual or longer plan. Worth roughly $10–16 in year one, and it registers in your name.
Unlimited certificates on most plans, issued and renewed without you touching anything.
2 mailboxes per site on Premium, 5 on Unlimited, 10 on Cloud — free for the first year.
The stack is genuinely fast, and the CDN is switched on by default rather than sold as an add-on.
Submit a request and their team moves your existing site, usually in about 20 minutes, with no downtime.
An AI website builder, AI-assisted troubleshooting and Hostinger Agent for WordPress management.
Current promotion
The biggest discount is built into the long-term plans rather than a stackable coupon — so the term you choose matters more than the code you type. Use promo code30OFF for a further 10% off at checkout, and compare the term totals before you commit.
Editor's picks
Chosen on value rather than commission — these are the tiers that hold up under real workloads.
The cheapest sensible way to get a real website online — 3 sites, a free domain and a year of email.
Billed as $143.52 upfront · renews at$10.99/mo
The middle rung that most people should actually buy — double the resources of Premium for one dollar more, with daily backups and Node.js.
Billed as $191.52 upfront · renews at$16.99/mo
A full root-access server with 4 GB of RAM for less than a shared plan — if you are willing to manage it yourself.
$6.49/mo
24 months termHostinger's most popular VPS — 2 cores and 8 GB of RAM with root access, at a price shared hosting cannot match per gigabyte.
$8.99/mo
24 months termFour cores and 16 GB of RAM — the point where a VPS stops being a side project and starts being infrastructure.
$12.99/mo
24 months termResearch & tutorials
Reviews, buying guides and step-by-step fixes for the problems Hostinger customers hit most.
We spent 30 days on a Hostinger Premium and Unlimited account. Here is what the $2.99 price really buys, where the plan runs out of headroom, and who should look elsewhere.
The three Hostinger hosting architectures in plain English — what managed means in each, what control you trade away, and which plans fit which real-world scenario.
A decision tree for every Hostinger plan — web hosting, cloud, VPS and Website Builder — with a full spec and price table and honest upgrade advice.
Every Hostinger renewal price in one table, the percentage increase from promo to renewal for each plan, why hosting works this way, and five strategies to pay less.
How the term-length maths actually works, when a shorter term is the smarter buy, how to stack a promo code, and why buying at renewal is the worst deal available.
The full Hostinger checkout walkthrough: picking a plan and term, the domain step, which add-ons to decline, where the promo code box is, and what happens next.
What 99.9% uptime really allows, how LiteSpeed, LSCache, the CDN and NVMe storage affect TTFB, and which Hostinger plan tiers hit their resource ceiling first.
Free tools
Two calculators that answer the questions the checkout page will not.
Compare what plans actually cost over one, two, four or six years — including the renewal rate that marketing pages leave out.
Run the numbersFour questions about your project, your traffic and how hands-on you want to be. Get a recommendation with the reasoning shown.
Find my planBefore you buy
Premium includes a free domain for a year, free SSL, three websites and email. If it is not right, Hostinger refunds you within 30 days.
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