HostGator Price Hike

As a HostGator customer, are you concerned about the rising hosting costs? Want to find out the reasons behind these increased prices? Well then, you’re on the right page!

In this article, we will discuss the extent of change in HostGator prices as well as the cause of this increment. Considering that the rise in hosting costs will increase your overall expenses, we’ll also be sharing some tips to help you save money on your hosting bill.

Public response has been a major part of this entire issue. And so, we’ll also be looking at customer reactions to the recent HostGator price hike.

But first, let’s find out what the HostGator price rise is all about in our next section.

HostGator Price Hike

HostGator increased its plan prices towards the end of August 2023, with an increment of about 64%. As of the time this article was written, it concerns only the host’s shared hosting plans.

The pictures below compare the old and new HostGator prices for all three plans:

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Reason behind the Price Increase

There are two major reasons behind the HostGator prices hike:

1. Marketing Expenses

The company spends a lot of money on advertising to become popular in the hosting market. It helps HostGator to bring in more customers while also developing itself as a brand name.

Since extensive advertisement means more costs, the host has to increase its prices to remain profitable. For us HostGator customers, it is like paying higher prices for branded clothes while private labels offer the same quality of products.

In other words, existing customers are receiving the same level of services as earlier but now they are paying a premium price only for the host’s brand name.

2. Introductory Discount Prices

Another factor that contributes to rising HostGator prices is its unrealistically low introductory rates. The host offers deep discounts to its new users to bring in more customers, but it takes up a lot of money from their overall profits.

So, the hosting provider increases its plan prices to recover the profit it loses by offering introductory discounts. You can think of it as a business strategy to extract a return on the initial investment.

What Customers Think about the HostGator Price Increase

For the most part, the HostGator price hike has not been well-received by its customer base. People are, of course, unhappy about the raised prices, but they are far more upset about how the host handled the increase.

Here is what some of the customers have to say about this issue:

Unfortunately, HostGator increased its plan prices without any prior notice to its existing customers. They found it when they were invoiced.

Customer support team has also been sending a standard reply to all customer queries asking about the increased hosting bill.

Across the board, customers found this very unfair since they didn’t get the chance to decide whether to pay for the hiked prices or move away from HostGator and look for cheaper alternatives.

How much is the HostGator renewal fee?

HostGator has not only hiked the initial prices of its shared plans but also its renewal costs.

To give you a better sense of exactly how wide this price hike reaches, we have compiled the changes in HostGator renewal fees for all billing periods of each shared hosting plan below.

Cheaper Alternative than HostGator?

Since HostGator has substantially increased its prices, we, as customers, must look for ways to reduce monthly hosting expenditure.

Here are some tactics and alternative host to avoid costly HostGator services:

Ask for Discount

Asking for a discount from the seller is the easiest method of cutting your hosting expenses. This is a common practice that works well with some other hosting providers like GoDaddy.

If you get in touch with GoDaddy’s customer support via live chat and share your intention of moving away from their servers, the company usually offers a discount to retain you as its customer.

Consider trying the same trick with HostGator before you decide to leave the host altogether. It doesn’t hurt to inform the company about your intention of migrating your website.

If the support team doesn’t suggest any solution, just ask them for a discount to get better pricing.

If you get a good discount, you might as well choose to stay with HostGator. If not, try a cheaper alternative like the one we are recommending in our next section.

Change Hosts

If you have made up your mind to move your website away from HostGator, we recommend Hostinger.

Hostinger is cheaper and has much better hosting services. Additionally, the host offers a free website migration service. So the company will help you transfer your website to its server without any hassle.

Conclusion

Price hikes are part and parcel of the industry, and there will always be marketers stuck complaining over a few dollars’ difference in hosting for larger scale packs, like annual registration for a domain.

However, the incident with the price hike of HostGator was not a small adjustment of plan prices. As of August 2023, HostGator increased their prices by about 70% on average without any notice to their existing customers.

HostGator’s price hike was steep and sudden, which—understandably—left the host’s customers in shock. This price change received strongly negative responses from the host’s customers.

Mostly, users were enraged more by the fact that they hadn’t been notified at all and had to find out about HostGator’s new prices directly when they were billed. In our opinion, the hosting provider could have done a better job of maintaining transparency.

As a result of this breach of trust, many customers are now deciding to leave HostGator for other hosting services. Moreover, there are many easier options to handle site migration these days.

For instance, many HostGator competitors, like Hostinger, offer free migration services to incoming clients.

Visit Hostinger

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Which is better, Hostinger or HostGator?

Hostinger is better than HostGator. They are cheaper, have more features in their plans, and have way better hosting services than HostGator.

Hostinger also provides you with multiple tools to boost your website performance.

For example, you will get LiteSpeed servers and the LSCache optimization plugin for your website.

How do I stop paying for HostGator?

To stop paying for HostGator, you have to first cancel your plan’s subscription. This can be done by clicking the ‘Manage’ link below the domain on the panel’s Hosting section, going to the ‘Billing’ tab, and cancelling the package.

Once you’ve stopped paying for HostGator, you can easily migrate to cheaper hosting alternatives.

Which is cheaper, Hostinger or HostGator?

Hostinger is cheaper than HostGator. The cheapest shared hosting plan of Hostinger costs $2.49 per month. On the other hand,

HostGator’s entry-level shared hosting plan is priced at $3.75 per month.

For renewal rates, Hostinger offers cheaper renewal prices for its plans as compared to HostGator plans. You’ll be saving $2 monthly during renewals.

Did HostGator increase their prices for VPS plans?

No, HostGator didn’t increase their prices for VPS plans. The company performed the recent price hike only on its shared hosting plans.

So you’ll be bearing the same hosting costs each month if you have a VPS plan with HostGator.