Hosting Radar

Is cheap WordPress hosting cheap after renewal?

Published 2026-11-10 · Researched and price-checked on official sources

Cheap WordPress hosting in November 2026 is mostly a first-term price. Hostinger Premium runs $1.99/mo for a 48-month term, $95.52 paid today, while SiteGround StartUp shows the same $1.99 but renews at $17.99/mo and costs $671.52 across four years. Both figures were verified on the vendors' own pricing pages on November 10, 2026.

Key facts

What matters

Four hosts sell a $1.95 to $1.99 entry plan today; only Hostinger and DreamHost hold that rate for the whole first term, because both sell 48 months up front.
Four-year cost on the cheapest tier: Hostinger $95.52, DreamHost $95.52, IONOS Grow $444.00, GreenGeeks Lite $525.60, SiteGround StartUp $671.52.
Hostinger Premium covers 3 websites and 20 GB SSD on a 48-month prepay, then renews at $10.99/mo for the same term.
DreamHost Launch renews lowest of the five entry plans at $7.99/mo, but caps monthly visits at 40,000.

What cheap WordPress hosting actually means in 2026

Cheap WordPress hosting is a shared or managed WordPress plan advertised under $3/mo on a prepaid term, where the advertised rate applies to the first term only and the renewal rate applies to every term after it.

Every number in this article is a promo price read off the vendor's own pricing page on November 10, 2026, in the middle of Black Friday campaigns at all five hosts. None of them is a list price, and none of them is a rate you can expect in February.

Two shifts make this year's comparison different from last year's. Multi-year prepay is now normal at the budget end, with Hostinger and DreamHost both selling 48-month terms at $1.99/mo, which pushes the whole promo period into the first invoice. And entry storage is now NVMe rather than SATA SSD at the same price point. The first invoice therefore looks almost identical across hosts, while the second one does not.

The four-year cost of a $1.99 plan

The table below uses each vendor's published intro rate, its term length, and its stated renewal rate. Four-year totals assume you stay on the entry plan and pay the listed renewal rate for the remaining terms. Taxes, domain renewals after year one, and paid email are excluded.

The spread is the whole story. Hostinger Premium and DreamHost Launch each cost $95.52 for four years because the promo rate covers the entire term. SiteGround StartUp carries the same $1.99 headline and costs $671.52 over the same four years, because its promo covers twelve months and the plan then renews at $17.99/mo. That is roughly seven times the Hostinger total for one website and 10 GB of storage.

IONOS Grow is the cheapest single year in the group at $12.00 for the first twelve months, but its $12/mo renewal pushes the four-year total to $444.00. Budget for the renewal rate, then treat the intro price as a discount on year one only.

Hostinger: $95.52 for four years, three websites

Hostinger's entry plan is Premium at $1.99/mo on the 48-month term, down from a $12.99/mo regular rate, with the checkout page stating "Today you pay $95.52 for 48 months. Renews at $10.99/mo for the same term." The plan includes 3 websites, 20 GB SSD storage, a free domain for the first year, free weekly backups, CDN, and the AI builder that the company markets as part of its WordPress stack.

The two steps up are the interesting ones if you plan to host more than a blog. Unlimited runs $2.79/mo on the same 48-month term ($133.92 at checkout) and renews at $16.99/mo, with unlimited websites, 50 GB NVMe, daily backups, and unlimited mailboxes free for a year. Cloud Startup is $7.99/mo, renews at $25.99/mo, and adds 100 GB NVMe plus on-demand backups.

Hostinger's Black Friday promotion also doubles the plan's AI credits, from 250 to 500 on Premium. The 30-day money-back guarantee applies, but the four-year prepay is charged in full at signup, so the refund window is your only exit before 2030.

SiteGround: $1.99 for year one, $17.99 after

SiteGround's StartUp plan shows $1.99/mo against a $17.99 regular rate, an 88% discount, prepaid for 12 months. The plan covers 1 website, 10 GB of storage, unmetered traffic, free SSL, CDN, backups, free email, and WP-CLI plus SSH access. Renewal is $17.99/mo, which works out to $215.88 for each year after the first.

GrowBig is $3.99/mo against $29.99 and adds unlimited websites, 50 GB of storage, staging, on-demand backups, and what SiteGround describes as 30% faster PHP. GoGeek is $5.99/mo against $44.99 and moves storage to 100 GB with the same unlimited site count.

The 12-month term is the reason SiteGround looks cheaper than it is. You get the promo rate for one year, and from month thirteen StartUp renews one dollar above what Hostinger's Unlimited plan renews for. SiteGround's current promotion also throws in a free domain and a free site transfer, which softens year one but not year two.

DreamHost, GreenGeeks and IONOS in the same frame

DreamHost prices its WordPress plans on a 4-year term as well. Launch is $1.99/mo for the first four years and auto-renews at $7.99/mo, includes 25 websites, 25 GB NVMe, unmetered bandwidth, daily backups, and a 40,000 monthly visit allowance. Growth is $3.49/mo, renews at $8.99/mo, and raises the ceiling to 200,000 monthly visits and 50 websites. Scale is $7.99/mo, renews at $19.99/mo, with 400,000 visits and 100 GB. Email is a three-month trial, then billed separately.

GreenGeeks runs 12-month terms: Lite at $1.95/mo against $13.95, Pro at $3.95 against $18.95, Premium at $6.95 against $30.95. Lite allows 5 websites and 25 GB, Pro and Premium are unlimited sites with 50 GB and 100 GB respectively. The company matches 300% of its energy use with renewable credits, which is the clearest non-price reason to pick it.

IONOS uses a one-year term and publishes the renewal inline as "then only". Grow is $1/mo for year one and $12/mo after, with 50 GB SSD and one website. Start is $5/mo then $8/mo with 25 GB, Boost is $12/mo then $17/mo with 75 GB. All three include a domain, SSL, and email addresses, and all three cap you at a single website.

Which cheap plan fits which site

One blog, lowest four-year bill: Hostinger Premium, tied with DreamHost Launch at $95.52 for four years. Hostinger bundles three sites and 20 GB, and its $10.99/mo renewal is the third cheapest in the group.
Traffic you expect to grow: DreamHost Growth at $3.49/mo for four years, renewing at $8.99/mo, buys a 200,000 monthly visit allowance that no host at this price matches.
Several client sites on one plan: Hostinger Unlimited gives unlimited websites and unlimited mailboxes for $2.79/mo on the 48-month term, renewing at $16.99/mo.
You need staging and on-demand backups now: SiteGround GoGeek or Hostinger Cloud Startup. Both cost more per year than everything else here, and both are the only options with staging in the cheap tier.
You want the lowest possible invoice today and will revisit in eleven months: IONOS Grow at $1/mo, then move before the $12/mo renewal.

If you are still deciding between shared and managed, the managed comparison at best managed WordPress hosting covers the tier above this one, and the SiteGround versus Hostinger head-to-head at siteground vs hostinger goes deeper on support and speed claims.

Where cheap WordPress hosting breaks

Four limits separate a $2 plan from a $30 plan, and none of them appear in the headline price.

Term lock-in. Hostinger and DreamHost collect the full 48-month amount at checkout. A 30-day refund window is your only exit, and a change of plan usually means paying the difference up front.
Visit ceilings. DreamHost caps Launch at 40,000 monthly visits. SiteGround and Hostinger advertise unmetered traffic but throttle shared resources, which shows up as slow admin pages and failed image uploads long before you hit a formal number.
Storage and backup frequency. The cheapest tiers sit between 10 GB and 25 GB. Hostinger Premium ships weekly backups rather than daily, so a Wednesday mistake can take six days of content with it. SiteGround's StartUp has no staging environment at all.
Email is metered separately after the promo. Hostinger gives two mailboxes free for a year on Premium, DreamHost gives three months, and GreenGeeks and IONOS bundle mailboxes that stay with the plan.

A fifth limit is arithmetic. On a 48-month prepay, the price you see is the price for four years, not a monthly rate you can cancel. If the site earns nothing in year one, you have still committed the full amount.

At a glance

Host and plan	Intro price	Term	Renews at	4-year total
Hostinger Premium	$1.99/mo	48 months	$10.99/mo	$95.52
DreamHost Launch	$1.99/mo	48 months	$7.99/mo	$95.52
IONOS Start	$5.00/mo	12 months	$8.00/mo	$348.00
IONOS Grow	$1.00/mo	12 months	$12.00/mo	$444.00
GreenGeeks Lite	$1.95/mo	12 months	$13.95/mo	$525.60
SiteGround StartUp	$1.99/mo	12 months	$17.99/mo	$671.52

Entry WordPress plans compared by intro price, renewal rate and four-year total. Verified on vendor pricing pages, November 10, 2026.

FAQ

Is $1.99 WordPress hosting a real price or a trick?

It is a real invoice amount, not a bait listing, but it only applies to the first term. On November 10, 2026, Hostinger charged $95.52 for a 48-month Premium term at $1.99/mo, and SiteGround charged $23.88 for a 12-month StartUp term at the same rate. The second invoice is where the real price appears: $10.99/mo at Hostinger, $17.99/mo at SiteGround.

Which cheap WordPress host is cheapest after the promo ends?

DreamHost Launch renews at $7.99/mo, the lowest renewal rate among the five entry plans checked here. IONOS Start follows at $8.00/mo, Hostinger Premium at $10.99/mo, IONOS Grow at $12.00/mo, GreenGeeks Lite at $13.95/mo, and SiteGround StartUp at $17.99/mo.

Do I have to commit to 48 months to get the lowest price?

At Hostinger and DreamHost, yes: the $1.99 rate is tied to a 48-month prepaid term, and the full amount is charged at checkout. SiteGround, GreenGeeks and IONOS publish their cheapest rates on 12-month terms, which cost more in total but leave you free to move after a year.