Renewal Arithmetic
Cheap web hosting that performs — Cheap hosting, priced the way a registry prices a name: per year, for ever
The bargain you are pricing has two anniversaries, and the one that catches people is rarely the hosting.
The short answer
Price the name and the plan as one recurring cost with two renewal dates, then buy the honestly specified NVMe plan whose hosting renewal figure never moves: cheap in year one, still cheap in year two, and genuinely quick throughout.
The working sits below — where the second invoice hides, which bundles tether the domain, and the five-year sum done properly.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
NVMe
NVMe, every tier
Free
First year of the name
99.9%
Monitored uptime
Flat
Hosting renewals
Cheap hosting fails on timing rather than technology. Introductory rates commonly treble at renewal, which makes the year-two figure the only one worth comparing between providers.
What the ranking tables leave out is that you signed up for two subscriptions. The plan renews on its date and the registration renews on the registry's, and a bargain judged on the hosting alone can quietly be the dearer arrangement once the name's renewal is counted.
Two anniversaries, not one
Write both dates down before you compare anything. The hosting term ends when the provider says it does; the registration term ends when the registry's record says it does, and the two rarely line up.
A cheap plan bundling a free first-year domain has, in effect, deferred a bill. If nobody has told you what the name renews at, you have not been quoted a price — you have been quoted half of one.
Where cheap turns expensive: the tether
The unpleasant pattern is not a high renewal on the hosting. It is a free name that renews well above the ordinary market rate, or one that meets resistance the day you ask to move it.
Ask three questions of any bundle and the tether shows itself. Whose details are on the registrant record? What is the renewal figure in year two? Will the name be released with an auth code on request once the registry's sixty-day lock has lifted?
There is a fourth, less obvious one: what happens to the name if you cancel the hosting. On any decent arrangement the answer is nothing — the registration runs to the end of its paid term regardless.
The unlimited-everything problem, in passing
Cut-price plans also lean on the word unlimited, which in practice means limits set by a fair-use clause nobody showed you, met for the first time on your busiest trading day.
Prefer a plan that prints its CPU, RAM, storage and inode allowances. NVMe storage down to the entry tier matters for the same reason: disk speed is the first corner a cut-price host quietly trims.
What we would buy at this end of the market
The Sprint plan: an honestly specified NVMe plan at around two dollars a month with SSL, the migration, the daily copy and mailboxes already inside, and a hosting renewal charged at the order rate.
Ordered annually it carries the first year of the name's registration, and the name renews afterwards at our ordinary list price — the same figure you would pay buying it on its own, with no bundle premium waiting in the terms.
The registration is in your details and moves on request once the sixty days lift. Cheap here means a low number, not a short lead.
The five-year sum, done properly. Take the hosting renewal figure, multiply by sixty months, add the name's renewal five times, and add every extra you would genuinely buy — certificate, mailboxes, migration. Set the totals side by side.
Very few headline offers still look cheap after that sum, and the ones that do tend to be the ones that published both renewal figures in the first place. Then test the winner inside the refund window with a real site on it.
Both renewal figures, printed where you can find them
We publish what the hosting renews at and what the name renews at, because a price that only holds for twelve months is not a price. Nothing here is footnoted.
Hosted somewhere else already? We move the whole site at no charge, usually within 24 hours, and it goes on answering visitors throughout.
- Hosting renewals at the order rate
- The name renewing at ordinary list price
- The registration in your details, released on request
- Allowances printed rather than called unlimited
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
One rate, published in the open
What you order the hosting at is what you renew it at — the only comparison that counts is one we win by default.
No bundle premium on the name
Year one included on annual plans, then ordinary list price. There is no inflated renewal hiding in the domain terms.
The floor, not an upgrade
NVMe and LiteSpeed on the entry tier as well — the hardware other hosts keep behind premium plans.
No tether on the registration
In your details, transferable with an auth code once the registry's sixty-day lock lifts, whether or not the hosting stays.
The essentials inside, not added on
SSL, the migration, backups and mail come with every plan rather than appearing as checkout extras.
On the public record
Azaanex Inc., federally incorporated in Canada — a host whose filing you can read before committing to anything.
Prices Side by Side
How our prices sit against the majors
What the market typically charges to join and to renew, set beside ours, including the renewal figure most comparison charts leave out.
| Feature | Hosting & DomainsMost popular | Typical household-name host | Typical bargain host | Typical loss-leader deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price / mo* | $2.42/mo | $4–$6 | $2–$4 | $1–$3 |
| Renewal price / mo | $2.42/mo | $10–$15 | $8–$12 | $4–$6 |
| Entry-level plan renews at the price you signed up at | ||||
| SSL as standard | ||||
| Migration done for you | ||||
| NVMe drives on the entry-level tier | ||||
| Backups run every day from the first tier up | ||||
| Real humans on support, 24/7 |
*Our own column shows the lowest-priced annual plan on our books, pulled live from the same catalogue that feeds the pricing page, which is why it cannot go stale. Beside it sit three columns holding the ranges that hosts in each bracket tend to advertise: introductory rates that normally ask for one to four years up front, then climb once the term runs out. Naming rivals and printing their figures is something we gave up, since a price nobody can verify on the day you happen to read this has no business on the page. Measure us against the host you are actually weighing up, and give the renewal row the hardest look of the lot.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Write both renewal dates on one line
The plan's and the registration's. A budget arrangement you cannot state in two dates and two figures has not been quoted to you properly.
- 2
Ask the three tether questions
Registrant details, year-two domain renewal, release on request. Any hesitation on those tells you what the discount is really buying.
- 3
Do the five-year sum, then test the winner
Sixty months of hosting plus five renewals of the name plus the extras you would actually buy — then put a real site on the winner inside the refund window.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- The name's first year included when you order annually, then ordinary list price
- A hosting renewal figure identical to the one you registered at
- NVMe SSD storage on every tier, not only the dear ones
- Free SSL on every plan, reissued before the old one lapses
- Mailboxes that answer at the name you hold
- cPanel, which is what most of the industry already runs
- WordPress and 400+ further applications installed in one click
- LiteSpeed caching in the server itself rather than bolted on by plugin
- Spam and virus screening on every mailbox by default
- Money back within 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Is a bundled free domain actually a saving?
It is a real saving in year one and nothing at all thereafter, so it counts as one line in a five-year sum. What decides whether it was a good deal is the renewal figure and whether the name is free to leave. A cheap first year attached to an above-market renewal is a cost dressed as a discount.
What happens to my domain if I cancel cheap hosting?
On a properly run arrangement, nothing. The registration runs to the end of the term you paid for, stays in your details, and can be transferred to another registrar once the registry's sixty-day lock has passed. If a provider tells you the name lapses with the plan, that is a policy choice on their part, and a reason to look elsewhere.
Which corners do budget hosts cut first?
Storage generation, published allowances and support depth, in that order. Disk gets quietly downgraded, limits move into a fair-use clause, and the desk learns to answer that the server responds to ping. Check those three before comparing monthly figures, because the price gap lives in exactly those line items.
Is it cheaper to buy the name and the hosting separately?
Occasionally, by a small margin, and it costs you a nameserver change to arrange. The genuine argument for splitting them is control rather than price: two suppliers means a dispute with one never strands the other. The genuine argument against is that most people manage one renewal calendar better than two.
Keep reading
Web Hosting
cPanel hosting on NVMe drives, with both renewal figures published rather than footnoted.
Email Hosting
Mailboxes on the name you hold, for one flat rate, wherever the website lives.
Changing provider? Work through this checklist beforehand.
A straightforward running order for a migration your visitors never spot: which files travel first, how to bring the mail across without dropping a single message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two errors that sit behind almost every outage we get called in to fix.
Two renewal dates, both printed.
Hosting at the rate you ordered at, the name at ordinary list price, and neither of them tethered to the other.
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