Bluehost

Each web and WordPress hosting plan shows its renewal price right under the intro price. Starter is $3.99/mo and renews at $9.99/mo. Intro prices are for a 36-month term, and the cards say VAT and GST are not included. Self-managed VPS plans show the same, on a 24-month term. Cloud plans show a single price per month on a 36-month term, with no separate renewal price. A "Help me choose" panel on the homepage lists prices without plan names, and one entry reads "$220.19/mo $20.99/mo".

The terms say US customers sign with Bluehost Inc., at 5335 Gate Pkwy, Jacksonville, Florida. The contact page gives the same street as the headquarters. We didn't see a separate company for EU customers, or a company registration number. The About page doesn't give a founding year or say how Bluehost relates to Newfold Digital, whose site several links point to.

A public status page tracks 7 parts of the service, such as hosting, email, domains and the account manager. A history page lists 13 recent issues, maintenance windows and announcements, but the dates have no year. We didn't see uptime percentages on the status page. The terms promise 99.99% uptime on shared hosting, with a 5% credit once a month if it's missed, and 100% on Cloud hosting.

Support is by live chat and phone, and the contact page says both are available 24/7. It gives an average chat response time of under 2 minutes. Several help articles instead list phone hours as 7 am to midnight Eastern time, so the phone hours weren't clear to us. The WordPress Starter plan doesn't include phone support. We didn't see a general support email or ticket address.

You can get a full refund on shared, VPS or dedicated hosting if you cancel within 30 days, paid by credit card. Cloud hosting, monthly plans, domains, AI products and setup fees are excluded, and the cost of a free domain is taken off the refund. The terms say there are no refunds after 30 days. Plans renew for the same length as the first term, you get notice 30 days before the charge, and the charge comes 15 days before the term ends. You turn off auto-renewal yourself in the Renewal Center, and cancel by chat or phone. The cancellation help article says cancelling before the term ends may incur fines or fees, and we didn't see those fees explained in the terms.

New plans get a Basic Weekly Backup, and only one restore point is kept at a time. You can restore files and databases yourself and download them from the portal. The WordPress page lists weekly backups on its plan cards, while its FAQ mentions daily off-site backups. A support-assisted restore costs $49. The terms say Bluehost may charge a restoration fee for copies of backups, and doesn't back up accounts over 50,000 files or 30 GB.

Every web and WordPress plan includes a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate and malware scanning and removal. The WordPress page lists a web application firewall and DDoS protection on all plans. Two-factor login for the account works with a code sent by email. We didn't see an authenticator app or SMS option.

Cloud and Agency sites run in Los Angeles, Dallas, Ashburn or Amsterdam, and you pick one when you create the site. Managed VPS lists nine locations to choose from at checkout, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London. We didn't see where shared hosting sites are stored. The terms refer to a Data Processing Addendum hosted on the parent company's legal site, which we didn't read.

Web and WordPress plans list storage, number of websites and a suggested monthly visitor count. We didn't see CPU or memory for these plans. A help article sets 200,000 files and folders per account and 10 GB across all databases. Shared bandwidth is called "unmetered" without a stated limit. VPS plans list vCPU, RAM and storage, and say unmetered bandwidth must not use 25% of system resources for more than 90 seconds.

You can make and download a full account backup from cPanel, and download file and database backups from the portal. To move a domain away, you unlock it and request the transfer code in the portal, with the usual 60-day wait after registration or a transfer. We didn't see a fee for moving a domain away. Content is deleted once an account is cancelled, so the help pages ask you to back up first.