ScalaHosting

Every shared and WordPress plan card shows the renewal price under the intro price. Mini is $2.95/mo and renews at $11.95/mo, and Advanced is $9.95/mo, renewing at $19.95/mo. Managed Cloud Build #1 is $22.46/mo and renews at $54.95/mo. Each card offers 36-, 12- and 1-month terms, but we didn't see which term the intro price needs, and the pages don't mention tax or name the currency. On the cloud pages, the "billed up front" line showed only a placeholder.

The contact page and privacy policy name Scala Hosting LLC, at 1999 Bryan Street, Suite 900, Dallas, Texas. The About page says ScalaHosting launched in 2007 and lists its co-founders and managers by first name and initial. The terms of service only say "ScalaHosting", without a legal entity, address or governing law. We didn't see a company registration number on the pages we read.

We didn't see a public status page on the pages we read, and the Network and Data Centers page doesn't link to one. The terms promise 99.9% monthly uptime, with credits from 10% at 99.8% up to 100% below 99%. Scheduled downtime is excluded, and you claim by billing ticket with logs. The Managed Cloud page cites a 99.99% uptime SLA. A blog post lists monthly uptime from 2007 to 2011, but nothing more recent.

The contact page says support is available 24/7/365 by live chat, email and tickets. The web hosting FAQ promises an immediate chat connection and a first ticket reply within 15 minutes, and the homepage gives a 15-second average chat response. Billing and pre-sales work Monday to Friday, 2:30 am to 5 pm US Central time, and a pre-sales phone number is listed. We didn't see a phone line for technical support. A ScalaHosting blog post says the support team is in-house and fully human.

The terms give new clients a full refund within 30 days, and a partial refund for the unused part of the service at any time after that, on web, reseller and VPS hosting. Dedicated servers, SSL certificates, domains and software licences are excluded, and a free domain is charged at its normal price if you take the 30-day refund. You cancel in the client area, since email requests don't count, and processing takes up to 7 days. Renewal invoices are created 7 days before expiry at the current renewal price unless you've cancelled. The help article on refunds says there are no refunds after the guarantee period, which doesn't match the terms, and we didn't see how a partial refund is worked out.

Shared and managed VPS accounts get daily backups, stored on a remote server. A help article says 7 restore points are kept for the last 7 days, while the terms mention daily and weekly backups and say they aren't guaranteed at all times. You restore files and databases yourself in SPanel, or with R1Soft in cPanel, and you can download databases as SQL files. Unmanaged cloud VPS plans include free snapshots, with backups as paid add-ons ($6 for 3 days, $15 for 7 days). We didn't see whether a restore by support costs extra.

Shared, WordPress and cloud plans all list free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. The client area supports two-factor login with an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator or Duo, and adds a support PIN. Shared plans list real-time malware protection. SShield, ScalaHosting's AI-based monitoring tool, is available on SPanel plans only.

The Network and Data Centers page lists 24 locations in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Dallas, New York, Seattle and Sofia run on ScalaHosting's own infrastructure; the rest are labelled AWS or "Integrated Cloud". The VPS pages say 13 locations on 4 continents, and we didn't see which products run where, or whether you can pick a location at sign-up. The privacy policy has a GDPR section, says ScalaHosting acts as processor for client data, and says data may be stored in the US or elsewhere. We didn't see a data processing agreement on the pages we read.

Shared plans list NVMe storage and websites: Mini has 10 GB and 1 website, Start 50 GB and Advanced 100 GB, both with unlimited websites. CPU and RAM are shared, and the terms cap CPU and memory use at 3%, 5% and 9% for these plans. Entry Cloud lists 2 dedicated CPU cores and 2 GB RAM, but its storage value didn't show on the page. The managed and unmanaged cloud pages show CPU, RAM and storage fields without numbers in the content we read. Bandwidth has "no limits", and a blog post says there are no inode limits.

SPanel's Backup tool generates a full account backup of files, databases and email, and can send it to a remote FTP server. You can download a backup by FTP or the File Manager, and export databases as SQL files. To move a domain, you disable the registrar lock and get the EPP code yourself in the client area's Manage menu, with the usual 60-day wait after registration. We didn't see a fee for moving a domain away. The terms say migrations from other providers into ScalaHosting are free.