STRATO

Hosting plans show one monthly price, with no intro discount, no separate renewal price and no setup fee. Basic Web is £4.00/mo, Power Web £6.00/mo, Advanced Web £10.00/mo and Enterprise Web £15.00/mo. The pages say "Prices excl. VAT". The hosting page gives the term two ways: the price note says the contract period is 6 months, while its terms table and the homepage say 12 months. The terms let STRATO change prices at the start of the next term, with at least one month's notice.

The imprint names STRATO GmbH, Otto-Ostrowski-Straße 7, 10249 Berlin, Germany, registered at Berlin-Charlottenburg under HRB 270570 B, with VAT ID DE 211 045 709. It also lists four managing directors and a phone number. The terms and privacy policy name the same company and address. The About page says STRATO was founded in Berlin in 1997 and is part of the stock-listed IONOS Group SE.

We didn't see a public status page or incident history on the pages we read. The help centre start page has a "latest notes" section, but it showed no details when we looked. The terms promise availability of at least 99% as an annual mean for STRATO's servers and data paths. We didn't see credits or compensation for missing that figure.

The contact pages list one channel: a contact form, answered by email by "STRATO experts". The hosting page lists email service and the FAQ database on every plan. We didn't see support hours, response times, live chat or a UK phone number on the English pages. The cancellation help article mentions telephone support for withdrawing a cancellation late, and the imprint lists a German phone number.

The hosting and domain pages offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, claimed with a click in the customer login, but we didn't see what it excludes. The terms give consumers 14 days to withdraw, not business customers. Contracts renew automatically for the length of the first term, and you cancel at least one month before the term ends. You cancel in the customer login under Contract Amendment, Cancellation; within the first 30 days it takes effect at once. We didn't see whether refunds are possible after the money-back period.

STRATO Backup Control is included on Power Web, Advanced Web and Enterprise Web, not on Basic Web. One help article says web space backups run at 08:00, 16:00 and 24:00, with daily backups for 3 days and weekly backups for 4 weeks; another says backups from the past 14 days can be restored. You restore files yourself in the customer login, or download backup folders over SFTP. Databases are backed up daily and kept for up to 7 days, and you can download them. We didn't see whether restores cost anything, and the terms say customers should make their own backups.

The hosting page says a default SSL certificate is included with all domains, and lists SiteLock Scan on every plan, without describing it further. The STRATO login supports two-factor login with an authenticator app, which you switch on under Customer Data; we didn't see backup codes. SiteGuard logs unexpected changes to your web space and can write-protect directories against scripts. The About page says STRATO has held ISO 27001 certification since 2004.

The hosting page says data centres are located exclusively in Germany. A help article on data processing names two data centres, in Berlin and Karlsruhe, says data is mirrored between them and processed only there, so there is no location to choose. A data processing agreement can be signed for free in the customer login under My Contract, Change Contract. The privacy policy says STRATO may transfer personal data outside the EU with safeguards; we didn't see a list of sub-processors for hosted data.

Hosting plans list web space, databases, mailboxes and SFTP accounts as numbers: Basic Web has 50 GB, 2 databases and 1 mailbox of 3 GB. We didn't see CPU or memory for any plan. Traffic is "unlimited" on every plan, without a stated limit. An older help article sets a PHP memory limit of 128 MB per script, but it covers PHP 5 versions only.

A help article explains how to export your data, free of charge: website files over SFTP or as a zip from the web space manager, databases through phpMyAdmin, and email from Webmail settings. Export stops once a cancellation takes effect, so it needs to happen first. To move a domain, you request the AuthInfo code in the customer login once the domain is set to cancel, and STRATO also emails it 30 days before the end date. We didn't see a fee for moving a domain away; the terms say a registrar change is possible 60 days after registration at the earliest.