Many hosting companies try offering tempting deals and throwing some extras to get clients excited about prepaying hosting plans for several years.
But is prepaying hosting plans good or bad?
Based on my experience, one thing is to prepay a year to save a little bit of money on a 12-month hosting plan. But prepaying hosting plans multiple years is a whole different game. And doing so might not be in your best interest.
Here are the top 5 reasons why prepaying hosting plans for multiple years is not as good as it sounds:
- You won’t save much (if anything at all) in the end – While it could be true that if you stay with that company they could charge you a bit less per year, it doesn’t mean you are actually getting the best deal and the best value for your money! Most people are better off with month to month hosting options, where you don’t have to prepay the year, and the prices don’t double after your first year! Web hosting is a very competitive space, and companies are constantly improving offers and trying to lure potential clients. You can find great month to month options from $10 a month. Cloudways is a great one!
- Your needs might change – If you are serious about blogging, you might find yourself quickly outgrowing that plan your prepaid a bunch of years for. As you grow, your needs will change and since your blog is uh, kind of a big deal to you, hosting at a premium host might be important to you.
- You might not need hosting anymore – We don’t like to think about it, but it’s a reality. Life changes, and so do our plans and priorities. You might not be blogging in three to five years from now. Or that side project or biz you want the hosting for might not be alive anymore. In which case you would have paid a few years of something that was not used, and therefore you did not save anything. You overpaid.
- You might need other features – Things that were not included when you originally got the plan. Here’s an example. My husband needed hosting for some events he and his brothers were running. Although I advised not to prepay multiple years, the sales team was more effective in selling him the idea that he was saving money by prepaying. A year after, Google made it a requirement for websites to have SSL certificates or they’d be sending website visitors a warning that the sites are not secure. When my husband called his previous host to ask for an SSL, they wanted to charge him over $100.00 per site to install a basic SSL. That’s when I moved them to Cloudways on a $10 month to month plan that includes free SSL for all websites (they can host multiple websites on that plan) and they also included a free migration to move over to Cloudways!
- You might be unsatisfied and unhappy with your hosting company – If you are prepaying hosting plans, you are positioning yourself to potentially getting stuck. If it’s just a year you might just push through, finish the year and then migrate to a different host. But if you prepay several years, and you end up being unhappy with the customer service, you will be in a very tough position in which your options will be: stay in a miserable situation with a company you don’t like anymore or cut your losses and pay again to change to a different host. Finally, most companies that charge you upfront don’t do refunds! That’s why I am a big fan of companies that allow you to pay month to month. It speaks volumes about how much they believe in their product and service. After all, there’s nothing that will keep you there other than being a happy customer!