The perfect web hosting solution. A search that never ends. Endless hours spent on Google looking for the absolute best price versus optimum performance.
You go through hours to make your decision on finding the best hosting partner. After all, it’s a pretty big deal.
Let’s say we were once like you and having tried many hosting providers in our web design business. We can honestly claim Hostinger is close to perfection. Since nothing is perfect.
In this review we offer our honest parameters of Hostinger, what we loved, and what we felt required improvements.
- We value your time, hence this review is condensed to provide –
Test results from our clients - Our personal experience with their customer support
- Pros and Cons of Hostinger
- FAQ section
- Concluding Thoughts
Hostinger at a Glance
Lets give you a quick history lesson of the brand.
Hostinger began in 2004 and today, has grown into a major player in the web hosting industry. Hosting over 29 million websites worldwide.
What makes them special is their focus on combining affordable prices with reliable service. They specialise in offering economical pricing without any loss to performance for the small business owner.
Hostinger primarily offers the following plans –
- Shared hosting (beginner friendly)
- VPS hosting (businesses that need more power)
- Cloud hosting (businesses looking to scale)
In short, shared hosting is when you start your business, VPS is when your business needs more power but isn’t ready to scale yet.
And finally, Cloud hosting is when your business is ready to scale.
We recommend shared hosting when starting out.
If you’ve already hosted before and are looking for the top end performance without breaking your bank – VPS hosting is ideal.
Hostinger Pricing & Server Uptime
When we compare prices with other popular hosts like Bluehost and HostGator, Hostinger often comes in 30-40% cheaper.
Their basic plan starts at $2.99/month with a three-year commitment, while similar plans from competitors typically start at $4.95-$5.95/month.
They promise 99.9% uptime, which means your website should be online and available almost all the time. This guarantee is backed by their service agreement – if they don’t meet it, you can ask for hosting credit.
As any business owner understands, server uptime is crucial when choosing a hosting partner. After all, your clients aren’t going to be thrilled to visit a website that shows a “503 Service Unavailable” error.
That is tossing away business to your competitor for free.
When it comes to choosing a webhost, we are usually forced to sacrifice quality for price or vice-versa.
However, with Hostinger, you get maximum server uptime + a great starting price to host your precious business.
Don’t take our word for it, let’s show you real world results to prove Hostinger stands behind their claim.
The Testing Grounds
At Schoracle, we create interactive and creative websites for our clients based on their product and vision.
Recommending a good web host goes a long way in ensuring our clients remain happy.
In our long journey, we’ve had the pleasure of working with many different web hosts – InMotion, HostGator, Bluehost, LiquidWeb, and the like.
We won’t go as far as to say none of the above hosting partners were good. Yet, we felt quality always followed pricing like a shadow – the more you pay the better the performance.
We searched high and low for a good middle ground that offered the best of both worlds for our beloved clients. Our search ended with Hostinger.
This website is hosted on Hostinger, and you can find the details here.
Being a website that creates other websites, it’s critical we cover our bases, before we recommend tools to our clients. So when we say, we know a thing or two about hosting, our experience speaks for itself.
How We Tested
We are not going to bore you with raw data or a wall of text, but our tests are going to be summarized to help you see why Hostinger clicked for us.
Below is a simplified version of our experience with Hostinger.
For privacy reasons, the brands of these tests will be kept anonymous.
We created three different types of websites to test Hostinger:
- A simple five-page business website
- A WordPress gaming blog with 60 posts and images
- An online store with 75+ products
We monitored these sites for 3 months and focused on 3 key metrics:
- Page load speed
- Website uptime
- How the servers handled visitor traffic
Performance Results
Speed Test:
- Average page load time: 1.1 seconds
- Average Performance: 94%
- Average Structure: 92%
- Time to first byte: 0.8 seconds
- Server response time: 278ms
- Grade: A
These numbers are impressive, especially for budget hosting. Most visitors expect pages to load within 2-3 seconds, and Hostinger more than delivers on this expectation.
Uptime Results:
- Month 1: 100% uptime
- Month 2: 96.43% uptime (due to server improvements in 2025)
- Month 3: 100% uptime
The results show Hostinger exceeded their 99.9% uptime guarantee during our testing period.
The 96.43% uptime in Jan 2025 was due to server instability caused by improving the overall server count. This usually happens more most webhosts during the start of a new year.
However, this is a one-off scenario and when contacted, the support was prompt enough to offer an explanation for their downtime. That’s good enough for us!
Hostinger’s Customer Support Experience
In our time using Hostinger, customer support became an hourly process from a daily process. This was because clients had different requirements based on their custom hosting solution.
Here are some of the highlights of those interactions.
Hostinger offers 24/7 support through:
- Live chat
- Email tickets
- Knowledge base articles
We noticed the following stats:
- Average response time: 2-5 minutes
- Time to resolve issues: 15-20 minutes
- Support agent knowledge: Ideal (can be escalated to access senior level support)
The response time is mostly quick, but sometimes it goes up to 5 minutes. All interactions are recorded and will be mailed to you for reference purposes.
If at any time, you feel the representative assigned isn’t experienced to handle your issue, you can request an escalation to a top-level rep.
The standard rep is usually ideal to handle most issues but it’s nice to know there are escalations available for advanced issues.
Another aspect we loved is the knowledge base by Hostinger.
With over 500+ topics covering common & advanced issues, the user-friendly articles had diagrams explaining the problem and were written for the average user to learn.
Setting Up Your Website with Hostinger
Getting started with Hostinger is straightforward. Here’s what the process looks like:
1. Account Creation
- Visit Hostinger’s website
- Choose your hosting plan
- Create an account
- Make your payment
This whole process takes on average 5 minutes.
2. Website Setup
- Log into your control panel (hPanel)
- Install your preferred platform (WordPress, Joomla, etc.)
- Start building your site
The Migratory Experience – Moving Your Website to Hostinger
Looking to migrate your website? Here’s the fun part – Hostinger charges no fee and offers a complimentary migration service.
That’s right! It’s free to move your website from your old host to Hostinger.
What’s more? You can contact their support to handle the entire migration process. This lets you save your precious time on non-technical things.
The Control Panel Experience
The one key difference you will spot especially if you’re someone that has hosted for a while is – the hPanel.
Not to worry, the hPanel is a user-friendly version of the popular cPanel. It has the same key features such as –
- One-click installers for popular applications
- Easy domain management
- Simple backup tools
- File manager
- Database tools
Even if you’re new to web hosting, you’ll likely find hPanel easy to navigate and use than its complicated older brother.
Free Daily Backup with Hostinger!
No you aren’t reading that wrong. Hostinger offers free daily backup, this is revolutionary as any website owner uses backups to either store or restore.
Hostinger automatically backs up your websites on a daily basis.
Let’s say you wake up one-day and come across an uneventful situation where your website has been hacked.
You simply restore it to a previous date and change your security details. And that’s how easy it is to save yourself from a crisis.
Free backups offer the peace of mind of never having to worry about losing progress on your website.
This is absolutely our favorite feature of Hostinger, and we have used it a gazillion times in our web creation journey.
Pricing Analysis
Now we come to probably the most important question – What does it all cost me? Well take a look down below and be astonished!
Shared Hosting Plans:
- Single: $2.99/month (1 website)
- Premium: $3.99/month (100 websites)
- Business: $5.99/month (100 websites + daily backups)
These prices require a three-year commitment. Monthly rates are higher:
- Single: $9.99/month
- Premium: $12.99/month
- Business: $15.99/month
Additional Costs to Consider:
- Free Domain for the 1st year, $9,99 after the first year
- Free SSL Certificate with all plans (this is what gives your the lock symbol and secures your website)
- Daily backups: Free with Business plan, $1.99/month extra for other plans
Pros and Cons
Like everything in life, there’s the good and there’s the bad. Hostinger is perfect in many ways but there’s room for improvement. Let’s take a quick look.
What We Loved
- Excellent Value: The most affordable quality hosting we’ve tested
- Strong Performance: Fast loading times and reliable uptime
- User-Friendly Interface: hPanel makes management easy
- Quality Support: Quick responses and knowledgeable staff
- 1 Click Website: Instantly create a WordPress website with Hostinger’s AI
- User-friendly Email Setup: Create and launch your email campaigns in hours
Areas for Improvement
- No Phone Support: Some users prefer talking to support directly
- Higher Renewal Prices: Initial discounts increase significantly after first term
- Long Support Wait Times: Priority response time could be charged that attend the customer in 1-2 minutes instead of the usual 5 minutes.
FAQ Section
Q: Can I upgrade my plan later?
A: Absolutely! Hostinger allows you to upgrade anytime. Your hosting time is conveniently transferred to your new plan.
Q: What’s the refund policy?
A: Not satisfied? Take advantage of their 30-day money-back guarantee applicable for all plans. Be advised that the domain fees are non-refundable due to the nature of it.
Q: Do I need technical knowledge to use Hostinger?
A: What makes Hostinger inviting to everyone is that you need no technical knowledge whatsoever. Simply click the AI website builder, and your website is ready in a few minutes!
Concluding Thoughts on Choosing Hostinger
After three months of testing, Hostinger impressed us with its balance of affordability and performance.
While it’s not perfect, it offers exceptional value for small to medium-sized websites.
Our Rating: 4.5/5 for shared and 5/5 for premium hosting.
Affiliate Disclosure: To ensure we run Schoracle ad-free, this blog contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission for purchases that you make. Read our Affiliate Disclaimer for more details.
