I buy hosting for my own projects, and I kept getting the same thing wrong: I'd budget from the number on the pricing page, and the bill would be something else. Not because anyone lied. Because "the price" is at least two different numbers, and pricing pages show you the friendlier one. There's the advertised rate, which almost always requires prepaying 12 to 24 months. And there's what the plan costs once that term ends — which usually doesn't appear until the last checkout screen. So I collected both by hand for 19 plans across 15 providers, and screenshotted every pricing page on the day I recorded it. That's the Pricing Index. Three other things grew out of it: - A four-question shortlist. Matching runs in your browser; your answers are not sent to my server. - A Chrome extension that applies the same rules while you're on a host's site. - The same logic as an open-source MCP server, if you'd rather ask an assistant. Things that surprised me: - Increases range from 0% to 502%. Ten of the 19 never increase at all. - The cheapest headline number in the set has the steepest cliff. SiteGround advertises $2.99/mo; once the twelve-month term ends the same plan is $17.99. - One provider currently advertises $0 — Kinsta is giving the first month away, which makes a percentage increase against it undefined. You can't say "it rose X%" when the starting number is zero. That's why the table also carries a three-year total. The most useful thing I can tell you about last month's re-check: prices barely moved, and I found three errors in my own data instead. An InMotion SKU that was actually a shared-hosting tier. A Contabo rate attributed to the wrong term length. A provider count that had been wrong since launch — 15 providers, published as 13. All three are in the changelog, because a monthly re-verification that never finds anything isn't a re-verification. Disclosure, up front: this site is affiliate-supported. The review pages carry affiliate links. The Pricing Index carries none, several providers in the table have no affiliate program at all, and the raw data is on GitHub under CC BY 4.0 so you can check the numbers against the vendors yourself rather than trusting me. What I'd genuinely like feedback on: which column is missing. If you've had a hosting bill surprise you in a way this table wouldn't have caught, tell me and I'll try to add it next cycle.

VPS Pricing Index

Real renewal prices for 16 hosting plans, with receipts

Real renewal prices for 16 hosting plans, with receipts