What WordPress Hosting Costs After Year One (and When It Jumps)

Almost every cheap WordPress hosting price is a first-term price, and the bill goes up when that term ends: month 13 on a one-year deal, month 37 or 49 if you prepaid three or four years. On the shared hosts here, a $2.49 to $4.24 intro price renews at $9.99 to $17.99 a month, and every Black Friday hosting deal works the same way. If your site will stay small, a long prepaid deal is still the cheapest way to host it (at its sale price, Hostinger's 48-month deal comes to $251.40 over five years, renewal included); if you don't want a renewal jump, a host that charges its regular price from day one costs more but has no intro price to run out.

I've run client WordPress sites for about twenty years, and the renewal is the bill I'd warn a friend about first. This page lays out what six hosts charge after the first term, the month the price changes, and what else ends up in the cart. Every price below comes from the host's own pricing pages, help pages or checkout. I captured them Oct 14, 2026, and re-checked every host on Oct 21, 2026, stopping at the payment step. WordPress.com's checkout needs an account, so its prices come from its pricing page.

About the links. Some links on this page pay me: if you sign up for Bluehost, WordPress.com, WP Engine or Cloudways through them, I earn a commission. Hostinger and SiteGround don't pay this site, so they get no links, and they're here anyway because their prices matter to your decision. Who pays doesn't change the numbers below: Hostinger, which doesn't pay me, has the lowest five-year price on this page, and I say so.

What six hosts cost after the first term

What it adds up to, cheapest five years first:

Prices checked Oct 21, 2026, on each host's own pricing page or checkout. Hostinger's 48-month figures use its Black Friday sale price. Hosting only: tax, domains, add-ons and usage-based charges (like Cloudways' backup storage) are extra. The 3- and 5-year columns count each month of hosting at the price you'd pay for it, with renewals on the term each host lists, assuming today's list and renewal prices hold. Hostinger's 3-year figure is below what you pay today because part of that payment covers year four. On long prepaid deals, the cash you're charged can run ahead of the 3- and 5-year figures; more on that below.

When the price jump hits

The jump comes when your prepaid term ends, so the term you pick decides the month.

SiteGround: month 13. StartUp is $2.99 a month, but only on the 12-month deal ($35.88 at checkout). The plan card says it plainly: "Renews at $17.99/mo. Prepaid for 12 months." The banner says "Save up to 83%," and that's accurate. Flip it around, though, and going from $2.99 to $17.99 is a 502% increase. A longer term doesn't get you the low price for longer: the 24-month option is $7.49 a month ($179.76). The fine print in the order flow: "Discounted prices apply to the first invoice only."

SiteGround prints the renewal right under the button: $17.99 a month from month 13 on StartUp.

Bluehost: month 37 or month 13, depending on the term. The default 36-month deal is $3.99 a month and renews at $9.99 in month 37. Pick the 1-year term instead and it's $4.24 a month, renewing at $11.99 in month 13. One detail on the 36-month deal: the cart line reads "$143.64, Renews at $359.64." That's $9.99 a month for the next three years, charged in one go.

Hostinger: month 49 on the default deal. Premium opens on a 48-month term at $2.49 a month, its Black Friday sale price, and the cart says: "Renews after 48 months at $10.99/mo for 12 months." On the 12-month deal ($3.99 a month), the same $10.99 starts in month 13.

WordPress.com Business: the gentlest step. Billed yearly, $25 a month becomes $28 at renewal. Billed every three years, $17.50 becomes $19. Those are the smallest increases of any host here that has one, 12% and 9%.

WordPress.com prints the renewal under every plan. On 3-year billing, Business goes from $17.50 to $19 a month.

WP Engine: month 13. Essential is $336 for the first year and $420 a year after that, a 25% step up. That renewal number shows up only at checkout; more on that below.

Cloudways: no jump. Cloudways bills by the hour at its regular price, so there's no intro price to run out unless you sign up with a promo code (more on that below). At today's price, a 2GB Premium server is $28 a month in month one and $28 in month 37.

What you pay on day one

The low monthly number on a long deal is real, but you pay the whole term at checkout: $143.64 at Bluehost and $119.52 at Hostinger for the $3.99 and $2.49 deals, and $630 for WordPress.com Business on 3-year billing.

So the $3.99 or $2.49 comes with three or four years paid on day one. When the term ends, the renewal bills at the higher monthly rate. Bluehost's 36-month deal renews as one $359.64 charge for another 36 months, so the cash actually charged within five years is $503.28, even though five years of hosting at those prices comes to $383.40. Hostinger renews 12 months at a time after the first 48, so its five-year cash and five-year cost are the same $251.40. WordPress.com on 3-year billing charges $1,314 within five years for $1,086 worth of hosting.

None of that makes a long deal a bad idea. It just means the money leaves your account sooner than the monthly number suggests.

Hostinger's $2.49 sale price is for 48 months, charged together: $119.52 at checkout.

Month-to-month costs the most

If you don't want to prepay, shared hosts charge you for it. Bluehost Starter is $15.99 a month on the monthly term, Hostinger Premium is $12.19 (and the 1-month plan comes with no free domain), and SiteGround StartUp is $24.99. Each of those is higher than the same host's renewal price. WP Engine's monthly toggle shows $35 a month for one site, which is what its $420 renewal works out to anyway.

Cloudways is the odd one out: its regular price is the pay-as-you-go price.

What's in the cart besides hosting

Bluehost: two boxes ticked for you, two trials added

On the domain step, the "Add Domain Privacy + Protection" box is already ticked. Domain privacy keeps your name and address out of the public domain records. Bluehost's add-on renewal list prices it at $15 a year per domain. Hostinger includes it free. At Bluehost, decide whether it's worth $15 a year to you before you leave the box ticked.

The privacy box is ticked before you touch anything.

In the cart, two extras are added for you at $0: "Professional Email Trial" (free for a month, then $2.99 a month per user) and "Yoast SEO AI+" (free for a month, then "Renews at $3.99"). Each has a trash icon. If you don't plan to use them, delete them before you pay.

Also in the cart:

• The marketing-email box ("YES, I want special offers and educational content from Bluehost") is ticked.
• The three "Recommended Add-ons" (Website Security, an SEO tool and Xcitium Backup Basic) aren't added. Fair's fair.
• The fine print: "All plans and products automatically renew unless you cancel."

Two trials already sit in the cart. The Recommended Add-ons on the left are unticked.

SiteGround: free trials that become a year's bill

None of the paid extras in SiteGround's order form is pre-ticked. Three extras carry a "1 mo FREE" tag: Site Scanner, Premium Backup and Email Marketing. Tick Site Scanner or Premium Backup and this applies: "You'll be billed 5 days before your trial ends for 12 months at 50% off ($2.49/mo, $29.88 total)." Email Marketing's line reads "80% off ($2.40/mo, $28.78 total)." So a free month turns into a 12-month charge unless you cancel before that billing date. The terms checkbox adds that services "are set to auto-renew at regular price for the same period they were initially ordered unless explicitly stated otherwise."

None of the extras is ticked, but each free month becomes a 12-month bill if you tick it and don't cancel in time.

Hostinger: nothing ticked, but the freebies expire

Nothing paid was pre-ticked or pre-added in Hostinger's cart. The freebies have end dates, though: the domain is free for one year, and the two mailboxes are free for a year, then "Renews at $0.59/mo (12-month term)." The cart's upsell is Hostinger Reach, an email marketing tool at $1.99 a month: "For 2yr term. You pay $47.76 today." It stays out of the cart unless you click "Add email marketing."

Nothing paid is ticked, but the free domain and the two mailboxes are free for one year only.

Tax comes on top everywhere

Bluehost's and Hostinger's carts showed $0 tax, because no billing address had been entered yet. Expect tax for your address on top of every price on this page. WordPress.com's prices say "excl. taxes," Hostinger's domain page says its prices exclude VAT, and WP Engine's checkout says "Taxes and overages may apply."

Your domain renews on its own schedule

Bluehost, Hostinger, SiteGround and WordPress.com all give you a free domain for the first year (Hostinger's 1-month plan excepted). What it costs after that:

• Bluehost: a .com renews at $23.99 a year, plus $15 a year if you keep the privacy box ticked.
• SiteGround: the domain step calls it "worth $22.99" a year.
• Hostinger: its .com page lists the regular price as $19.99, and privacy stays free. Its cart valued the same free domain at $13.99, so check the renewal line when you buy.
• WordPress.com: free for the first year; check the renewal price before you check out.
• WP Engine and Cloudways: no domain included. You buy one from a domain registrar and point it at your site.

The part people miss: the free domain year ends at month 12, even on a 36- or 48-month hosting deal. On a long deal, the domain renews years before the hosting does, and any free-month trial you left in the cart renews sooner still.

The renewal price that only shows at checkout

WP Engine's plans page says Essential is "Starting at $28.00 USD/month. Billed annually. Pay $336.00 today." There's no renewal number on that page. The fine print says "Product renewal pricing subject to change." The plan builder shows "Save 20%" and $336 a year for one site, with 25,000 visits a month and 10 GB of storage.

The renewal appears in the cart panel on the checkout page, next to the payment form. The cart reads "Startup $420.00" (its name for the one-site plan), then a coupon, "WPE20YEARONE (20%)," then "You pay $336.00 annually," and then: "Auto-renews annually at $420.00 / year unless cancelled 30 days prior to your next term."

So the 20% is a first-year coupon (the code name says as much), year two is $420, and if you want out, you have to cancel 30 days before the year ends. After year one, $420 a year works out to $35 a month, the same as WP Engine's month-to-month price for one site. Plans are sized by monthly visits, and the checkout mentions overages, so check your traffic against the plan too.

The plans page shows the first-year price only.

The renewal price and the 30-day cancellation window, in the checkout cart.

It's disclosed before you pay. But WP Engine is the only host here that doesn't print the renewal next to the intro price on its plans page.

Which kind of host fits which site

These six aren't selling the same thing, so the lowest number in the table isn't automatically the right pick.

• Shared hosting (Bluehost, Hostinger, SiteGround): your site shares a server with many others, and the host runs all of it. The cheapest way to put a small site online.
• WordPress.com Business: WordPress on WordPress.com's own platform. Plugins only come with Business and up, which is why it's the plan compared here.
• WP Engine: managed WordPress hosting, sold by monthly visits.
• Cloudways: a small cloud server you rent by the hour, with a dashboard on top.

Five-year hosting totals from the tables above (Hostinger's at its sale price), before tax, domains, add-ons and usage-based charges. Prices checked Oct 21, 2026.

A small site that will stay small, and you're fine prepaying

For a small blog or brochure site that won't grow much, Hostinger's 48-month deal has the lowest five-year price on this page: $251.40 at its sale price, renewal year included. It was the lowest before the sale too: $275.40 at the $2.99 it charged on Oct 14. Hostinger doesn't pay me, and on price it's still the honest answer.

Bluehost's 36-month deal comes next at $383.40, which is $132 more. Its renewal rate is a little lower ($9.99 against $10.99), but that renewal is one three-year charge, so the cash you'd pay within five years is $503.28. Bluehost pays me and Hostinger doesn't; if that gap matters to you, Hostinger is the better buy.

In my Cloudways review I start client business sites on a 2GB server ($24 to $28 a month). A hobby blog or brochure site that won't change much doesn't need that, and this is the cheaper route. That review also sent first-time site owners who want the domain, email and site in one account to Bluehost rather than Cloudways; Hostinger's cart includes a free domain and two mailboxes for the first year too, so that reason doesn't separate these two. Either way: take the long term, clean out the cart, and put the renewal in your calendar.

The real cost is in short terms. SiteGround's StartUp comes to $899.40 over five years because the jump hits in month 13. Bluehost's 12-month deal comes to $626.42 and Hostinger's to $575.40. I'm not judging SiteGround's servers here, just the bill.

A site you expect to grow, or you don't want a renewal jump

Cloudways costs more over five years than prepaid shared hosting: $1,680 for the 2GB Premium server, $1,440 for 2GB Standard. What the extra buys is a server sized to your site, the option to resize it up for a busy stretch and back down after, and a price with no renewal step-up. The 1GB Standard server is $11 a month ($660 over five years), but 1GB is for staging or very quiet sites, and I start clients on 2GB.

The price doesn't step up at renewal, and a long month doesn't cost more either. Cloudways' help pages say a DigitalOcean server that runs the whole month is capped at its listed price, so 2GB Premium is $28 whether the month has 28 days or 31. My own Cloudways invoices bear that out: in January 2026, a DigitalOcean server listed at $46 a month came to exactly $46.00 for the 31-day month.

The bill can still move, though. On the 2GB server I start clients on, the parts that grow with use are backup storage and bandwidth past the 2TB monthly transfer allowance. At Oct 12, 2026 prices, backup storage is $0.033 per GB, rounded up to the next 50 cents, so 10 GB of backups is $0.50 a month, and extra DigitalOcean bandwidth is $0.02 per GB. And the cap only holds if the server stays one size all month. My Cloudways review walks through an example month's bill and what a launch-weekend resize adds, plus the plans, the day-one settings and the add-ons.

You never want to touch a setting, and the budget is bigger

WordPress.com Business has the smallest renewal steps of any host here that has one: $1,086 over five years on 3-year billing, or $1,644 billed yearly. If you want WordPress.com to run everything, plugins included, see WordPress.com's plans.

WP Engine Essential is $2,016 over five years for one site, sized at 25,000 visits a month and 10 GB of storage. I haven't run client sites on WP Engine, so this is its pricing pages talking, not my experience. Plan around the checkout-only renewal and the 30-day cancellation window. If that's the hosting you want, see WP Engine's plans.

How to judge a Black Friday hosting deal

Black Friday is Nov 27, 2026, and some hosting deals show up well before it. Hostinger's Black Friday sale was already running when I re-checked prices on Oct 21. Premium on 48 months had gone from $2.99 a month on Oct 14 to $2.49, and the cart said: "Lowest price of the year. Gone when sale ends." The renewal didn't move: $10.99 a month from month 49, both times. The sale cut the intro price, not the renewal.

Bluehost's WordPress hosting page said "Holiday Savings Applied" on both checks, with Starter at the same $3.99, and its checkout had a "Buy more, save more" holiday-offer panel nudging you to add more products. Every one of these deals is an intro price. That isn't a trick, just a first-term price, and you can plan around it. Before you buy, ask four questions:

1. What does it renew at, and in which month? If the deal page doesn't say, go to the cart. WP Engine only shows it there.
2. How much do I pay at checkout? A 48-month deal at $2.49 is $119.52 on the first bill.
3. What else is in the cart? Look for pre-ticked boxes and "free" trials that start billing later.
4. What's the five-year number? Intro price × the months you prepay, plus the renewal price × the months left. For Hostinger's 48-month deal that's $2.49 × 48 plus $10.99 × 12, or $251.40. Compare that with the table above, not the monthly price on the banner.

Cloudways' regular prices aren't intro prices. On Oct 21 its pricing page had no sale banner, but a chat pop-up there offered 40% off for four months. Its promo page listed 40% and 30% off for four months, for new customers who sign up with a promo code, but showed no code or end date. Treat a discount like that as an intro price: after four months, the bill goes back to the regular price.

Put the renewal in your calendar

This takes five minutes on the day you buy:

1. Write down the renewal date, the renewal price, and every line that auto-renews: email trials, Yoast, privacy, any "free" month.
2. Set a reminder a month before the term ends: month 11 on a one-year deal, month 35 on a 36-month deal, month 47 on a 48-month deal. On WP Engine, set it for the start of month 11, since you have to cancel at least 30 days before the term ends.
3. If you kept any free-month trial (Bluehost's email or Yoast, SiteGround's extras), set a reminder for week 3. SiteGround bills 5 days before the trial ends.
4. Set a reminder for month 11 for the domain, because its free year ends at month 12 whatever your hosting term is.
5. When the reminder goes off, decide whether the renewal price is still worth it to you. If it isn't, start moving before the bill arrives, not after.

What changed

• Oct 21, 2026: Rewritten from scratch (drafted Oct 14, 2026). Every host re-checked Oct 21 before publishing. Hostinger's Black Friday sale had started by then, so its 48-month price here is the sale price.