Bluehost is a popular hosting provider that offers a money back guarantee and refund if you are not satisfied with their service. This article will explain all the things you should know about the Bluehost money back guarantee and refund policy.
In my own experience, Bluehost has served me well with hosting some of my clients websites (small & medium-sized), and it’s been running smoothly to this day.
Whether you are a newbie who is planning to buy Bluehost or you have already signed up for Bluehost and didn’t like it, this article is for both of you. We will also see how you can cancel the Bluehost account and will suggest some other hosting providers you can go with.
Overview of Bluehost Money back guarantee
We will first talk about Bluehost’s refund policy. The hosting provider offers a refund if you are not satisfied with their hosting.
You can ask for a refund within 30 days of the buying date.
Previously, the hosting refund was applicable for 60 days. If you have ordered during that period, you are eligible to get a refund even after 60 days. However, in most cases, it will be 30 days only. So, you can ask for a refund within 30 days of ordering.
The refund is only applicable to the hosting itself and not on any other products. Therefore, you won’t get any refund for addons purchased including domain name, SSL, etc.
Further, Bluehost would have charged a small service fee when you are creating the account. You will not get the service fee. This is the same fee that you already paid at the time of purchase. You are not charged any extra fees or hidden fees in a refund. Moreover, if you cancel your account within 3 days, you will also get the service fee back. You will still be charged for domain name even if you cancel within 3 days.
As you might be knowing, Bluehost gives a free domain name in most of the plans. In case, you cancel your hosting account, you will still have to pay for the domain name. In simpler words, when you ask for a refund, they will deduct $15.99 from the total amount. You will only get the rest of the amount.
Not to mention, the domain will still be yours. You can either keep it or transfer it to another registrar. However, you shouldn’t transfer it now. We will see more about it later on. Before that, let’s see some other terms for getting a refund.
Terms and Conditions applicable for Bluehost Refund Policy
Here are certain terms explained in an easy language
- You will only get the money back for the hosting and not for any other addons. It includes domain protection, SEO tools, backup tools, security essential, etc.
- You will have to ask for a refund in less than 30 days.
- If the plan includes a free domain, $15.99 will be deducted from the total amount.
- You will not get any refund after 30 days of the ordering date.
- The refund policy applies to all the hosting plans.
- If your account is suspended or it breaches any of the Bluehost TOS, you are not eligible for the refund.
The money-back policy stated only applies to the new plan and not for renewals.
Please note that Bluehost no longer offers pro-rated refunds. At first, Bluehost allowed you to cancel your hosting in the middle of the year. For example, if you brought hosting for 12 months and asked for a refund in the 6th month, you would get the money for the remaining months. Now, this is no longer applicable. Bluehost won’t give you any refund after 30 days. So, be careful of that. Many outdated articles still say that you can get a pro-rated refund. However, it is no longer applicable.
Renewal Policy
The next thing that you should know is the renewal policy. As mentioned, all the above-given policy terms are only applicable to the new purchases. What if you are renewing your current hosting? Does any of the refund apply there?
Yes, there is a refund policy even after the renewal. If you ask for a refund within 15 days of the renewal date and within 30 days of the date of payment, the agent of Bluehost can offer a refund in such a case. Please note that you will still have to pay the renewal charges of the domain. If the billing is made every month, you are not eligible for a refund.
The same rules apply here too. That is, you won’t get a refund for the apps or add-ons. You will only get a refund for the hosting.
How to Cancel your Bluehost Account?
Now, let’s head over to the actual deal of canceling the account. There are two main situations here where you would want to cancel your account.
One is where you tried Bluehost for some days and are not satisfied with it. Now, you want a refund. Therefore, we will see the exact steps to cancel your account and get a Bluehost Refund with ease.
The next situation is where you don’t want a refund but you don’t want to use Bluehost either. So, you don’t want to pay the renewal charges. We will also see how you can cancel it.
The process of canceling the Bluehost account is easy. There is no particular option given to cancel the account. So, it will be a bit hard for some people to figure it out.
To cancel your account and get a refund, you will need to contact the support. However, if you don’t want the refund but you don’t want to renew it, you can cancel it from the account settings. Don’t worry, you can follow the below steps and cancel your account in no time.
Please take the backup of your files, emails, database, and all the other things before you request the cancelation. You can no longer use your account once your account is canceled.
Getting Bluehost Refund
First, let’s talk about getting a refund in Bluehost.
As mentioned, there is no direct option to get Bluehost Refund. You will need to contact Bluehost support and only they can cancel your account.
After hearing this, some of you might be worrying. However, there is nothing to worry about. The support team is responsive and friendly. If you are facing some problems, they will solve them or they will cancel your account if you want. Here are the steps to follow.
You can either contact them through live chat or you can call them. Most people prefer the live chat option. So, we will see the steps of live chat.
Step 1: Contact the Support
The first step is to contact the support. You can click on the Live chat option shown on the top menu. If you don’t see it on the menu, you can click on the “?” button on the top, and then you will see the live chat option.
Step 2: Ask them to Cancel your Account
It will ask you to enter your domain name and other stuff. Enter all the details and ask the Bluehost Representative to cancel your account.
It is a simple task, just send a message saying, “I want to cancel the hosting for example.com and get the refund.”
There is nothing to worry about as there is no hidden play here. As soon as you ask them to cancel your account, they will ask for the reason. No matter what reason you say, they will initiate a refund. But before that, you will need to verify that it is you.
Step 3: Verify your Account
The next step is to verify your account. There are two main ways to verify your account. One is by the validation token and the next one is by writing the last 4 characters of the account password.
Most of us don’t feel comfortable giving the last 4 characters of the password. So, they use a validation token instead. However, it is completely safe to give the last 4 characters. If you are not comfortable with that, you can always choose the validation token.
To get a validation token, you can either log in to your Bluehost account, Click on the Profile icon on the top right. In the drop-down, you will see the option of “Validation Token”. Click on it, and you will see the token there.
The token will be valid for 30 seconds only. So, you can provide it to the customer support and then all the things will be done for you.
But what if you can’t send them the token in 30 seconds due to connectivity issues? Well, you can ask them to send an email confirmation. In that case, the validation token will be sent to you via email to verify that it is you. Give the token to the support team and that’s it.
Step 4: Payment Method
Now, they will ask you for the pay-out method. You can either get the money via credit card or you can use a Paypal account. They will ask you for the options. You can choose anyone that suits you the best.
The amount will be in your account within 3 business days. If not, you can contact the support team and know about the progress.
Cancelling Bluehost Account for Next Renewal
If you exceed 30 days, you can cancel your account for the next renewal. By default, Bluehost will automatically renew your account. If you don’t want to renew it, you can cancel it anytime.
All you need to do is head over to the profile icon and click on the “Products” option. Now, you will see the option that says “Do not renew”. Just click on it and the auto-renew will be canceled.
If you are still facing some issues, you can also contact the support team and they will cancel the account for you (they will stop the auto-renew). Either of them works perfectly well. You can renew it manually if you want, else you can just cancel it.
Migrating Hosting and Domain from Bluehost
So, after the bluehost cancellation hosting. Now what? You will surely be looking for a new hosting provider, right? This section is all about migrating hosting and transferring the domain name.
Let’s talk about the domain name first. You should not hurry on transferring the domain name for 2 reasons.
- You will have to pay the transfer fee. When you pay the transfer fee, your domain will automatically be renewed for one more year for free.
- You can’t transfer your domain to another registrar for 60 days from the registration date. You will have to wait for at least 60 days.
So, let the domain be in your Bluehost account, change the nameservers of your domain to point at a new server, then you can surely use another hosting.
With that being said, we will see some of the best hosting services you can use.
Cloudways: The first one on our list is Cloudways. The reason why we suggest Cloudways after canceling Bluehost is because of their high server performance, if you have encountered any limitations in terms of speed or server performance, you can rest assured that you won’t get any of those problems with Cloudways.
Cloudways comes with a free site migration service, alongside friendly 24/7 support. Furthermore, you can deploy your web application within 8 minutes.
Hostinger: The next hosting provider that you can go with is Hostinger. It will cost you more than Bluehost but the site speed is super amazing. It is one of the fastest hosts out there. You will get the live chat response within 1 minute. Want to know the best part? It gives free migration. You can provide them Bluehost details and they will transfer the websites for you free.
Final Words
To conclude, this was all about Bluehost’s refund policy and money-back guarantee. If you are planning to shift to another hosting company, we highly recommend going with Cloudways or Hostinger.
The comparison is already given. You can choose the one that suits your need. Once again we would like to remind you, don’t forget to take the backup of the data. In this way, your data will be safe and secured.
