Does HostGator Charge Monthly or All at once?

WebHostingAdvices Team | đź•’ Last Update: March 27, 2023

HostGator is one of the web hosting services that you can go with. The pricing, features, performance, security, as well as customer support, is awesome.

However, if you are a complete beginner with no cash, you might want to go with the monthly plan instead of going with an annual plan, right? So, the first question that comes to your mind is “Does HostGator Charge Monthly?” or you will have to pay all at once? Well, you are in the right place. We will be discussing how you can pay for HostGator hosting. We will also see whether you should pay monthly with Hostgator or go with the quarterly/annual plan.

Overview of HostGator

Most of you might already know what HostGator is, that’s the reason you are here. So, we won’t waste more time in the intro but will check the information in brief.

As you know, HostGator is a hosting company that offers various web hosting services. Starting from shared hosting for beginners to dedicated hosting for large websites, they have got all the things covered.

Hostgator home page

Not just the hosting, they also provide other IT related products such as SSL, domain name, etc. You can get all these things from HostGator.

Not all things can be brought every month. You will have to pay yearly charges for a couple of things.

Now, let’s come to our primary question. That is – Does HostGator charge monthly?

Does HostGator Charge Monthly?

The short answer is YES.

You can surely pay on monthly basis for hosting services. However, other products such as domain name and SSL can’t be paid monthly. If you want to buy a domain name from HostGator or any other place, you will have to pay annually. Not just HostGator, it doesn’t matter from where you buy the domain name, you will have to pay annually for that. But a domain name won’t cost you more than 15 bucks, so that’s not an issue at all.

Talking about hosting, you can pay monthly for your hosting account monthly instead of annually. HostGator offers various options to pay, you can choose to pay on the following duration.

  • 1 month (monthly)
  • 3 months (tri-monthly)
  • 6 months
  • 1 year (the annual plan of 12 months)
  • 2 years (24 months)
  • 3 years (The most affordable plan of 36 months)

You can choose any plan from one of these.

All of them have different pricing. Yes, even if you go with the same plan and different time duration, the cost will differ. So, we will talk about pricing and see which one is better for you.

How much does Hostgator cost? – Pricing for Monthly Plan

Now, let’s talk about one of the most important things – Pricing.

Not just pricing, we will also see what are the deals you will get if you go with monthly pricing or what are the things that you will miss out.

Right now, we are going to discuss shared hosting in detail. The other hosting plans also have a similar process. However, the pricing and the features might change.

If you are planning to go with a monthly plan, there are good chances that you are a beginner. For beginners, shared hosting is the most preferable hosting. So, we will be discussing mostly on it.

Shared Hosting

HostGator shows the pricing of $2.75 a month for a hatchling plan.

Hostgator select a plan

But that’s not the real pricing. The pricing of $2.75 only applies if you go for 36 months. You can hit the buy now button and you will be taken to the billing section where you will see the original pricing of the hosting package.

Here is a small overview of the Hatchling plan of shared hosting.

Hostgator 25% off monthly hosting

As shown, it will cost you $2.75 only if you with 36 months plan.

For the monthly plan, the pricing is $10.95 every month. The same goes for 3 months and 6 months plan. However, if you go with 12 months plan or 24 months plan, you will get a decent discount.

This was an overview of one of the plans. But the same thing applies to all the plans. If you go with the monthly plan, it will cost you more but if you go with the annual plan, you will save more than 50% of the money.

Not just shared hosting, even if you go with their VPS plans or Dedicated hosting, the deal is the same. You will have to pay an unreasonably high amount if you go with the monthly plan. Whereas, if you go with the yearly plans, you will have to pay way less money. Of course, they will try to give you better offers if you stay with them for more time. Now, let’s see what you will miss out on if you go with the monthly plan.

Deals and Offers

Now, let’s talk about the deals and the offers.

When you are checking out the hosting plans, you will see many free products that you will get. For example, if you go to the first page of a shared hosting plan, you will see that you are getting a free domain name as well as an SSL certificate.

What you don’t see is the small “i” button on the side. That “i” button denotes the terms and conditions.

Choose domain Hostgator

The free domain is only available to you if you go with the annual plan. So, if you go with the monthly plan, you will not get the free domain and you will have to pay for the domain name too. The domain name will cost you roughly $12.95 a year assuming you go with the .com domain name.

So, the total cost will be around $25 for monthly plan as you will also have to pay the taxes. Depending on the country, the tax may vary. Whereas, if you go with the 1-year plan, it will cost you roughly $50.

By doubling the money, you will get 12 months hosting instead of 1 month. (more about it later)

Please note that we have not added any addons here and also, we have not added the privacy protection for the domain name. You don’t need any of these at a beginner level. You can get the domain privacy protection if you want but you don’t need the rest of them. However, it is up to you which addons you want to buy.

Why do People go with Monthly Plans on HostGator?

We saw that the annual plan will be more affordable than the monthly plan then why do people want to choose a monthly plan?

There are two possible reasons for it.

  • They are running out of cash. Buying hosting service in monthly terms will help them to make the revenue and keep the cash flow.
  • People are not sure whether HostGator is the right choice for them. So, they want to try out the company before they finalize the hosting service.

The Cash Problem

If you are running out of cash and that’s why you are going with a monthly plan, you need to understand this. It will take at least 6 months if you want to make enough revenue to renew your hosting. A website won’t start getting revenue from the first day (not even from the first month). So, you will have to wait for at least 6 months.

Let’s do some calculations. 6 months of hosting plan will cost you $65.70. Along with this, you will have to pay for the domain name. Whereas, if you go with the 1-year plan, it will only cost you $47.40 as you will get a 56% discount for an annual plan. Moreover, you will not have to pay for the domain name (it is free).

Even if you think, you can make enough revenue in 3 months, the hosting for 3 months will cost you $32.85 and you will also have to purchase the domain name.

In the end, you will be spending way more than what you projected.

Therefore, our suggestion here would be to go with the annual plan. You don’t need to go with 24 months or 36 months plan. Also, don’t buy any of the addons. HostGator will ask you to buy more addons for your hosting. These addons are for security, backup, and performance. You don’t need any of that as you won’t need it.

Solving the Cash Problem

Now, let’s talk about how you can solve the cash problem.

If you are from the US, Canada, or India, your problem is almost solved. You will get $100 Google ads credits for free with any of the Linux shared hosting plan from HostGator. For Indians, it is 2500 INR.

You can use the Google ads credits to run your ads on Google AdWords and recover the hosting costs.

But what if you are not from these countries? Well, you will get Bing credits of $100. You can use it to run ads on Bing. Indians, Canadians, and people from the US will get Bing credits as well as Google Ads Credits. Whereas, people from other countries will only get Bing credits.

Free features HostgatorYou will need a fresh new account at Bing and Google AdWords to renew the credits.

So, this will help you recover the money you spent on hosting. If not, you can surely use other strategies to get the money. You got 1 year to recover the money and make a profit.

Not Sure of HostGator Hosting?

So, the next reason that we discussed is the quality of the hosting. Most people plan to go with the monthly plan because they are not sure about the HostGator hosting.

HostGator is one of the most popular hosting services. So, it is no doubt one of the best hosting services. It provides 24 hours 7 days support along with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

One extremely amazing advantage offered by HostGator is their Free trial that allows you to test their hosting services before you can commit any further, so you can always give it a try for free.

On the other hand, if you decide to pay for the full amount you will still get a 45 days money-back guarantee. Yes, you read it right. HostGator provides 45 days money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the hosting. Here, you will get your full money back.

So, if you don’t like their service, you can surely ask them for the money-back by canceling your hosting account.

Hostgator guaranteeIf you go with the 6 months plan, you can still ask for your money back. However, if you like the hosting (which you definitely will), it will cost you more. So, our recommendation would be to go with the annual plan. You can surely get the money back if you don’t like the service. On the positive side, you will get more than 50% discount as well as a free domain name for your account.

With that being said, your next problem is also solved.

Final Words: Should you go with HostGator Monthly Plan?

We already discussed all the things you should know about HostGator monthly plan. We saw the pricing and we also saw the deals that you will miss. Further, we gave a quick solution to the common problems of cash flow or if you are sure about the hosting.

Many people will plan to go with the 24 months plan or 36 months plan to save more. Unless you are sure about your website, you should not choose those plans. 2 years or 3 years plan is only recommended for the people who have a decent idea about handling a website. Instead, you can go with the 1-year plan at first.

This applies everywhere. Whether you are trying out different hosting or you want to buy a tool, if a 1-year plan is less in price, you should go with that particular plan. Also, don’t forget to see if they have a money-back guarantee. In this way, your money will be safe and if you are not satisfied with their product, you can surely ask for the money back.

Now that you have decided about the hosting plan, you can create your account, complete the payment, and get your website up and running. You can use the website builder or WordPress to get your website up and running.  If you are still confused, WordPress will be the best option to go with.

How useful was this article?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

Leave a Comment

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This