Editorial policy
How HostPrices Checks Prices and Scores Providers
Every number on the site is traceable to a provider page and a date. This page explains the rules we follow, what we do not claim, and how to report a mistake.
Record
Intro price, intro term, renewal price and renewal term are copied from the provider's public pricing page, with the source URL and the date.
Calculate
The 3-year true cost is intro price × intro months, plus renewal price for every remaining month up to 36. Tax and add-ons are excluded and said so.
Verify
A plan or coupon is labelled Verified only after a check against the provider site, with the check date shown. Everything else is labelled Unverified.
Rank
Lists are ordered by price, 3-year cost or your filters. Commission rates are never a ranking input.
Price research
We track one record per plan with the intro monthly price, the length of the intro term, the renewal monthly price and the renewal term. Each record carries the page it came from and when it was checked. Observations are appended to a price history, which powers the price tracker and the provider charts; we never back-fill or smooth historical prices.
Prices on the site are for the term shown. Where a provider only publishes a long prepaid term, we show that term and say so rather than inventing monthly, 1-year or 2-year prices.
3-year true cost
The formula is the same everywhere: intro price × min(intro term, 36) + renewal price × (36 − intro months). The result is rounded to cents. It excludes tax, domain renewals, backups and other add-ons, which are listed separately as “extra costs” where the provider publishes them.
Editorial scores
Scores out of 5 for speed, uptime, support, value and ease of use are set by the HostPrices team from the provider’s published specifications, documented policies and our own use of the control panel. They are labelled “HostPrices editorial score” wherever they appear. We do not collect user reviews, star ratings or testimonials, and we do not display third-party review counts unless the source and count are shown.
Coupons and deals
A coupon is listed with its code or “applied automatically”, the hosting types it applies to, its terms and its expiry date as published by the provider. We show expiry dates as dates, never as countdowns. A coupon is marked Verified only after we have applied it on the provider’s checkout and recorded the date.
Affiliate independence
HostPrices earns commissions from some providers. Commission never changes a price, a score, a position in a list or the wording of a review. The affiliate disclosure has the details.
Corrections
If a price or fact is wrong, tell us through the contact page with the provider page you are looking at. We check and correct within a few days and keep the old observation in the history so the change is visible.
Demo data used during development is flagged in the database and is never shown on the live site.