Save Money with Hosting - Move to Hostinger

If you are thinking of starting a self-hosted blog or if you’re thinking of switching to a more affordable web host, then read on. I saved money when I made the move to Hostinger which I’m really happy about.

My web hosting service was due for renewal last May 31, 2020, and I was on the lookout for a cheaper web hosting service provider without compromising the quality of service that I’ll get.

I love my current web host, however since this blog is fairly new, it does not get that much traffic yet and I feel that I don’t need to pay that much and not fully maximize what I’m paying for.

So, when I was searching the internet for an alternative web host. I came across Hostinger. After reading numerous reviews online, some of the most common feedback include:

It’s fast!
It’s one of the most affordable web hosts
Customer service support is responsive

Table of Contents

How much money did I save by moving to Hostinger?

My next annual fee with the other host is $143.40. And if you multiply that to 4 years then that would be $573.60. My Hostinger payment for four years is P4080 or $81.79. And after applying a coupon I found online, I was able to save further. My total bill then became P3753.60 or $75.26.

It’s a whopping $498.34 in savings!!!

I got the coupon code online, I won’t share the link anymore since it always changes. In case you decide to sign up with Hostinger, just Google ‘Hostinger coupon’ before you check out.

Bear in mind that this is not the forever rate of Hostinger as rates tend to increase on renewals, same as with all other web hosting services.

I actually feel that I was able to save a bit more money because I was billed in my local currency.

Most web hosting services are billed in US Dollars but with Hostinger, you get billed in your local currency if your country is listed below.

When you’re billed in US Dollar and your credit card is in your local currency then it automatically gets converted to your local currency which may be subjected to applicable fees.

I tried switching to another country just to check if it really changes the currency and it did. I tried switching to Indonesia and the currency appeared in Indonesia Rupiah.

I tried searching other countries in the search box but nothing came up, so I guess for now these are the only countries that have local currency billing options.

How did I transfer my blog to Hostinger?

Before I signed up with Hostinger, I contacted their customer service team to check if they have a free website transfer service. And they said that they have.

So after signing up, I went through the process and when I reach the option of opting for a free website transfer, I was surprised to see that it will take five days.

It would have been a non-issue thing for me if I have contacted them way before my hosting expires. But it’s really my fault for not taking care of the transfer a few hours before my web hosting expired last May 31, 2020.

There was an option for me to upload my backup file to their server however, my file was too big at 1.3GB. I actually don’t know and I don’t understand why it was that big when there were only 47 articles at that time and almost no widget.

I search online for other transfer options and some services would cost me almost the same amount of money as my 4-year hosting service with Hostinger, so I opted to do it myself instead.

Fortunately, I was actually planning to do an overhaul of my blog layout and couldn’t care less about transferring a clone of the old site from the previous web host to the Hostinger.

So, I just downloaded my content, theme settings, and plugin settings and installed WordPress, and uploaded everything up myself.

I also really appreciate that they check up on me regarding my installation. My transfer went smoothly and in just a day, I was able to pull everything together and launch the overhauled blog to the world wide web.

If you have a bigger website, or if you’re not confident to transfer it by yourself, I highly suggest that you contact them way ahead before your web hosts expired.

Advantages of Hostinger

Last 12 Months Uptime at 99.80%

One thing that I also considered before I switched is the Uptime. Hostinger has an Uptime of 99.80% in the last 12 months.

May 2020	100%
April 2020	100%
March 2020	100%
February 2020	100%
January 2020	100%
December 2019	99.99%
November 2019	100%
October 2019	100%
September 2019	100%
August 2019	97.60%
July 2019	100%
June 2019	100%

Hostinger is Fast

I know that my blog has only a few contents as of now but when I did the speed test a few months ago (with lesser content during that time), I remember seeing 5 – 6 seconds as my load time. I did another test now using Pingdom as I’m writing this article and my load time improved a lot.

Free Domain

When you sign up with Hostinger Premium Shared Hosting or Business Shared Hosting, you get a Free Domain. I already have my domain with Namecheap so I’m not sure yet what to do with the Free domain that I got from Hostinger. I’d probably set up an experimental niche website in the future as another possible source of additional income.

Easy to Use Dashboard

Hostinger has an easy to use dashboard and if you can make a blog, you’ll surely find it easy to navigate this dashboard. Here’s what it looks like. Hostinger calls this the HPanel. This may be their alternative to the traditional cPanel. I searched the website for the traditional cPanel and found that it’s an ala-carte service that you can sign up for.

Responsive Customer Service

Please note that to be able to contact customer service, you need to be logged in to your account. You have to click on the purple button that hovers on the lower right side of your screen.

This button does not launch directly the chat window but instead, it opens up their Knowledge Base page and an option to send them a message. Once you send them a message, that’s when the chat gets triggered as soon as they reply.

I have only been in touch with them a couple of times during my setup and usually, it took them around 10-15 minutes to respond.

I never had a problem or I never needed any technical support yet and will update this post in case I contact them again for technical support.

There is an option though for a paid Priority Customer Service support if you think you might need one. But for this new blog, I don’t think I’ll be needing that much help for now.

Unlimited Features

I signed up for the Premium Shared Hosting account and here’s what I get with that account:

Unlimited Number of Websites
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited Bandwidth
2X Allocated Resources
Free SSL Certificate
LiteSpeed Cache
WordPress Acceleration (LSCWP)
Cloudflare Protected Nameservers
Github Integration
24/7/365 Support
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
DNS Management
Access Manager
Unlimited MySQL Databases
100 Subdomains
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Unlimited Cronjobs
Available Free Domain
SSH Access
Weekly Backups

I’m sure that I won’t be able to maximize all the features since I only have one blog and I do blogging only when I’m not busy with my side-hustle.

But hopefully, when I find more time, I could create additional websites in the future and maximize what I paid for.

Disadvantages of Hostinger

There’s No Traditional CPanel

Some people who are used to using the traditional cPanel might not like Hostinger’s hPanel. However, for new bloggers who are not really that tech-savvy yet, the hPanel is a less intimidating tool to use.

There’s No Daily Backup

Once my blog becomes bigger, I think I’d like to have a daily backup. As of the time of writing, the Premium Web Hosting account that I signed up for only offers Weekly Backup which I think is fine for me (for now).

However, they do offer daily backups for a few (which is less than $1 per month).

What are the Web Hosting Plans of Hostinger?

Here are the web hosting plans offered by Hostinger. I signed up for Premium Shared Hosting since I think that’s sufficient for my blogging needs.

Note: Please be advised that the information written here is valid as of the time of writing but may have been updated by the time you see/read this post. Please refer to Hostinger’s website to get the updated details. If the links are not working by the time you see the article, please go to Hostinger’s homepage.

How I Saved Money When I Sign Up to Hostinger - Almost $500 in Savings Click To Tweet

Will I recommend Hostinger?

Yes! Especially to new bloggers who are not earning anything yet from their blogs and also to those who are not monetizing their blogs or to those who are just blogging as a hobby.

The money that you could save could go to your emergency fund or to your other financial investments.

I will update this post again after 6 months and then after a year to keep you posted on my experience with Hostinger!

By the way, if you use my affiliate link below, I will earn a small commission from the sale at no extra cost to you.

Thanks in advance!

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