A Hostinger renewal price increase from €276 to €777 is what happens when a promotional first term ends and the renewal is billed at the regular list price. Support can discount it, but the 20 percent offered in this case still leaves the bill at €621.60, about 125 percent above what the customer paid last year.
A Hostinger customer recently shared the renewal notice that started this post. Last year's invoice for their plan was €276. This year's was €777. They opened a ticket, explained they'd been a customer for a while, and support came back with 20 percent off. That's €621.60, still more than double what they paid twelve months ago, for the same plan on the same server doing the same job.
If you're reading this with your own renewal email open, the useful questions are why it happened, whether to take the discount, and how much time you have to leave. We'll go through each, with the numbers.
Why did my Hostinger renewal price jump so much?
Your first bill was an introductory rate. Hostinger, like most budget hosts, discounts heavily for new customers who prepay a long term, then renews at the regular list price. If the renewal is also set to a shorter term than you originally bought, the per-month rate climbs again, because shorter terms carry higher monthly prices.
Three things usually stack on top of each other in a jump this size.
First, the promo ends. The headline monthly price on Hostinger's plans page only applies to the first term you buy, and the longest prepaid term gets the lowest number. The "renews at" figure sits underneath it in smaller type.
Second, the term changes. Someone who bought 12 or 24 months at the promo rate often gets renewed on a 12-month cycle at the 12-month list price, which is the most expensive way to pay per month.
Third, the plan may not be the one you started on. If you upgraded mid-term (say from a shared plan to a Cloud plan after a "your site is using too many resources" warning), the upgrade was often prorated at something close to a promotional rate. The renewal is not.
Add-ons pile on too. A domain that was free for the first year, an email trial, daily backups or domain privacy can each renew at their own price on their own date.
Here is what the customer's bill looks like broken down:
| Last year | This year (list) | This year (with 20% off) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly cost | €276.00 | €777.00 | €621.60 |
| Per month | €23.00 | €64.75 | €51.80 |
| Change vs last year | n/a | +€501 (+181%) | +€345.60 (+125%) |
| Inflation-adjusted last year (2.4%) | €282.62 | n/a | n/a |
According to Eurostat, euro area annual inflation averaged 2.4 percent in 2024. Hosting costs didn't rise 181 percent in a year. The promo ended. We wrote about this pattern across several hosts in why your hosting bill doubled at renewal; the rest of this post is specific to Hostinger and what to do before the charge lands.
Is Hostinger's 20 percent renewal discount worth taking?
Only as a stopgap. Twenty percent off €777 is €621.60, which is still €345.60 above last year, and the discount is a one-off offer made in a ticket. The fact that support offered it at all tells you the list price has room in it, so you can ask for more before you accept.
Things worth asking for, in the ticket, before you say yes:
- Renewal at last year's rate, stated in euros, for the same term.
- Renewal on a longer term (24 or 48 months) at the current new-customer price for that term.
- Removal of any add-ons you don't use, before the invoice is generated.
- The offer confirmed in writing in the ticket thread, with the exact amount and term.
Some customers report better offers on a second ask. Others don't. Either way, look at three years instead of one. If you take the 20 percent now and next year renews at list price with no new offer, the three-year total is €621.60 + €777 + €777 = €2,175.60. Three years at last year's rate would have been €828. You'd also be back in this ticket every year, negotiating for a price you already had.
What to check in your Hostinger plan before the renewal date
Log in to hPanel and open the Billing section before you do anything else. You want the exact renewal date, the amount, the term, whether auto-renew is on, and which card will be charged. Then list everything else attached to the account, because domains, email and add-ons often renew separately.
Go through this list with hPanel open:
- Renewal date and amount. Renewal reminders can arrive close to the charge date, so find the real date in Billing rather than relying on the email.
- Auto-renew status and payment method. If auto-renew is on and the card is valid, the charge goes through on the date whether or not you've decided.
- Term length. Check whether the renewal is set to 1, 12, 24 or 48 months. The per-month price changes a lot between them.
- What's bundled. Domain registration, Hostinger email mailboxes, daily backups, CDN and domain privacy each need their own line in your notes, with their own renewal dates.
- How many sites live on the plan. This changes the math more than anything else. One business site and six side projects on one Business plan is a different decision from a single shop.
- Where DNS lives. Note whether your domain uses Hostinger's nameservers or something like Cloudflare. That decides what you change on moving day.
- The refund terms for renewals. Read the renewal section of Hostinger's refund policy before you count on getting money back after a charge. Domain renewals in particular are generally not refundable.
Do one thing today, even if you haven't decided anything else: turn off auto-renew. Your site keeps running until the current term ends. You can always turn it back on, or renew manually, if you decide to stay.
How to move off Hostinger before you're charged
Work backward from the renewal date and give yourself at least two weeks. Disable auto-renew first, take a full backup you store yourself, set up the new host, test a copy of the site there, switch DNS, and watch it for a few days before letting the Hostinger term expire. Moving after the charge just means paying twice.
A realistic timeline looks like this:
Day 1. Turn off auto-renew. Download a full backup from hPanel, files and database, and keep a copy somewhere that isn't Hostinger. If you use Hostinger email, export the mailboxes or plan where they're going; our post on why host mailboxes aren't a business email plan covers the options.
Days 2-5. Set up the new hosting and copy the site over. On a managed host, the host does this part. Test the copy on a temporary URL: log in, submit the contact form, run a test order if you sell anything, check the pages that bring in traffic.
Day 6 or 7. Lower the DNS TTL on your records a day before the switch, then point the domain at the new server. If your domain is registered at Hostinger, you don't have to transfer it to move the hosting; you only change the nameservers or the A record. You can transfer the registration later. ICANN's transfer policy lets registrars block a transfer within 60 days of a registration or a previous transfer, so check that date if you plan to move the domain too.
Days 8-14. Watch the site. If it looks down for some visitors and fine for others, that's usually DNS propagation; our calm triage order for a site that suddenly won't load starts with DNS for that reason. Check for 404s on old URLs, especially if anything about the permalink setup changed in the move.
Before the renewal date. Confirm auto-renew is still off, that email and the domain work from their new homes, and let the Hostinger plan lapse.
If you want to see what the process looks like with a managed host doing the heavy lifting, the steps are the same ones we describe in what to expect when you migrate from GoDaddy to managed WordPress hosting. Only the source host changes.
Staying at Hostinger vs another budget host vs managed WordPress hosting
You have three realistic choices: take the discount and stay, move to another budget host's intro deal, or move to a managed WordPress host with a flat price. Over three years, the first two cost less on paper but keep the renewal cycle and the server admin on your plate. The third costs more per year and removes both.
| Option | Year 1 | Years 2-3 | Who handles updates, backups, security | Renewal surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take 20% off, stay at Hostinger | €621.60 | €777/yr if no new offer | You | Likely again next year |
| Another budget host's intro deal | Low promo rate | That host's list price | You | Same cycle, different invoice |
| TopSyde managed WordPress | $89/mo per site ($1,068/yr) | $89/mo per site | TopSyde | Same price at renewal |
Hopping to another budget host buys you one cheap year, plus a migration every renewal. Some people are fine with that trade, and for a hobby site it can make sense. For a site that takes bookings, sells products or generates leads, each move is a day of risk you schedule on purpose.
When does managed WordPress hosting cost less than Hostinger?
On sticker price for a single site, it doesn't. $89/mo per site is $1,068 a year, roughly €900-€1,000 depending on the exchange rate, which is more than €777. The comparison changes once you count the hours you spend running WordPress yourself and what an outage or a hack costs your business.
Run your own numbers. If you spend three hours a month on plugin updates, checking that backups ran, chasing a contact form that stopped sending, and the occasional cleanup after something breaks, that's 36 hours a year. At €50 an hour, whether that's your own time or a freelancer's invoice, it comes to €1,800. Add it to €777 and the Hostinger plan is a €2,577-a-year line item, plus whatever a bad day costs. Our breakdown of website downtime costs per minute is a useful reference for that last part.
Security is a large share of those hours. According to W3Techs, WordPress runs about 43 percent of all websites (2025), which is why it's the platform attackers automate against first. On a budget host, keeping plugins patched and responding when a vulnerability drops is your job. A managed host takes that on, and the useful question to ask any of them is the one in does your managed host protect you from zero-days: what happens between the disclosure and the patch.
With TopSyde, the plan includes WordPress updates, backups, monitoring and malware detection and removal by TopSyde Sentinel. Support tickets get a response in under 2 hours during business hours, and per our service level agreement, a site-down ticket is answered within 15 minutes, 24/7. If you want the full list of what managed hosting covers before comparing prices, what managed WordPress hosting covers in 2026 lays it out, and our spec sheet lists what each plan includes.
Where we're the wrong answer: if you run six low-traffic side projects on one Hostinger Business plan, per-site managed hosting will cost far more than they're worth to you. Stay, negotiate, or pick another budget host. Managed hosting earns its price on sites where downtime or a hack costs you customers.
Moving your WordPress site off Hostinger with TopSyde
If your Hostinger renewal is coming up and the site matters to your business, start the move now rather than after the charge. TopSyde starts at $89/mo per site with a 30-day free trial, we handle the migration, and the price you see on month one is the price at renewal.
Start by putting your current plan next to ours on the hosting comparison page, then check our pricing for the plan that fits. If you're a solo owner or freelancer with one or two sites, the managed hosting page for individuals explains what we take off your plate. Tell us your Hostinger renewal date when you sign up so the move is finished before it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Hostinger's renewal price so much higher than the first year?
The first-year price is a promotional rate for new customers who prepay a term, usually the longest one. When the term ends, Hostinger bills the regular list price for the renewal term, and shorter terms cost more per month. Upgrades made mid-term and add-ons that were free at first can push the total higher still.
Can I get Hostinger to renew at my old price?
You can ask, and the 20 percent offer in this case shows support has some room to discount. Ask in the ticket for last year's rate or for the current new-customer price on a longer term, and get any offer confirmed in writing with the exact amount. Results vary, and a discount this year doesn't guarantee one next year.
Will my website go offline if I turn off auto-renew at Hostinger?
No. Turning off auto-renew only stops the automatic charge; your site, email and domain keep working until the paid term ends. That makes it the safest first step while you decide whether to stay or move.
How long before my Hostinger renewal should I start moving hosts?
Give yourself at least two weeks before the renewal date. That covers a backup, setting up and testing the new host, a DNS switch, and a few days of watching for problems before the old plan lapses. If you also plan to transfer the domain, check whether it's inside the 60-day lock that follows a registration or previous transfer.
Can I keep my domain at Hostinger after moving my hosting?
Yes. Hosting and domain registration are separate, so you can point the domain's nameservers or A record at your new host and leave the registration at Hostinger. Just note the domain's own renewal date and price, since it renews on its own schedule.
Senior WordPress Engineer
8+ years WordPress & WooCommerce development
Rachel is a senior WordPress engineer at TopSyde specializing in WooCommerce performance and plugin architecture. She has built and maintained high-traffic e-commerce sites processing millions in annual revenue.
