| Information | |
|---|---|
| Money Back | 45 days |
| Price | US$3.96 pm |
Founded back in 2002, HostGator has made a name for itself by offering budget web hosting plans yet offering good customer service support. Most of HostGator’s clients are resellers, who are web development, web design and smaller web hosting companies. The reason is because HostGators web hosting technology, they are able to provide low pricing and quality hosting in terms of server speed and resources.
From the latest statistics, HostGator has approximately 400,000 customers worldwide who are hosting over 8 million domain names. Their most popular product is the shared web-hosting plan, which you will see from below.
HostGator offers 3 different shared hosting plans; Hatchling Plan, Baby Plan and Business Plan, which are priced as low as $4.95, $7.95 and $9.95 per month respectively. In this review, we will be reviewing the Hatchling Plan, which is an entry-level hosting plan. If your a site owner needing more than an entry level plan please look at HostGator’s Baby or Business Plan. Please note, HostGator is currently running a special for their plans, however in this review we are basing it on the pre-sale prices.. You can save an additional 20% off for a limited time.
Who does this plan suit?
Being an entry-level hosting plan, the hatching plan still has a lot to offer in terms of resources and server performance. On average, there are around 30 websites hosted on a shared hatching plan, so if your website requires minimal use of resources such as a website receiving less than 100 visitors a day or does not require much use of the database, this plan would be perfect for you.
The Hatchling Plan can be as cheap as $4.95 a month if you are paying 36 months upfront, or normally will cost $8.95 on a month to month basis. In the table below you can see the percentage savings you could have depending on the payment terms you choose from.
HostGator Hatchling pricing plan options
| Term | Price Per Month | Savings | Total Price |
| 1 month | $8.95 | 0% | $8.95 |
| 6 month | $8.95 | 0% | $53.70 |
| 12 month | $6.95 | 22.3% | $83.40 |
| 24 month | $5.95 | 33.5% | $142.80 |
| 36 month | $4.95 | 44.7% | $178.20 |
Paying Monthly
Paying on a month-to-month basis gives you the flexibility to change to another web hosting company if you desire. It’s a good way to see if you like HostGator as well but this problem should be minimal since HostGator offers a 45-day money back guarantee.
6 month Term
The price for paying 6 months in advance is $8.95, which is the same as paying on a month-to-month basis. If you select the 6 month contract your paying $53.70 upfront. Since there is no savings if your paying 1 month or 6 months, It isn’t recommended because it offers no savings. The only benefit on the 6 month term is saving the hassles of having to remember to pay each month.
12 month Term
On the 12-month contract, you can save up to $24, around $22.3%. A great deal since your only paying $83.4 for hosting. This is the most popular plan since it offers good savings, but your not locked in for a long duration.
24 month Term
On the 24 month contract, you can save $72, that is a 33.5% off. You end up paying $5.95 per month which is peanuts for hosting a website.
36 month Term
On the 36-month contract, offers the best discounts where you save $144, or 44.7%. It’s a very good deal but your locked in for 36 months which is a long period. If your website isn’t the main part of your business and you’re not expecting huge growth then this contract term would be ideal. However, if your website is growing, a shorter contract term would be a better choice.
Value of the Hatching Plan
The Hatchling plan is a budget-hosting plan but it does not include a free domain registration. Hostgator charges $15 for a (.com/.net / .org). You can get it cheaper at Godaddy for around $10. All you need to do is get register your domain at Godaddy then sign up for HostGator’s plan.
All shared hosting plans come with unlimited hard drive space and bandwidth so you can pretty much store anything. The only limitations with the Hatchling plan is that only one domain name can be hosted on the server. So if your thinking of hosting multiple domain names, you should look at the HostGator Baby Plan or HostGator Business Plan.
What HostGator offers impressively is their 24×7 customer support where you can contact them via a Toll-Free Number or Live Chat via the HostGator website. The typical wait time is around 5 minutes in which a technical support team will answer your problems. This is why I rate customer service from American hosting companies better as the wait time is astonishingly low consider the number of clients they have to manage.
Easy Site Builder – an easy to use website builder which requires no coding knowledge at all. You can build a business website within minutes. There are quite a few different web design template choices but since it’s free, you will be expecting that other businesses might use the same template. It is really up to you to decide if that matters but the plan does offer good value with the inclusion of the Easy Site Builder.
Guaranteed 99.9% Uptime - HostGator prides itself from their 99.9% uptime and even stats that any issues regarding uptime will lead to the owner Brent, from serving you as well.
$100 Google Adwords Credit – Google Adwords is the largest online advertising network where you can reach millions of customers. To get you kick started, HostGator offers a free $100 Adword voucher so you can try getting customers.
Easy installation of most open sources platforms – If your website is using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wiki or Majento you are in for a treat. HostGator has made it easy for you to install these platforms by a single click, making it very easy and efficient.
Great Customer Supporting Team – HostGator has maintained a high-level of customer satisfaction scoring above 85-90% over the past 5 years. The company employs over 750 staffs, so are able to offer 24/7/365 Support via phone, Live Chat or Email. There is also a very insightful help section with 500 plus video tutorials and 680+ help articles to guide you through issues you might have.
Going Green – Since 2008, HostGator has been supporting Green Web Hosting where the company tries to minimize green house emissions from their data centres. They have invested heavily in natural sources of energy such as the investing in wind energy, so indirectly as a customer you are helping the environment.
To see more what the pack includes please click here.
Overall – Highly Recommended
The quality HostGator offers is quite amazing considering the price they are charging. There are other web hosting companies out there which offer similar pricing and server resources but are not able to match the customer service levels of HostGator. The Hatching Plan, is a good entry level plan for customers who is just want to get their feet online, but business does not rely on the internet. It is also a good choice for new websites wanting to start up, and even bloggers.
Out of the different payment term options, the 12-month term would be our choice. There is savings of 22.3% or $24 and the term isn’t as long. This gives you the flexibility to change plans if your website grows or if you decide to take your website offline.
