Hostinger vs SiteGround (2026): Which Costs Less to Keep?
Hostinger’s WordPress plans with the 48-month term selected, October 2026. The renewal price sits under each “Choose plan” button.
Our verdict: Hostinger is the better pick for most people because it costs far less to keep. Both hosts start at $2.99 a month, but SiteGround renews at $17.99 a month against Hostinger’s $10.99, and the gap grows on bigger plans. SiteGround gives you more on its cheapest plan (daily backups kept for 30 days, a CDN, and free email with no time limit) and easier access to human support, including phone. Pick SiteGround if those extras are worth roughly 1.6 to 1.8 times Hostinger’s renewal price to you. Pick Hostinger if you want the lowest total cost over several years.
All prices in this comparison are in US dollars before tax, checked on each host’s own pricing pages, knowledge base and terms of service as of October 2026.
Quick facts
| Hostinger | SiteGround | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Premium: $2.99/mo on a 48-month prepay | StartUp: $2.99/mo on a 12-month prepay |
| Entry plan renewal | $10.99/mo | $17.99/mo (12-month renewal) |
| Middle plan | Unlimited: $3.99/mo, renews at $16.99/mo | GrowBig: $4.99/mo, renews at $29.99/mo |
| Top shared plan | Cloud Startup: $7.99/mo, renews at $25.99/mo | GoGeek: $7.99/mo, renews at $44.99/mo |
| Sites on entry plan | 3 | 1 |
| Backups on entry plan | Weekly | Daily, kept 30 days |
| CDN on entry plan | No (Unlimited and up) | Yes |
| Staging | Unlimited and up | GrowBig and up |
| 1 GB mailboxes, free for the first year only | Unlimited accounts, 10 GB shared, no time limit stated | |
| Server stack | LiteSpeed web server, LiteSpeed Cache | NGINX with SiteGround’s SuperCacher, Google Cloud |
| Control panel | hPanel | Site Tools |
| Data centers | 12 locations | 11 locations |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days, renewals included | 30 days on shared plans, renewals partly included |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% monthly, 5% credit | 99.9% monthly, 5% as extra hosting time |
| Support | AI agent first, human handoff, email, WhatsApp, no phone | AI help center, human chat, tickets, phone |
| Ownership | Private, founded 2004 in Lithuania | Private, founded 2004 |
Which one should you pick?
- You want the lowest cost over three or four years: Hostinger. A 48-month Premium plan costs $143.52 in total. Four years of SiteGround StartUp costs $683.52 if you renew yearly.
- You run several small sites: Hostinger. Premium hosts three sites and Unlimited hosts as many as its resources allow, at a $16.99 renewal. SiteGround needs GrowBig ($29.99 at renewal) for more than one site.
- You want daily backups and a CDN on the cheapest plan: SiteGround. Hostinger Premium backs up weekly and has no CDN.
- You want a person on the line fast, or phone support: SiteGround. Hostinger starts every chat with its AI agent and has no phone line.
- You only need hosting for a year, or want to try a host: SiteGround’s first year is cheaper ($35.88 for StartUp against $47.88 for Hostinger Premium on a 12-month term). Plan for the renewal, or for a move, before month 12.
- Your site makes real money and needs more than shared hosting: look at our list of the best managed WordPress hosting as well.
Pricing: intro vs renewal
Hostinger prices by term
The auto-renewal section of Hostinger’s terms of service, October 2026. Renewals run for the same length as your last term unless you pick a shorter one.
Hostinger offers four terms and bills the whole term upfront. The lower the monthly price, the longer the prepay.
| Plan | 48 months | 24 months | 12 months | 1 month | Renews at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium | $2.99/mo ($143.52) | $3.49/mo ($83.76) | $3.99/mo ($47.88) | $11.99 | $10.99/mo |
| Unlimited | $3.99/mo ($191.52) | $4.49/mo ($107.76) | $4.99/mo ($59.88) | $18.99 | $16.99/mo |
| Cloud Startup | $7.99/mo ($383.52) | $8.99/mo ($215.76) | $9.99/mo ($119.88) | $27.99 | $25.99/mo |
Things to know before you buy:
- The $2.99 price needs a 48-month prepay. That is $143.52 on day one.
- Auto-renewal is on by default. Hostinger’s terms say the renewal runs for the same length as your most recent term, or a shorter term you choose, at the then-current price. If you bought 48 months, check your renewal settings in hPanel well before the end, or you could be billed for another long term in one go.
- The charge comes early, and the price can change. Hostinger’s terms say it may charge anywhere from 30 days to 0 days before expiry, and that it can change the renewal fee shown when you first bought.
- Email is free for one year only. After that, Hostinger lists mailboxes at $0.59 per mailbox per month on a 12-month term.
SiteGround prices by term
SiteGround’s WordPress hosting plans, October 2026. Each card says the price is prepaid for 12 months and shows the renewal rate.
SiteGround’s plan pages show one intro price per plan, and each card says “Prepaid for 12 months.” Its checkout adds that discounted prices apply to the first invoice only. After that, you pay SiteGround’s standard rates, which it publishes in its knowledge base.
SiteGround’s standard rate table for shared hosting, last updated October 2, 2026. These are the prices you pay after the first term.
| Plan | Intro (12-month prepay) | Renewal, 12 months | Renewal, 24 months | 1 month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| StartUp | $2.99/mo ($35.88) | $17.99/mo ($215.88/yr) | $14.99/mo | $24.99 |
| GrowBig | $4.99/mo ($59.88) | $29.99/mo ($359.88/yr) | $24.99/mo | $34.99 |
| GoGeek | $7.99/mo ($95.88) | $44.99/mo ($539.88/yr) | $39.99/mo | $49.99 |
SiteGround says these standard rates have applied since September 7, 2023. Its knowledge base says shared plans are set to renew yearly, it charges 15 days before the end of a 12-month term, and you can renew for two years from the Client Area to bring StartUp down to $14.99 a month. SiteGround also says existing customers are sometimes offered renewal discounts, so it is worth asking before you cancel.
On StartUp, the jump from $2.99 to $17.99 is six times the intro price. That is the steepest renewal of any plan in this comparison.
What four years really costs
Here is the total for four years of hosting, assuming you start on the term shown and then renew yearly at the listed renewal price. Taxes are extra on both.
| Plan pair | Hostinger, 48-month prepay | Hostinger, 12 months then yearly | SiteGround, 12 months then yearly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry (Premium vs StartUp) | $143.52 | $443.52 | $683.52 |
| Middle (Unlimited vs GrowBig) | $191.52 | $671.52 | $1,139.52 |
| Top shared (Cloud Startup vs GoGeek) | $383.52 | $1,055.52 | $1,715.52 |
Even if you pay Hostinger’s 12-month price and its renewal rate every year after, it still costs less than SiteGround over four years at every tier. The long Hostinger prepay is cheaper again, as long as you are sure you will keep the site. If you are not sure, remember that both refund windows are only 30 days long.
What each plan includes
| Hostinger Premium | SiteGround StartUp | Hostinger Unlimited | SiteGround GrowBig | Hostinger Cloud Startup | SiteGround GoGeek | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | 3 | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 20 GB SSD | 10 GB SSD | 50 GB NVMe | 50 GB SSD | 100 GB NVMe | 100 GB SSD |
| Suggested monthly visits | Not published | About 10,000 | Not published | About 100,000 | Not published | About 400,000 |
| Files (inodes) | 400,000 | 200,000 | 600,000 | 400,000 | 2,000,000 | 600,000 |
| Backups | Weekly | Daily, 30 days | Daily | Daily, 30 days, plus on demand | Daily and on demand | Daily, 30 days, plus on demand |
| CDN | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Staging | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, plus Git |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2 mailboxes per site, free 1 year | Unlimited accounts | Unlimited mailboxes, free 1 year | Unlimited accounts | Unlimited mailboxes, free 1 year | Unlimited accounts | |
| Priority support | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
A few notes on the table:
- Visits. SiteGround publishes a rough visitor figure for each plan and calls it a point of reference, not a limit. Hostinger’s current plan pages do not give a visitor figure; they list unlimited bandwidth under a fair usage policy and cap you with CPU, RAM, PHP workers and inodes instead. Premium gets 1 CPU core and 2 GB of RAM, Unlimited 2 cores and 3 GB, and Cloud Startup 4 cores and 4 GB.
- Backups. SiteGround keeps up to 30 daily copies on every shared plan, stored in a different data center from your site. Hostinger’s pricing page says Cloud Startup keeps daily backups for 7 days and weekly ones for 7 weeks, and does not list retention for the other plans. On Hostinger Premium, a backup plugin is a good idea; our backup plugin roundup can help you choose.
- Email. SiteGround’s email accounts share up to 10 GB, taken from your plan’s storage. Hostinger mailboxes get 1 GB each and turn into a paid extra after the first year.
- Free domain. Both include a domain free for the first year, then it renews at the normal price.
- Staging. Neither entry plan has a staging copy. If you stay on an entry plan, a WordPress staging plugin fills the gap.
WordPress tools
Both hosts install WordPress in one click, keep it updated automatically, and move existing WordPress sites for free. The caching and AI tools are where they differ.
Caching: LiteSpeed vs SiteGround’s SuperCacher
Hostinger runs LiteSpeed web servers and preinstalls the free LiteSpeed Cache plugin. SiteGround runs NGINX on Google Cloud with its own caching system, SuperCacher, which you control through its free Speed Optimizer plugin. SiteGround says its custom PHP setup on GrowBig and GoGeek makes pages load up to 30% faster.
Both caching plugins are free on WordPress.org, so we put them on a test install (WordPress 7.1.2, PHP 8.3, an Apache server in Docker, with sample posts and images). The main lesson: each plugin saves its best features for its own host’s servers.
Speed Optimizer 7.8.3 on our test install, October 2026. Switching on Dynamic Caching opened this message instead.
Speed Optimizer (version 7.8.3, 1 million+ active installs, 4.2 out of 5 on WordPress.org). On our test install:
- Dynamic Caching, Memcached, WebP conversion and image compression would not switch on. Each one opened an “Available on SiteGround environment” message with an offer of three months of free SiteGround hosting.
- File-based caching did work. Once it was on, the homepage came back with a cache hit header and the time to first byte on our local server dropped from about 38 ms to about 2 ms.
- CSS and JavaScript minify and combine, deferred JavaScript, HTML minify, emoji removal and lazy loading all switched on. The homepage HTML shrank from 84.4 KB to 80.0 KB and the number of script files went from four to three.
- The plugin dashboard still showed “Caching Status: Disabled” with file-based caching on.
- Deactivating it cleaned up after itself: it removed its cache loader file and switched WordPress’s cache setting back off.
On SiteGround itself, Dynamic Caching is on by default, so you get the full plugin.
LiteSpeed Cache 7.9.1 on our Apache test install, October 2026. Page caching needs a LiteSpeed server, which Hostinger provides.
LiteSpeed Cache (version 7.9.1, 7 million+ active installs, 4.8 out of 5 on WordPress.org). On our test install, the cache settings page showed a warning that caching functions are unavailable without a LiteSpeed web server or the QUIC.cloud CDN. Image optimization also runs through QUIC.cloud, an outside service, which we did not sign up for. The minify and lazy-load options did switch on. The HTML was minified, but the page grew from 84 KB to 95 KB, because lazy loading added a fallback copy of each of the six images. Time to first byte stayed at about 40 ms, since there was no page cache. On Hostinger’s LiteSpeed servers, page caching works out of the box.
Hostinger Tools plugin
Hostinger Tools 3.0.78 on our test install, October 2026. Off Hostinger, every switch was greyed out.
Hostinger’s own plugin is Hostinger Tools (version 3.0.78, 3 million+ active installs, 3.5 out of 5 from 40 ratings). It handles maintenance mode, turning off XML-RPC and application passwords, forcing HTTPS, and generating an llms.txt file, a plain text file that helps AI tools read your site. On our local test install, every switch was greyed out, and a notice said the LLM features need a connected domain. So we could only confirm the screen, not the features. Expect them to work on a real Hostinger site.
AI tools
- Hostinger Agent. In August 2026, Hostinger merged its Kodee chatbot and its AI business agents into one Hostinger Agent. It answers support questions in hPanel and, on Unlimited and Cloud plans, works inside your WordPress admin to install plugins and manage WooCommerce tasks. Hostinger’s pricing page marks “AI tools” as not included on Premium.
- SiteGround AI Agent for WordPress. SiteGround launched it in February 2026. It is free on every plan, with 20,000 AI tokens a month shared with AI Studio Essential, a workspace for chatting with models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. It runs through a plugin, “AI Agent by SiteGround.” In August 2026, many WordPress.org reviewers said the plugin had appeared on their sites without their consent. As of October 2026 it averages about 1.6 out of 5 stars from 97 ratings. If you move to SiteGround, check your plugin list and remove it if you do not want it.
Migration
Hostinger moves WordPress sites for you after you submit a request in hPanel. SiteGround offers its free SiteGround Migrator plugin for do-it-yourself moves, and its pricing page currently advertises a free site transfer on all plans. If you prefer to move the site yourself to either host, the All-in-One WP Migration plugin works too.
Control panel: hPanel vs Site Tools
Neither host uses cPanel. Hostinger has hPanel and SiteGround has Site Tools, both built in-house. We could not log in to either without buying a plan, so this section is based on each host’s published screens and help pages.
hPanel uses big, clearly labeled tiles for WordPress, domains, email, files and databases, with an “Ask AI” button tied to Hostinger Agent. You can move an active plan to another data center yourself from the Plan Details page.
Site Tools gives each site its own dashboard with a file manager, DNS, databases, backups, caching and email. GoGeek adds white-label Site Tools access for clients. Changing data center is a job SiteGround’s team does for you, and its FAQ warns of a short downtime window.
Both include SSH, WP-CLI, SFTP, PHP version switching and Git (on SiteGround, Git needs GoGeek).
Performance: what we could measure
We could not run a real hosting benchmark without buying plans, so we measured public pages only. This is not a test of the plans you would buy. On October 4, 2026, from one location in Washington State, US, we timed each host’s own pages with curl (median of seven requests) and ran Lighthouse 13.5 in mobile mode (median of three runs).
| Page | Time to first byte (median) | Lighthouse mobile score | Largest contentful paint |
|---|---|---|---|
| hostinger.com homepage | 235 ms | 32 | 7.9 s |
| siteground.com homepage | 476 ms | 79 | 4.1 s |
| Hostinger WordPress hosting page | 238 ms | not run | not run |
| SiteGround WordPress hosting page | 442 ms | not run | not run |
| Hostinger blog (WordPress) | 231 ms | 76 | 6.1 s |
| SiteGround blog (WordPress) | 282 ms | 47 | 8.3 s |
What this tells you: not much about your future site. Hostinger’s pages were served from Cloudflare’s cache, and SiteGround’s through a Google Cloud load balancer. Hostinger had the lower median time to first byte on every page, but SiteGround’s homepage scored much higher in Lighthouse, while Hostinger’s blog scored higher than SiteGround’s. Those scores mostly reflect how heavy each marketing page is, not how fast a small WordPress site on a shared plan would be.
SiteGround says WordPress sites moved to it with its migrator plugin in the first half of 2025 loaded 78% faster on average, and quotes a 95% speed increase for sites coming from Hostinger. Hostinger says its caching and CDN make sites up to 40% faster. Treat both as marketing. For independent results on Hostinger, see our full Hostinger review.
Data centers
You choose a location when you sign up. Pick one near most of your visitors.
- Hostinger (12 locations for web and cloud plans): USA (Phoenix, Boston and Asheville), Brazil, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. The CDN, on Unlimited and up, adds edge locations such as Johannesburg, Japan and Sydney.
- SiteGround (11 locations on Google Cloud): Ashburn (Virginia), Council Bluffs (Iowa), Dallas and Los Angeles in the US, plus London, Madrid, Eemshaven (Netherlands), Frankfurt, Paris, Sydney and Singapore. Its free CDN runs on 170+ edge locations, and backups are stored in a different region from your site.
SiteGround has servers in Australia and Singapore; Hostinger covers South America, India and more of Southeast Asia.
Support
SiteGround starts you in a help center with an AI assistant, but a human is easy to reach. It offers 24/7 live chat, tickets and phone support, with the phone number shown inside your account so callers can be verified. SiteGround says its staff resolve over 90% of questions on first contact, and its site cites a 4.9 Trustpilot rating. GoGeek chats and tickets go to its most experienced agents first.
Hostinger starts every conversation with Hostinger Agent. A human specialist can join if the AI cannot solve the problem, and you can also use email or WhatsApp. There is no phone support. Hostinger says its AI resolves 91% of roughly 1.5 million support conversations a month on its own. Priority support is listed on Unlimited and Cloud Startup, not on Premium. In October 2026, Hostinger’s Trustpilot page showed about 72,800 reviews averaging 4.6, with the usual complaints about getting past the AI to a person.
If quick access to a human matters to you, SiteGround is the safer choice.
Money-back and uptime terms
| Hostinger | SiteGround | |
|---|---|---|
| Refund window | 30 days from the transaction | 30 days from activation (shared), 14 days (cloud) |
| Renewals | A renewal counts as a new transaction, so the 30 days apply | Full refund within 30 days if the renewal term has not started; minus the first month if it has |
| Domains | New domains refundable only within 96 hours; the free domain’s price may be deducted | Domain fees not refundable and may be charged even if waived at signup |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% per month | 99.9% per month |
| If they miss it | Request a credit of 5% of that month’s fee, within 30 days, toward other Hostinger products | Request 5% of that month’s fee as extra hosting time |
| Who decides | Hostinger, “as solely determined by us” | SiteGround’s internal records; third-party reports not accepted |
Neither uptime guarantee pays much: 5% of a $10.99 month is about 55 cents.
Ownership and notable 2025 to 2026 changes
Hostinger was founded in 2004 in Kaunas, Lithuania, and has offices in Kaunas and Vilnius. It says it has never been publicly listed and that a private equity firm holds a minority stake of about 30%, with the rest owned by the founders and team. Giedrius Zakaitis became CEO in June 2026. The big product changes this year were the Hostinger Agent merger in August and the Business plan’s rename to Unlimited (some help pages still use the old name).
SiteGround was also founded in 2004 and says it has been privately owned ever since. US customers contract with SG Hosting Inc. of Alexandria, Virginia. This year it launched the AI Agent for WordPress (February), made AI Studio Essential free for all customers, faced the plugin auto-install complaints (August), and added Node.js hosting (October 1). Its standard renewal prices have not changed since September 2023.
If you are weighing SiteGround against pricier managed hosts too, our Kinsta vs SiteGround, Cloudways vs SiteGround and WP Engine vs SiteGround comparisons cover those pairings. Our WordPress hosting reviews hub lists the rest.
FAQ
Is Hostinger cheaper than SiteGround?
Yes, over any period longer than a year. Both start at $2.99 a month, but Hostinger needs a 48-month prepay for that price and SiteGround needs 12 months. At renewal, Hostinger Premium costs $10.99 a month and SiteGround StartUp $17.99. Over four years, StartUp costs $683.52 against $143.52 for a 48-month Hostinger Premium plan.
Why is SiteGround’s renewal price so high?
SiteGround’s intro price is a first-term discount of up to 83%. After 12 months you pay its standard rates, which have applied since September 2023: $17.99, $29.99 or $44.99 a month on a yearly renewal. SiteGround says those rates pay for features such as daily backups, server caching and fast human support on every plan. You can lower StartUp to $14.99 a month by renewing for two years.
Which is better for WordPress, Hostinger or SiteGround?
Both work well for WordPress. As of October 2026, WordPress.org’s hosting page lists Hostinger as a recommended host, and SiteGround is not on that list. Hostinger gives you LiteSpeed caching, more sites and more files per plan for less money. SiteGround gives you daily backups, a CDN and free email on its cheapest plan, plus its own caching stack and easier human support. For most small sites the deciding factor is the renewal price, which favors Hostinger.
Does SiteGround have phone support? Does Hostinger?
SiteGround does. Its phone number is shown inside your account so the caller can be verified, and live chat and tickets run 24/7. Hostinger has no phone support. It uses an AI agent first, with a human able to join the chat, plus email and WhatsApp.
Can I get a refund if a renewal surprises me?
Usually, yes. Hostinger treats a renewal as a new purchase, so you have 30 days to cancel it. SiteGround gives a full refund within 30 days of the renewal payment if the new term has not started yet, and refunds all but the first month if it has. Domain fees are mostly non-refundable at both hosts.
Final verdict
For most readers, Hostinger is the better deal. It costs less at every tier once the intro price ends, hosts more sites on its entry plan, and runs a modern LiteSpeed stack. Pick Unlimited rather than Premium if you want daily backups, a CDN and staging, and set a reminder to check your renewal settings.
SiteGround is worth its higher renewal if you value daily 30-day backups and a CDN on the cheapest plan, email that stays free, and quick access to a human by chat or phone. Just budget for $17.99 a month or more from year two, not $2.99.