Midphase Review 2026: Still Open, New Owner, Real Prices
Midphase is still operating, despite changes in ownership. It can suit a small WordPress site, but the low opening offer says little about the cost of keeping it. Compare the renewal price and current support experience before staying or moving.
Is Midphase Still in Business?
Yes. Midphase did not shut down and was not folded into another brand. midphase.com redirects to www.midphase.com, which still sells domains, web and WordPress hosting, email, VPS plans and a website builder. The CHI control panel and support pages are live too.
What did change is the owner. On February 2, 2026, Your.Online announced that UK2 Group had joined it. UK2 Group runs four hosting brands: UK2, Midphase, Westhost and Resell.Biz.
Your.Online’s announcement that UK2 Group, the company behind Midphase, joined the group.
Your.Online says the business will run independently and that “the brands will remain separate,” with no integration into its other platforms. Its other UK hosting brands include Heart Internet, which it bought from GoDaddy in March 2024. You can already see the two brands working together: the Dedicated Servers link on midphase.com now goes to Heart Internet, which Midphase calls its sister brand, and the Midphase contact page lists an office address in Leeds, England.
A Short History of Midphase
Midphase started as an American budget host. Here are the dates we could confirm:
- 1998 or 2003: Midphase’s own site says it was founded in 1998. Its LinkedIn page says 2003, and the homepage’s “23 years of experience” also points to about 2003. The Wayback Machine has its first copy of midphase.com from June 2003.
- December 2007: UK-2 Group, a British hosting company, bought the shared hosting and VPS business of midPhase Services, Inc., including the ANHosting.com and Autica.com brands. UK-2 said at the time it would keep Midphase as a separate brand.
- July 2008: Midphase relaunched with a new website. It said at the time that it hosted more than 120,000 sites.
- 2017: THG (The Hut Group), the UK online retailer, bought UK2 Group from private equity owner LDC. THG later ran its hosting brands as part of THG Ingenuity.
- By 2024: Midphase was moving its email hosting to the StackCP platform (more on this below).
- February 2, 2026: Your.Online announced that UK2 Group, including Midphase, had joined it.
Your.Online’s announcement does not name the seller or the price.
What Happened to Midphase Customer Accounts
The 2026 sale did not move anyone. Midphase accounts are still Midphase accounts. You log in at the same CHI control panel (chi.midphase.com), you pay Midphase, and the legal name on the terms pages is still UK2 Group LLC. Your.Online says the sale is not meant to change how the brands serve customers.
Email did move, earlier. Midphase’s knowledgebase has a guide to migrating email hosting to “a new and enhanced platform called StackCP.” Customers had to start the move themselves from the Email Migration page in CHI, type in the password for every mailbox, and expect several hours of downtime for big mailboxes. The guide warns that POP3 users would not get their old emails copied, and that new migrations were sometimes paused “due to high demand.” Webmail now lives at stackmail.com. Customer reviews from spring and summer 2024 describe lost logins and slow replies during that move.
If you can’t get in: Midphase’s migration guide recommends setting a recovery email address in CHI, because two-factor codes go to your email. If your only email is hosted at Midphase and it stops working, you can be locked out of both. Add a recovery address on a different provider (Gmail, Outlook or similar) now.
Midphase WordPress Hosting in 2026: Plans and Real Prices
Midphase’s four WordPress hosting plans with the 1-year term selected. The renewal price sits under each plan.
Midphase sells four WordPress plans. You can pay monthly, yearly or every two years. All prices below are in US dollars, before tax, as of October 2026.
Each monthly plan starts with a $1 first month. Essential then costs $7.99 monthly, or $85.88 for the first year and $95.88 at annual renewal. Its two-year offer is $161.76, renewing at $191.76. Personal then costs $13.99 monthly, or $157.88 initially and $167.88 at annual renewal; two years cost $305.76 initially, then $335.76.
Professional costs $16.99 monthly after the opening month, $193.88 initially then $203.88 yearly, or $377.76 initially then $407.76 for two years. Premier costs $20.99 monthly, $241.88 initially then $251.88 yearly, or $473.76 initially then $503.76 for two years. Longer-term totals are prepaid amounts, not monthly bills.
What renewal really costs
The $1 offer covers only the first month. After that, the cheapest plan costs $7.99 a month. Unlike many budget hosts, the gap between the first term and the renewal is small on the yearly plans: Essential goes from $85.88 to $95.88 a year. The catch is the starting point. At about $7 to $8 a month for one site, Midphase is no longer the cheap option it was in 2020.
Note that the free domain only comes with yearly or two-year WordPress plans. Midphase’s own fine print says it is not included with the monthly packages.
What each plan includes
Essential includes one site, 25 GB storage and one 10 GB mailbox. Personal increases those to five sites, 50 GB and five mailboxes; Professional to ten sites, 100 GB and ten mailboxes; Premier to 25 sites, 200 GB and 25 mailboxes.
Every plan includes CDN. SiteLock is listed only on annual Professional and Premier plans, not on the two lower tiers.
Every plan also lists daily backups with one-click restore, a staging site, automatic WordPress core updates, daily malware scans and removal, free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates, edge caching, Git version control, a 1 GB database limit, and a choice of data center in London, Dallas or Singapore. Midphase advertises a 99.99% uptime guarantee and free site migration onto its servers. We did not host a site on Midphase, so we can’t speak to its speed or uptime ourselves.
Support and Refunds
Midphase’s contact page says technical support for domains, hosting and email is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by ticket. Sales also answer on chat around the clock. The phone line, +1 (302) 405 7677, covers sales and billing only, from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm Eastern Time, Monday to Friday.
The refund policy gives a full refund on web hosting if you ask within the first 30 days. Setup fees, domain registrations, SSL certificates and SEO tools are not refunded, and neither are automatic renewals. So if you plan to leave, turn off auto-renew before the renewal date, not after.
What Midphase Offered in 2020 (Historical)
In October 2020, Midphase sold three WordPress plans, Starter, Primary and Pro, at $2, $4 and $5.20 a month for the first term (renewing at $4.99, $9.99 and $12.99) with 5 GB to 20 GB of SSD storage. None of those plans or prices exist anymore.
Moving a WordPress site from Midphase
Our Duplicator test moved the content to a new folder and database, updated the site address and removed its installer files after login. Backup creation initially stalled because of the test server’s background-request limits, then completed through the browser. Those local results do not measure a transfer between two hosting providers.
For a real move, download an independent backup and ask the new host whether migration is included. Test the copy before switching DNS, verify installer cleanup and move email separately before cancelling Midphase. Its refund window covers new purchases rather than renewals. The complete migration guide covers the practical steps.
Where to Move: 3 Alternatives
- Hostinger: the best fit if price matters most. It is cheaper than Midphase in the first years when you prepay, and its dashboard is easy for beginners. Try it at Hostinger.
- FastComet: traditional shared hosting with a classic setup that long-time Midphase customers will find familiar. Check the renewal price before you buy, as our review explains. Visit FastComet.
- Cloudways: a managed cloud host with monthly billing and much more server power, for busier or growing sites. Our Cloudways vs SiteGround comparison explains how it works, and our managed WordPress hosting guide lists more options. See Cloudways.
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