HostGator hosting: what it really costs over three years

The short version

• Cheapest plan for one WordPress site: Hatchling. $3.75 a month, but only on a 36-month term, so you pay $135.00 up front. It allows 10 sites and 10 GB of storage.
• Three years cost $180.98 if you keep the free .com domain at HostGator: $135.00 for hosting plus two .com renewals at $22.99.
• What renews: hosting goes to $10.99 a month on a 36-month term, and the free domain renews at $22.99 a year.
• Right for: a first WordPress site where you are happy to prepay three years and do your own backups.

HostGator sells shared web hosting that can run WordPress. Everything on this page comes from HostGator’s own pricing, help and terms pages, plus Newfold Digital (ownership) and Verisign (the .com fee). We have not used HostGator ourselves.

What the cheapest plan really costs over three years

HostGator shows Hatchling at $3.75 a month for a 36-month term, as a first-term discount. Intro prices on 12- or 24-month terms were not shown on the pages we checked.

The arithmetic:

• (a) $3.75 × 36 = $135.00. In year 4 Hatchling renews at $10.99 a month; the price chart lists $395.61 for a 3-year term.
• (b) The price chart lists Hatchling at $158.27 for a 1-year term ($13.19 a month). Two years: $158.27 × 2 = $316.54, more than twice the whole 36-month prepay.
• Domain: one free domain for the first year with a 12-, 24- or 36-month term, then a .com renews at $22.99 a year. Add $22.99 × 2 = $45.98 for years 2 and 3. With option (a), that makes $135.00 + $45.98 = $180.98.

Domain privacy is free for year 1 only on Business and Pro. On Hatchling it is $14.95 a year, not counted above.

The plans in one table

Renewals cost more on shorter terms. The price chart shows Hatchling at $13.19 a month on a 1-year term and $17.59 on a monthly term. HostGator’s VPS prices disagree across its own pages, so we leave VPS out.

On October 23, 2026, a promo offered an extra 15% to 20% off 1-year terms, with no end date published. Treat it as a dated sale, not the price.

What is included, and what costs extra

• SSL: free on every shared plan, from Let’s Encrypt.
• Backups: HostGator calls them a “courtesy,” and its backup help article describes them two ways. Its opening says the backup “runs once a week on a random day” and “only one week of backups is kept at a time.” Its shared hosting section says that for non-specialized Shared plans, HostGator “creates daily, weekly, and monthly backups based on cycles set within the server,” and that the weekly or monthly copy “could be the same as the daily backup.” The shared plan page just says files are “backed up weekly.” Either way, backups cover only accounts under 20 GB and 100,000 inodes (files), a restore has a one-time fee whose amount is not published, and the terms say you are “solely responsible” for your own backups.
• CodeGuard (paid backups): CodeGuard Basic is $47.88 a year on the add-on price chart. The WordPress page calls it free without saying on which plans or for how long.
• Site migration: the shared plans list a “Free Site Migration Tool,” a self-service WordPress migration plugin powered by InstaWP. If it fails, or you want HostGator’s team to move a site, a paid migration costs $149.99 per website.
• Email: basic email and webmail are included. Pro Email comes as a one-month free trial that “will automatically renew at the regular rate of $2.99/mo.”
• CDN and staging: Cloudflare CDN and a WordPress staging site are listed on all four shared plans.
• Support: 24/7 by phone and live chat, but Hatchling is listed as “Chat only.” Baby and up get phone and chat.

The uptime promise

There is no uptime promise in HostGator’s terms. The shared hosting page shows a “99% uptime guarantee” label and the homepage says “99.9% uptime,” but the terms describe no guarantee and no credit if your site goes down. Section 33 says HostGator does not promise the service “WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED.” Read more about what uptime means.

Leaving later

• Refund window: a full refund of hosting fees if you cancel within the first 30 days. It does not cover monthly terms or domain, setup and add-on fees. No refunds after 30 days.
• Free domain: if you cancel in the first year, a domain fee comes out of your refund, and HostGator’s pages disagree on the amount. The terms (section 13.5.2) say $22.99. The plan pages say $17.99 in one place and $15.00 in another. A new domain cannot move to another registrar for its first 60 days.
• Auto-renewal: plans renew automatically. To stop it, turn off Auto-Renew in the Renewal Center at least 15 days before renewal (5 days on monthly terms). Domains and privacy renew separately, so turn those off too.
• Your files: the terms say your content is deleted when the account ends. A WordPress site is your files plus a MySQL database; copy both before you cancel.

Our guides to moving your website and transferring a domain walk through the steps.

HostGator and Bluehost: same owner

HostGator, founded in 2002, is owned by Newfold Digital, which also owns Bluehost. Newfold lists both in its “Bluehost Group.” HostGator’s homepage says its website builder is “Now powered by Bluehost,” and on October 23, 2026 the builder link led to a Bluehost login page.

On price, they are close: $180.98 over three years with the domain, against $191.62 for Bluehost Starter. Bluehost renews lower ($9.99 against $10.99 a month on a 36-month term) and its terms include a small uptime credit.

Who it is right for, and who should look elsewhere

Right for:

• A first WordPress site where you can prepay 36 months to get the $3.75 price.
• People who want free SSL, a CDN, staging and a free first-year domain in one account.
• Owners of several small sites: Hatchling allows 10.

Look elsewhere if:

• You want to pay yearly without a big renewal jump.
• You want a clear backup schedule with free restores, or a written uptime promise.
• You want phone support on the cheapest plan.

Alternatives: Hostinger and InMotion cost less over three years at their current prices, and SiteGround gives its intro price on a 12-month term. See all of them on our web hosting comparison, or price the whole site with the cost calculator.

Sources

HostGator: shared hosting pricing, WordPress hosting pricing, hosting price chart, add-on price chart, domains, backups, website transfers, WordPress migration tool, refunds, canceling, terms of service (sections 12, 13, 32 and 33) and the promo page. Ownership: Newfold Digital brands. The .com fee: Verisign.