Web hosting hidden fees – and how to avoid them
Choosing a web host is one of those decisions that feels straightforward until it isn't. The monthly price looks reasonable, the features list looks complete, and then six months in you're paying for things you assumed were included, dealing with support that isn't helping, or migrating websites by yourself because the legacy plan you're on is being discontinued and nobody warned you with enough notice to do anything sensible about it.
I've been through this more than once, and so have my clients. This is an account of what went wrong, what I've switched to, and what to look for when choosing a host.
The consolidation problem
My first hosting company was Streamline.net. Fine for a long time – nothing exciting, but reliable enough that I didn't think about it much, which is what you want from a host. Then they were acquired by Fasthosts, which was later acquired by 123-reg, and each time ownership changed something shifted. Communication got worse. Support got slower. The platform started to feel like it was being maintained by people who'd inherited it rather than built it.
The thing about these consolidations is that they rarely improve anything for existing customers. The acquiring company wants the customer base, not the infrastructure, and so the infrastructure slowly falls behind while the focus moves elsewhere. I ended up having to migrate a number of websites myself when a legacy plan was discontinued – not because I'd done anything wrong, but because the business I'd signed up with no longer existed in any meaningful sense.
After that I moved to Hostinger, lured by heavily discounted introductory pricing. The first four years (the discounted period) was fine. The bill after renewal was considerably less fine. I should have read the small print more carefully, but the gap between the promotional rate and the standard rate was large enough that it felt less like a pricing model and more like a trap.
What my client was paying for
Around the same time I was dealing with my own hosting frustrations, a client came to me with a problem. I'd been helping her update her Kirby CMS installation, and after a routine upgrade a security error appeared on the site. I contacted her host – Names.co.uk, who market themselves prominently on the basis of having no hidden fees – and spent several exchanges getting responses that didn't address the actual problem before it was eventually escalated to technical support and resolved.
While I was in her hosting account I noticed a link that said "Activate backup." She was on their WePanel Hosting plan – a premium product, more expensive than their regular shared hosting, marketed as giving you full control of your websites. What she didn't know, and what nobody had made particularly clear when she signed up, was that unlike their standard shared hosting plan, WePanel didn't include automated backups or free Let's Encrypt SSL. Both of those are standard on the cheaper plan. On WePanel, they were add-ons.
Backups: close to £100 a year. SSL: another charge on top. She also wanted to use Outlook for her business email, which required their Authenticated SMTP service – around £70 a year extra.
Add it up and she was paying well over £250 a year in extras for features that most hosts include in a basic plan without a second thought, on a premium plan that cost more than the one that would have included them. The "no hidden fees" positioning was technically accurate in that the fees were listed somewhere. They were just buried, and she'd ended up on the wrong plan without realising it.
What I switched to
After some research I moved my hosting to Krystal. They're a UK company, independently owned, and have been running since 2002 without being acquired by anyone. That last point matters more than it might seem after the Streamline/Fasthosts/123-reg experience.
All their plans include free SSL, daily backups, and unlimited email accounts. No add-ons required for the basics. The pricing is transparent and consistent – no introductory rates that double on renewal. Their support is UK-based and, based on Trustpilot and my own experience, actually helpful rather than a holding exercise until you give up.
They're also a certified B Corp running on 100% renewable energy, which isn't the primary reason to choose a host but is a reasonable tiebreaker when the technical offering is otherwise comparable.
I've moved my own sites over to a reseller account and encouraged my client to do the same. The difference in what she's paying for equivalent functionality is significant.
What to look for
The hosting market is full of companies competing on headline price while charging separately for things that should be standard. SSL, backups and reliable support aren't premium features – they're the baseline. If a plan doesn't include them, the price you're seeing isn't the price you'll pay.
It's also worth paying attention to renewal pricing before you commit. Many hosts offer heavily discounted first-year rates that bear little resemblance to what you'll pay from year two onwards. The promotional price is what gets you in the door – the standard rate is what you'll actually be paying for the foreseeable future.
A practical checklist before signing up anywhere: does the plan include free SSL, automated backups, and a support team that actually answers technical questions? Is the renewal price clearly stated? Has the company been acquired recently, or does it have a history of changing hands? None of these questions are difficult to answer with a few minutes of research, but they're easy to skip when a price looks good and you just want the thing sorted.
If you're not sure whether your current hosting is doing what it should, or if you need help moving to something better, that's something I can help with as part of my website management service. Getting the foundations right matters more than most people realise until something goes wrong.