HostMetro offers cost-effective, meat-and-potatoes web hosting.
- About HostMetro
- What Makes HostMetro Unique?
- The HostMetro Online Reputation
- Shared Hosting (From $2.95/mo)
- Mega Max ($2.95/mo)
- Super Max ($6.95/mo)
- Domain Names
- Email Hosting ($2.50/mo)
- Cancellation Policies
- HostMetro Customer Service Review
- Who’s the Ideal Customer for HostMetro?
- HostMetro Final Rev#Review
About HostMetro
Let’s talk money: HostMetro offers lifetime hosting from $2.95/mo. This is thanks to something called price lock. Forgot about those “cheap now, expensive later” offers–HostMetro guarantees that the price you pay now is the price you’ll pay for life. They also offer an incredible list of free extras and additional services.
HostMetro provides shared hosting, domain names and e-mail hosting. They’ve taken the basic services that every website needs and built their whole business around delivering them.
HostMetro has optimized their servers for eCommerce purposes. This makes them a good option if you plan to open a website store. If you don’t think that you’re up to building a WordPress store, HostMetro offers some very good shopping carts. You can set up your hosting account to accept PayPal and Google Pay.
What Makes HostMetro Unique?
Web hosting companies are notorious for their “cheap now, expensive later” offers. If you search Google, you’ll find thousands of comments from website owners who were snared by a low introductory offer but paid sky-high prices later. This makes HostMetro’s price lock concept unique: The price you pay for your hosting remains the same for life.
HostMetro keeps things simple. You won’t find any dedicated hosting or VPS. However, HostMetro does provide budget shared hosting, domain names and e-mail. They specialize in the exact features that you’d want from a shared host minus the fancy extras that you may not ever use.
HostMetro has optimized their basic hosting for eCommerce. Any additional security certificates are fairly priced.
The HostMetro Online Reputation
HostMetro has generally earned strong online reviews. WhoIsHostingThis.com gives them a score of 3.5. Out of 25 reviews placed, 15 give them the highest score of 5 stars. There are no complaints about support or downtime. Most reviewers give the high highest score for value.
WebHstingGeeks.com also give HostMetro a score of 3.5. Out of the 151 reviews on that site, many score support and value highly.
Despite all these favorable reviews, not everyone is enamored of this company. At least 25% of the reviews for HostMetro give them one star. Many of these reviews cite poor functionality and slow support.
Not only are HostMetro’s prices low, they’re guaranteed for life.
Shared Hosting (From $2.95/mo)
All Shared Hosting plans are WordPress-ready and come with a free domain, unlimited domain hosting, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage. Hosting also comes eCommerce-ready: Your server space can accept PayPal and Google Pay from the start of your service. You’ll also get access to a number of shopping carts with one-click install. SSL security certificates are free on the Super Max plan and available for only $2.50/mo. on the Mega Max plan.
Mega Max ($2.95/mo)
- Free Domain
- Unlimited Domains
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Unlimited Storage
Super Max ($6.95/mo)
- Free SSL Security Certificate
- Free Malware Scans
- Free Daily Backup
- Free SEO
All Shared Hosting plans are capable of powering the most resource-hungry websites. They’ve been fully optimized to handle streaming video and audio. The eCommerce functionality is impressive and can power any website store you choose to launch. Also, there are some impressive SEO features to help you promote your website.
Domain Names
You’ll receive a free domain name with all hosting plans. Here again, HostMetro sets themselves apart from other hosting companies. With most hosts, you can expect to pay more than the standard price for a domain name. By contrast, HostMetro doesn’t charge any additional costs for extra domain names. Their prices are fair and close to the industry standard.
Email Hosting ($2.50/mo)
All website hosts offer a webmail facility. Standard hosting plans come with mailboxes as standard. At 2.50/mo., HostMetro’s e-mail hosting is definitely worth consideration.
The e-mail hosting is secure and personalized. Your e-mail addresses will be specific to your domain name. Also, HostMetro promises never to sell email data to third-party marketing companies. They constantly scan email servers to prevent spoofing or spam emails as well. Not only are the spam filters impressive, the functionality of the webmail interface is very user-friendly too.
$2.50 per month is quite cheap. Personally, I prefer to just redirect my email to a Gmail address, but you may be required to use their own nameservers to do that.
HostMetro offers powerful protection for your emails.
Cancellation Policies
Host Metro offers a no-questions-asked, 30-day money-back guarantee. If you aren’t satisfied with the service or want to migrate away, you can cancel at any time from your account. I haven’t seen any reports of customers having problems migrating. HostMetro don’t charge any transfer fees either.
HostMetro Customer Service Review
HostMetro has some mixed reviews regarding customer support. From what I can tell, support is basic and only covers hosting issues. When my hosting is only $2.95/mo for life, however, I wouldn’t expect much more. They do give you access to a US-based support team by telephone or live chat. You can also submit a support ticket. I think Big Rock has better customer support with a cheaper price though, but they do not have a lifetime guarantee about their hosting cost.
The live chat’s a little clunky and frustrating. If I hadn’t been told that the support team was US-based, I would never have guessed. Live chat feels like your usual hoop-jumping exercise that delivers nothing more than a support ticket. The ticketing system itself, however, is fast and efficient. My problems got resolved in less than 12 hours with very little fuss. I didn’t try the telephone support–life just felt a little too short on that particular day.
Who’s the Ideal Customer for HostMetro?
Budget hosting that comes with the same price for life isn’t a bad option at all. With hosting that starts at $2.45/mo., HostMetro offers outstanding value. They have an impressive list of free extras. For such a low price, I’d expect a few hidden extras and some sneaky little extra costs. To their credit, HostMetro’s hosting has none of that. You’ll get a free domain name, unlimited storage, no bandwidth caps and a host of additional scripts.
So if you’re building a simple WordPress blog or a small ecommerce website, then HostMetro is a decent choice. If your WordPress blog gets bigger, you will want to consider a host with more resources available like InMotion and if your store is going to be big, you should look at Shopify.
With HostMetro, what you see is what you pay.
HostMetro Final Review
HostMetro keeps it simple. They sell hosting space, domain names and email hosting. Their prices are clear: What you see is what you pay.
If you want to open a website store and don’t want to commit to WordPress, HostMetro gives you some options. They have several high-quality shopping carts that can automatically accept Google Pay and PayPal. Although you can find better solutions if you’re willing to pay a little more, this can be a big help to some developers. Overall, HostMetro offers some solid value and good hosting.
My all-time favorite host is Kinsta. They are pricey, but freakin’ fast, fast and the support is rock-solid. The STARTER plan is great for one website, but I recommend the BUSINESS 1 if you want to build multiple websites
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