Head to head
Hostinger vs Bluehost
On four-year total cost, Hostinger is cheaper by about $120 — comparing each provider’s least expensive plan to own over that period. Whether that settles it depends on what Bluehost gives you for the difference, which is what the rest of this page is about.
What each one costs
| Host & plan | Intro price | Renews at | Promo term | 4-year true cost | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HostingerPremium | $2.99/mo | $10.99/mo+268% | 48 mo | $144 | 20 GB SSD3 sites |
| HostingerUnlimited | $3.99/mo | $16.99/mo+326% | 48 mo | $192 | 50 GB NVMeUnlimited sites |
| HostingerCloud Startup | $7.99/mo | $25.99/mo+225% | 48 mo | $384 | 100 GB NVMeUnlimited sites |
| BluehostStarter | $3.99/mo | $9.99/mo+150% | 36 mo | $264 | 10 GB NVMe10 sites |
| BluehostBusiness | $6.99/mo | $13.99/mo+100% | 36 mo | $420 | 50 GB NVMe50 sites |
Intro prices require paying the full promo term upfront. “4-year true cost” is the promo term at the intro rate plus the remaining months at the renewal rate — the number the pricing page does not show you. Verified September 2026. See the screenshots these figures were read from.
Where they actually differ
The feature lists are close to identical. These are the differences that show up in practice.
| Hostinger | Bluehost | |
|---|---|---|
| Backups | Weekly on all plans. Daily backups are a paid add-on on Premium, included from Unlimited upward. | Weekly, on a random day, overwriting the previous backup. Bluehost describes them as a courtesy and disclaims liability for your data. Restoring one incurs a fee. |
| Support | 24/7 live chat and tickets. No phone support at all — Hostinger states this explicitly. | 24/7 live chat and help centre. Phone is not 24/7 — 7am to midnight EST. |
| Migration | Free and staff-performed, unlimited sites, on every plan. You submit a form and their migration team does the work. | A free self-service WordPress migration tool, which Bluehost’s own documentation says has “a success rate of at least 85%”. If it fails, staff migration costs $149.99 per site. |
| Refund window | 30 days. Domain registrations, renewals, transfers, privacy protection and paid support services are excluded. VPS refunds require a 180-day gap between requests. | 30 days on Shared, VPS and Dedicated. Cloud hosting and monthly terms are excluded. If your plan included a free domain, Bluehost deducts the domain’s regular cost from your refund — $23.99 for a .com, not the $12.99 signup rate. |
| Free domain | Free for one year; .com renews at $19.99/yr. | Free for one year; .com renews at $23.99/yr. Domain privacy $15. New domains cannot be transferred away for 60 days. |
| Control panel | hPanel (proprietary). No cPanel. | cPanel, reached through Bluehost’s own account portal. |
| Datacenters | France, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, UK, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and the USA (Phoenix, Boston, Asheville). | Region choice is offered on VPS and Dedicated plans. It is not part of the shared hosting signup. |
| Owner | Privately held, headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania. Independent — not part of Newfold Digital or GoDaddy. | Owned by Newfold Digital, a private-equity-backed group (Clearlake Capital and Siris Capital) that also owns HostGator, Network Solutions, Domain.com and Yoast. |
Choosing between them
Pick Hostinger if…
- Lowest four-year total cost of any plan we track
- Staff-performed migration, unlimited sites, free on every tier
- Widest choice of datacenter regions of the three
Pick Bluehost if…
- $9.99 renewal on Starter is the lowest mainstream shared rate we track
- cPanel, which is familiar and portable if you leave
- Ten sites on the entry plan
What would put us off each
Hostinger: premium gets weekly backups only; daily is a paid add-on.
Bluehost: backups are weekly, overwritten, disclaimed as a courtesy, and cost a fee to restore.
Check Hostinger pricing Check Bluehost pricing
Read the full reviews
Hostinger
The cheapest four-year total on this site, and the only one of the three where a human performs your migration. The cost…
Read the review →Bluehost
Buy Bluehost for the renewal rate, which at $9.99 is the lowest of any mainstream shared host — then be careful at…
Read the review →Related questions
- Do Hostinger AI Builder credits renew every month?
- Does Bluehost charge to restore a backup?
- Does Bluehost refund the free domain?
- Are Hostinger's backups daily?
- Is Bluehost's free migration actually free?
- Is Hostinger Premium's 3-site limit enough?
- Is 10 GB of hosting storage enough for a WordPress site?
- How do I avoid the hosting renewal price increase?
- How do I cancel Bluehost and get a refund?
- Can I transfer my domain away from Bluehost?
All hosting questions, answered →
Sources
Every factual claim on this page is checkable on the provider’s own site. Prices and policies were verified September 2026 and change without notice.