| Rank | Provider | Compare | Starting price | Disk space | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Read Review | $0.99/mo | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 2 |  | Read Review | $4.00/mo | Unlimited | Visit Host |
| 3 | 
| Read Review | $3.09/mo | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 4 |  | Read Review | $2.59/mo | Unlimited | Visit Host |
| 5 |  | Read Review | $3.92/mo | Unlimited | Visit Host |
| 6 | 
| Review soon | $1.30/mo | 20 GB | Visit Host |
| 7 |  | Read Review | $2.75/mo | 50 GB | Visit Host |
Disclosure: if you purchase through any links on this web page, I earn referral fees from partners. These fees do not influence my recommendations.
#1: Hostinger
Hostinger is one of the cheapest hosts around for users willing to commit to a 4-year plan – the starting price is $0.99 per month and can be negotiated down to around $0.78/mo. if you ask their support team for a discount. (See a list of the best hosts with negotiable prices.)
At Hostinger, websites under the Single and Premium shared hosting plans are backed up every week, while websites hosted under the Business plan are backed up daily. All backups are kept for “a few months,” according to a support representative. Restorations are, of course, free.
The 10 Gigabytes of storage and 100 GB of monthly bandwidth will be enough for the vast majority of websites that serve up to 300-500 users per day.
Basic plan highlights:
- Official starting price: $0.99/mo.
- Negotiable prices: yes
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: 100 GB
- Control panel: custom
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
- Hostinger shared hosting review
#2: InterServer
One of our top-recommended unlimited web hosting providers, InterServer takes free automated backups of all websites once per week. If you need auto backups more frequently, you will need to pay for them.
The host’s unlimited storage and bandwidth, along with cPanel access and competitive pricing, mean that beginner webmasters will feel right at home at InterServer. Plus, they are on our list of the best cheap web hosting services.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $4/mo.
- Negotiable prices: no
- Websites allowed: unlimited
- Storage: unlimited
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- InterServer shared hosting
#3: A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting takes free automated backups every night and allows you to restore your website from a backup for free. They are also one of the few hosts that offer pro-rated refunds, and they also have some of the highest Inode limits in hosting.
This host is similar to InterServer in that its cheapest plan offers unlimited resources and access to cPanel.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $3.92/mo.
- Negotiable prices: no
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: unlimited
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Free domain: no
- Control panel: cPanel
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- A2 shared hosting review
#4: Accuweb
All shared hosting plans at AccuWeb include automated free daily backups, which are stored for at least 15 days. Restoring a website from these backups is free of charge.
With 10 GB of pure SSD storage and 500 GB of monthly bandwidth on the cheapest plan, most websites will be able to handle up to 2,000 visitors per day without taking a performance hit. Plus, the quality of live chat support at AccuWeb is impressive.
Basic plan highlights:
- Official starting price: $3.09/mo.
- Negotiable prices: No
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: 500 GB
- Control panel: cPanel
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
- AccuWeb shared hosting review
#5: DreamHost
Known for one of the longest money-back guarantees in the hosting industry, DreamHost offers free backups and restorations.
However, they don’t provide a backup schedule, and they cannot guarantee that a particular backup will be available when you need it – although they did tell us that they usually keep backups for “up to two weeks” for websites and “up to one week” for databases and email accounts.
You’ll also find DreamHost on our list of hosts with the cheapest annual plans.
- Starting price: $2.59
- Price negotiable: no
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 50 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: custom-built
- Money-back guarantee: 97 days
- Support: live chat (5:30 am to 9:30 PM PT)
- DreamHost shared hosting review
#6: Namecheap
Not a lot of people realize that Namecheap offers incredibly affordable hosting, and even fewer know that they offer free website backups and restorations. What’s more, you get to create your own backup schedule through cPanel.
At Namecheap, you’ll get your pick between monthly and annual plans, with a starting price as low as $1.28 per month, 20 GB of storage, and the ability to host up to three websites. They are also among the few hosts with free malware removal.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $1.28/mo.
- Websites allowed: three
- Storage: 20 GB
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Email accounts: Yes
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
#7: Bluehost
The popular hosting provider takes daily, weekly, and monthly backups automatically, and restorations are completely free.
Bluehost’s starting plan comes with 50 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. A free domain is included as well, and the unrestricted access to cPanel means that you can take manual website backups at any time as well.
Finally, Bluehost sells one of the cheapest hosting plans with unlimited websites you’ll find anywhere.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $2.75/mo.
- Negotiable prices: only on renewals
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 50 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- Bluehost shared hosting review
Backup restoration fees at other popular web hosts
For your reference, we are also including a list of popular shared hosting providers that take free automated backups but charge a fee for restoring websites from their backups:
- HostGator: $25 fee
- SiteGround: $30 fee
- GoDaddy: $150 fee
- PowWeb: $100 fee
- Verio: $100 fee
- IPower: $100 fee
Do free automated backups use hosting storage space?
In most cases, they do not – backups are stored on external, secure servers to minimize the chances of the user accidentally deleting them.
However, at some hosts – such as Namecheap – free backups do count towards your storage quota. This can potentially cut the amount of data you can store on your server in half. In such cases, you can usually ask your host not to take automated backups, and they will comply.
Is there a limit to the size of free automated backups?
Some hosts do enforce such limits. For example, your host may refuse to take automatic backups if your website’s total size is more than 10 GB or if it uses up more than 100,000 Inodes (HostGator is a good example of the latter).
To find out if such limits exist at your host, please consult our hosting reviews.
Why don’t all web hosting providers offer free backups and restorations?
It’s difficult to say for sure, but some likely reasons include:
- They want you to buy their premium backup service, which typically costs around $2 per month
- They cannot afford to offer free backups because their plans are too cheap
- They want to nudge buyers towards their higher hosting plans by not offering free backups/restorations on their cheapest plans
- They don’t have the technical infrastructure required to handle automatic backups (very unlikely in the case of larger hosts)
How often do hosts take free backups?
This varies from hosting provider to another, and even between different hosting plans at the same host.
Most commonly, backups are taken once a day or once a week. A few hosts, including Bluehost, take monthly backups as well.
How long do hosts keep their free backups for?
This also varies from host to another.
Usually, you’ll encounter one of the following:
- Backups are kept for a specific time, e.g. 15 days or 30 days. This is the most common approach.
- Backups are kept until the next backup is taken. In this case, a daily backup is kept for one day (i.e. until the next day’s backup is created), a weekly backup is kept for one week, and so on. Bluehost falls in this category.
In the first case, website file backups are frequently kept for longer than database and email backups.
Can I take free manual backups as well?
If your host offers cPanel, it’s very likely that you’ll be able to take free backups manually. You would generate the backup using the Backup Wizard function. You can then download the backup to your local computer for future use.
However, some hosts with cPanel choose to disable the manual backup feature. InMotion is a good example.
Also, not all hosts offer cPanel. Many providers, including WPX, WP Engine, and Hostinger, have custom-built control panels. In such cases, whether you can take free backups or not will depend on the host in question.
What is the procedure for restoring a website from a free backup?
Usually, you’ll need to either:
- Use your host’s built-in backup management tool, or
- Contact live chat and request a restoration
Hosts with custom control panels usually employ the first approach, while the second approach is what you are likely to experience at hosts with cPanel or vDeck.
What is backed up as part of an automatic backup?
Hosts usually take three separate backups, one for each of the following:
- Website files
- Databases
- Email accounts