| Rank | Provider | Compare | Starting price | Refund | Disk space | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Read Review | $0.99/mo | 30 days | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 2 | 
| Read Review | $6.39/mo | 90 days | Unlimited | Visit Host |
| 3 | 
| Review soon | $1.30/mo | 30 days | 20 GB | Visit Host |
| 4 | 
| Review soon | $5.99/mo | 30 days | 100 GB | Visit Host |
| 5 |  | Read Review | $2.75/mo | 30 days | 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: InMotion Hosting
InMotion will extend a discount if you ask for it, but you’ll need to purchase one of their longer terms if you are hoping for a significant (more than a few percent) discount.
Inmotion offers one of the longest money-back guarantees in the hosting industry. They are also one of the few hosts with discounted prices for students.
Basic shared plan highlights:
- Official starting price: $6.39/mo.
- Websites allowed: two
- Storage: Unlimited
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Suitable for: ~20,000 visitors per month
- Control panel: cPanel
- Email accounts: yes
- Money-back guarantee: 90 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
- InMotion shared hosting review
#2: Hostinger
Hostinger is another company that’s willing to negotiate. When we last spoke to them, they offered us a 15% discount on their four-year plan ($0.68/month, down from $0.80). All we had to do was ask for it via live chat.
Hostinger is on our list of hosts with free backups and restorations, which is a big plus for security-minded webmasters.
Basic shared plan highlights:
- Negotiable prices: yes
- Official starting price: $0.99/mo.
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: 100 GB
- Control panel: custom
- Email accounts: yes
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
- Hostinger shared hosting review
#3: GoDaddy
Most webmasters are surprised to learn that the wildly popular web hosting provider GoDaddy is willing to negotiate.
You’ll first need to create a free account, then let a live chat customer representative know which hosting plan you’re interested in.
For example, in our case, we received a 25% discount (on top of the official first-term discount displayed on their website, of course).
GoDaddy is on our list of web hosts with pro-rated refunds. They also secured a spot on our lineup of hosting with free malware scanning and removal.
Basic shared plan highlights:
- Negotiable prices: yes
- Official starting price: $5.99/mo.
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 100 GB
- Bandwidth: –
- Control panel: cPanel
- Email accounts: yes
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
#4: BlueHost
Although you can’t negotiate prices at BlueHost when buying your first hosting plan, you can negotiate when it’s time to renew.
Expect a 10% to 20% discount – all you have to do is ask for it.
Basic shared plan highlights:
- Negotiable prices: yes (on renewals)
- Starting price: $2.75/mo.
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 50 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Free domain: yes
- Control panel: cPanel
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- Bluehost shared hosting review
#5: Namecheap hosting
Officially, Namecheap offers monthly and annual hosting only. However, if you contact them through live chat and express interest in a longer subscription (e.g. two or three years), they’ll oblige.
In such cases, Namecheap will attempt to charge you based on the monthly rate on their annual plan. However, if you ask them for a special discount, they’ll usually offer one.
Namecheap is on our list of hosts with the highest Inode limits, which is great news for anyone planning to host a website with lots of images.
Basic plan highlights:
- Negotiable prices: yes (on 2- and 3-year terms)
- Websites allowed: three
- Storage: 20 GB
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Email accounts: Yes
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
Popular hosts that are not open to negotiations
The following hosts were not willing to negotiate in our case – even when we expressed interest in their most expensive hosting plans, we were told that “prices are fixed” and were quoted the official price listed on their website:
- WPX Hosting
- SiteGround
- HostGator
- HostWinds
- A2 Hosting
- Kinsta
- LiquidWeb
- Interserver
- Powweb
- Verio
- iPower
Frequently asked questions about hosting price negotiations
How do I initiate price negotiations?
The best way is to contact a host’s sales team via live chat, ask a few questions about their service to show that you are a potential buyer, then say:
“If I buy a hosting package right now, can you give me a special discount, in addition to the standard discount available on your website? Or are your prices fixed?”
Try to be precise in how you phrase the question. If you just ask whether they“offer a discount,” almost all hosts will say “yes!” and they’ll proceed to offer you the standard first-term discount that anyone can get through their website.
That’s not what we’re looking for – we want a special discount in addition to any discounts that are publicly available. Try to make it clear that you are looking for a special discount.
After you ask the question, most hosts will say: “sorry, prices are fixed.”
For hosts that are open to negotiations, they’ll most likely ask which hosting plan you’re interested in.
What factors determine the size of the negotiable discount?
Mostly:
- The price of the hosting plan you’re interested in – you’ll receive a larger discount for more expensive plans
- The length of your subscription term – longer terms get larger discounts
For example, if you’re interested in the cheapest plan, you’re unlikely to receive a discount larger than 3-5%.
For larger plans, and particularly if you go for an annual or longer subscription term, you can usually get at least 10% off of the official price, and sometimes as much as 20-25%.
Will I have to enter a promo code to receive the special price?
If your host agrees to offer a special discount, one of the following will happen:
- You’ll receive a special check-out link. Follow it, and you’ll be able to purchase hosting at the reduced price offered by the live chat support agent. Note that these links usually have an expiration date (usually 24 hours to a few days), so make sure to ask how long it’s valid for.
- The support agent will provide you a promotional code, which you will need to enter at check out to receive the special discount.
In both cases the end result is the same – a discount will be automatically applied to your statement.
Will the special discount apply to all future hosting terms?
Usually no, because renewals tend to cost significantly more than first-term plans.
We recommend contacting your host again when it’s time to renew and ask them for a renewal discount.
What to do if my host is not willing to negotiate?
If your host won’t offer a special discount, try asking for some extra freebies instead.
For example, right after they refuse to slash their price, ask them if they will offer you any of the following for free instead:
- An additional domain
- Extra SSL certificates
- Their premium malware detection package
- More storage or server resources
Are smaller hosts more likely to negotiate than larger hosts?
This hasn’t been the case in our experience. In fact, if anything, it seems that larger hosts are more likely to negotiate – and to offer bigger discounts – than smaller ones.