HostMetro Review: Serious Problems with Speed & Uptime!
Are you tired of web hosting providers and site builders whose pricing jumps 300% when the initial period for your chosen hosting plan expires? We are too! Well, with HostMetro and its price lock guarantee, you won’t have to deal with that anymore!
HostMetro was founded in 2012 and quickly became a recognizable name in the industry. Nowadays, managed by Kyle Dolan and a team of professionals with many years of experience, HostMetro offers only shared hosting and email hosting. Still, the company has become the number one choice of many small business owners.
Related: The Best Website Builder For Small Business
HostMetro’s hosting plans are affordable and include all the needed features to boost your online presence and create the best site possible. They offer a free website builder and many applications available in your hosting account menu.
We read many positive HostMetro reviews of people who have tried the company’s shared hosting packages. Still, we decided to see for ourselves if HostMetro.com is indeed such a great choice. We chose HostMetro’s Mega Max hosting package, and in the next few paragraphs, we’ll tell you all about it and about our customer experience.
What Are The Pros Of Choosing HostMetro
As we already mentioned, the first thing that really impressed us about HostMetro was its Price Lock Guarantee. The thought that users won’t have to pay double or triple the price when the time for renewal comes (like it is with most web hosting companies) is more than attractive. However, there were other things that we were pleased with as well:
Good Customer Support
Customer service is essential when you own a site. Problems may occur, and no one is immunized against that. However, when you know you have a team of professionals behind your back, ready to help you, there’s nothing to worry about!
With HostMetro hosting, you get live chat, phone support, a ticketing system, and a helpful knowledge base. The ‘submit a ticket’ option is super useful, especially when you can’t find the answer to your questions in the knowledge base. The company is also very active on social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter.
If you’re not a big Facebook fan, you can always visit the company’s corporate office in Illinois, Arlington Heights, IL 60005. On the other hand, the knowledge base is very well-organized and gives you helpful information on topics such as hotlink protection and more.
Even though our personal experience with HostMetro’s customer service was positive, we have to mention that there are a couple of negative customer reviews out there. In these user reviews, people say they can’t get hold of anyone over the phone or that the reply to a ticket is just taking too long.
Free Domain Name and Site Transfer
The pricing for domain names and site transfers offered by some web hosting companies and e-Commerce platforms can really make your head spin. That’s why we were really happy that HostMetro offers free registration of domains and site transfer in all of its packages.
Keep in mind, though, that this free domain is for one year only, and you’ll have to use the “free domain” coupon to take advantage of it (do it within the first 30 days after sign-up.) The domain will cost you $14.49 after this one year expires.
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
The free features included in HostMetro’s packages are just some of the things that make you love HostMetro web hosting services. The company gives its customers 99. 9% uptime guarantee, but wait, there’s more!
If HostMetro’s annual uptime average happens to fall below 99%, you’ll get one month of hosting entirely for free! It will be credited back to your account unless, of course, the reasons for that fall have nothing to do with HostMetro (a natural disaster or a big hack, for example.)
30-day Money-back Guarantee
What we love about this web hosting company is that it really grasps the idea of ‘value of money.’ All new accounts get a 30-day money-back guarantee. Just keep in mind that this applies to hosting plans only, and renewals, registrations of domains, and add-on features are non-refundable.
Plenty of Hosting Space and Bandwidth
Many website builders and hosting providers offer limited bandwidth and hosting space, and sometimes what you get is everything but enough! Luckily, both of HostMetro’s hosting plans include maximum space and bandwidth.
Moreover, if you’re using more than 90% of your disk space quota, HostMetro’s support team will grant you an increase free of charge (as long as you’re within their terms of service, of course.) Once again a proof that HostMetro tries everything in its power to please its clients!
Many eCommerce Features
We will discuss HostMetro’s packages, pricing, and features further in our review, but still, we want to mention this little fact here as well. HostMetro offers numerous eCommerce features, and most of them are included in both shared hosting packages!
Using HostMetro hosting, you get plans that are Google Checkout supported, osCommerce supported, PayPal supported, and ZenCart supported. You also get various additional features such as WordPress, SSI, Cron Jobs, streaming audio and video, and more that will help you sell your products even faster.
Check our suggestions for the best Ecommerce Hosting Providers
Unlimited Email Accounts
Another thing we like about HostMetro is the wide variety of email features it offers. All packages include unlimited email addresses, unlimited email forwarders, webmail, POP3 & IMAP, autoresponders, Catch Alls, and mailing lists.
Cons of Using HostMetro Hosting
HostMetro surely has a lot of things to offer its customers. This hosting company is ideal if you’re a beginner who wants to build a site. As a newbie, you’ll get a money-back guarantee and many features included for free in the packages. And the best thing is, there is no renewal price! Still, HostMetro has a couple of cons that all customers should be aware of:
- Slow Page Speeds
The most significant disadvantage of this web host is its loading times. HostMetro is about 3 or 4 times slower than some other web hosts we have reviewed, and this is essential when it comes to maintaining a website.
When talking about loading speed, customers must be aware that a single second of delay can actually result in around 7% fewer conversions. With its 1.116ms page loading times (over 24 months), HostMetro might cost you a lot in sales.
- Only Shared Hosting
Yes, we like the hosting environment HostMetro provides, but the fact that the company offers shared hosting only, may make many people look for another host. Many customers want dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, or cloud hosting, and unfortunately, HostMetro cannot give them that.
- Short-Term Plans Are More Expensive
As you will see in the paragraph below, HostMetro advertises a $2.95 monthly price. This, however, is true only for the host’s three-year packages. If you wish to sign up for a package that is one year long or two years long, you will have to pay a bit more.
What Are HostMetro Shared Hosting Plans and Pricing
As already discussed, HostMetro offers only shared hosting. With this host, you get two hosting packages:
- Mega Max Plan: $2.95 per month
- Super Max Plan: $6.95 per month
HostMetro Pricing
It’s important to mention once again that the rates above are for 3-year packages only. If you want a one-year deal, the Mega MaxPlan will cost you $4.95 per month, and the Super Max Plan, $8.95 per month. Still, if you’re searching for an affordable long-term solution, HostMetro is definitely a good choice.
HostMetro Features
In terms of domain features and email features, both plans include everything we discussed up until now in this review: domain registration for free, unlimited add-on domains and parked domains, unlimited email accounts, etc.
When it comes to eCommerce features, the only thing worth mentioning is that a free SSL Certificate by GeoTrust and a free SiteLock Security Seal are included only in the second plan- Super Max. If you choose the first one, you will have to pay an additional $2.50 fee per month for each feature.
HostMetro’s packages offer unlimited websites, unlimited FTP accounts, MySQL databases, and maximum bandwidth and space. The company’s control panel (cPanel) is also straightforward to navigate through.
HostMetro Email Hosting
If you own a blog and write blog posts daily or you have a business that is just now growing, you need to make sure you have a professional email whose access is 100% secure. Well, with HostMetro, you can get just that.
This web host offers email hosting, providing its customers with safe webmail access, unlimited addresses, email-optimized servers, and customizable spam filtering.
The Most Important Facts
- It is a bit hard to sign up.
- You get two payment methods: PayPal and Credit Card.
- You get a money-back guarantee (30 days).
- There are no hidden fees, but you have to be careful that your account is limited to 10 percent CPU and 200,000 inodes.
- cPanel
- Quick 1-click installation of applications and CMSs with Softaculous
Do We Recommend HostMetro?
Even though HostMetro guarantees a 99.9% uptime, the results obtained were not as good as we would have liked them to be. In fact is has been consistently below average, and some downtimes were indeed lengthy.
Moreover, HostMetro has really slow page loading speeds, which can be extremely dangerous to business owners.
On the other hand, HostMetro’s pricing was quite worth it, especially in the long term. The company’s cheapest three-year plan starts at $2.95 per month, and there is no renewal price!
We were also super impressed with the various features and add-ons included in the packages. The fact that you can register your domains for free is also worth mentioning.
In terms of customer support, we were happy with our experience. Still, we can’t ignore the fact that many clients weren’t, and numerous negative reviews are complaining about response time and availability.
Wrap Up
In conclusion, we would say that we do not recommend HostMetro. And we won’t recommend it until it tries to fix its uptime and page loading speeds. This is the most important factor when it comes to choosing the best web hosting provider, and HostMetro just has to do something about it.
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