Methodology

Where the numbers come from

Every price is taken from the vendor's own public pricing page as shown to a visitor in the United States, in US dollars. For each plan we record the intro price at the longest term offered, that term length, the 12-month intro price if it differs, the renewal price the vendor states, and the sentence where it states it. Each observation carries the date and the URL.

How often

An automated check runs every day. It re-reads each pricing page and confirms the previously observed price strings are still present. If a price disappears or a new one is detected, the change is logged on the price changes page the same day. If a page cannot be checked automatically (some are rendered only in the browser or show renewal prices only in the cart), it is re-verified by hand and the date shown is the date of that manual check.

We never publish a number that was not seen on the vendor's page. Where a renewal price is not stated anywhere public, the calculator shows "renewal unverified" instead of guessing.

What the calculator assumes

• "Longest intro term upfront": you pay the intro monthly rate for the full longest term (for example 48 months), then the renewal rate for each remaining month of the period you chose. Renewal terms are usually 12 months; we bill month by month for simplicity.
• "12-month billing": you pay the 12-month intro rate for the first year (or the longest-term rate capped at 12 months if no separate 12-month price is stated), then the renewal rate.
• Taxes, domain renewals, add-ons and promotional coupons are excluded. Free-domain and money-back details are listed on each host page.
• Hosts with flat pricing (no intro discount) are treated as intro = renewal.

Crawling etiquette

Our checker identifies itself in its user-agent, respects robots.txt, requests each page at most once a day, and only reads public pricing pages. Vendors who want a page excluded or corrected can contact us.