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Hostinger is excellent value for money, with the lowest starting price out of all the top small business website builders we’ve tested, starting at just $2.99 per month. Although it’s a very capable platform, however, there are some downsides, which we found out about when we got hands-on with the platform.
Beyond the low price, Hostinger still has a lot to offer for those looking to build a website. Most notably, the provider’s AI features can help speed up the setup process – you’ll be able to get your website live in just one minute with a few simple steps. However, it’s a little bit more basic than the likes of Wix, which has more templates, better design functionalities, and an expansive app marketplace.
That being said, Hostinger will still suit anyone looking to get their site up and running quickly but wants to avoid spending big on a heavier-duty website builder. In this review, we take a closer look at the features we used when testing the platform, the pricing options available, and competitors of Hostinger, so you can make an informed purchase decision.
Pros
- AI generated site in 60 seconds with only three steps
- Built-in heatmap for advanced site analytics for helpful data
- Language translations capabilities
Cons
- No app market for third party integrations
- No email marketing to reach new customers
- No free trial or free plan for new users
- 30-Day Money Back Guarantee
- Starting price: $2.99 per month
- Up to 10% off (deal active now)
Hostinger Quick Fact File
Before we get into the nitty gritty details of Hostinger, let’s start off with some basics that will give you a better idea of what you can expect from this website builder.
- Hostinger is a budget-friendly website builder with a starting price of $2.99 per month.
- Hostinger provides a very basic, easy-to-use platform for all users.
- Hostinger can build a site for you in three steps, taking just a few minutes.
- Hostinger offers lots of AI features, like content generation, chatbot, translation, and heatmap.
- Hostinger has no free plan or free trial, so you’ll have to buy it to try it.
- Hostinger does not offer any built-in marketing tools on the platform.
- Hostinger has no app market, so advanced functionality is out of the question.
Hostinger Pricing
Typically, a website builder will offer a wide range of pricing plans, with different features and functionality built into each one, so you can scale up your business and have flexible options when it comes to cost. It can make things pretty complicated, particularly if you’re just trying to get a site online as affordably and quickly as possible.
That’s where Hostinger shines. The website builder only offers two plans to choose from, and they’re both very affordable.
- Premium ($2.99 per month) – The starting plan from Hostinger that offers basic functionality for website building, as well as access to the AI site builder to get your site live fast.
- Business ($3.99 per month) – This plan unlocks ecommerce functionality for an online store, as well as more AI features, including image and content generators and SEO assistance.
It’s worth noting that these starting prices only last for so long, and the period of time fluctuates quite often. As of writing this, the current deal is $2.99 per month or $3.99 per month (depending on your plan) for two years. When the two years is up, you’ll renew your plan at $7.99 per month or $8.99 per month, respectively. On top of that, you’ll get three months of Hostinger completely free before the charges start.
| Plan | Price paid monthly The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed monthly | Domain included | Transaction fees | SEO | Ecommerce | AI content generator | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Premium | Business | ||||||
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| 2.9% + 30¢ | | ||||||
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| | | ||||||
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Does Hostinger Have a Free Plan?
While it’s easily one of the most affordable website builders on the market today, Hostinger does not offer a free plan. However, it only costs $2.99 per month, which is pretty much as close to free as you can get.
On top of that, Hostinger offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so we were able to our website and get it live – and then get our money back after a month of being online.
It’s also worth noting that Hostinger offers free web hosting, which makes it one of the most affordable ways to get your site online. Even free website builders often require a fee or a web hosting provider to host your page so you can’t do much better than Hostinger when it comes to price.
Hostinger Features
Overall, our research found that Hostinger has a lot of potential, largely due to its low price and commitment to ease of use. It’s bounty of AI features makes it easy to get a site live fast, even if you’re brand new to the world of website building.
However, there are some notable downsides to Hostinger for those looking to build out a robust website. It offers far fewer templates than Wix and Squarespace and no email marketing to attract new visitors. Perhaps the biggest problem for overall Hostinger functionality is that it offers no app market, so if you want to add and customize your site, you’re stuck with the basics.
We had a chance to get a hands-on look at how Hostinger works, including getting access to all the features available to users how purchase a subscription. Here are some of the highlights:
Drag-and-drop editor
Yes, drag-and-drop editors are common across the website builder market. Wix and Squarespace both offer one, so it’s not a groundbreaking feature by any means. Still, such a low price combined with this easy-to-use editor makes Hostinger another excellent choice for beginners. We were able to easily design our website without having a lot of complicated templates that couldn’t handle basic adjustments.
The drag-and-drop editor made it easy for us to make our site look exactly how we wanted. Source: Tech.co testing
Personal Assistant
Another reason that Hostinger is a top choice for beginners is the helpful Personal Assistant feature that is powered by AI. We were able to ask simple questions and receive in-depth responses with actually helpful tips for building out our website. Even better, it also provided us with step-by-step instructions for how to actually enact those tips, speeding up the overall website building process by quite a bit.
The AI chatbot from Hostinger gave us helpful insights for building our site better. Source: Tech.co testing
Pre-designed templates
Alongside its AI features, Hostinger also boasts 150 designer-made templates optimized for mobile and web search engines alike. So you can choose whether or not you want to generate your website from a few prompts or select one from a gallery. Whichever approach you go for, the drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize your site to exact specs.
Gallery of available Hostinger templates. Source: Hostinger website
Heatmap
Understanding how your users interact with your website is an easy way to quickly find out what works and what doesn’t. With the heatmap provided by Hostinger, we were able to see exactly where our visitors were clicking and scrolling through our website, denoting problem areas and solid leads for future use.
Hostinger’s AI heatmapping feature lets us gain valuable insights into user engagement on our website. Source: Tech.co testing
Ecommerce functionality
Even with the low price, Hostinger does allow you to set up an online store. Yes, you’ll have to pay for the more expensive of the two plans, but that still only costs $3.99 per month, well below the industry standard for such functionality. Even better, you still get access to some advanced features, such as customizable checkout options and a variety of templates for different types of stores. You also enjoy no transaction fees, a big boon compared to Wix and Squarespace.
What’s more, users can optimize the experience for their customers with a set of nifty features. Among these, you can equip your site with Product Search functionality for ease of navigation, and let your customers personalize their orders with special instructions.
The problem arises, however, when you want to scale. Because of the lack of marketing tools, you’ll have a hard time attracting new customers. On top of that, it offers no POS integrations and no mobile app for managing your store on the go. Even worse, shipping options are limited to Baltic countries, so you’re mostly out of luck if you want to spread your store around the world. This makes Hostinger an excellent option for local businesses, but not much else bigger than that. If you’re looking for a website builder designed for ecommerce at scale, we recommend looking elsewhere.
The Hostinger Store Manager made it easy for us to run an online store, but scaling is difficult due to a lack of marketing. Source: Tech.co testing
Other AI features
AI is all the rage right now, with most website builders using AI to improve their platforms. We found that Hostinger is no different, providing us with a wide range of AI-powered tools to make building and customizing our site that much easier.
Here are some of the AI features we loved that are available on Hostinger:
- Content generator – We were able to easily generate copy for everything from the “about” page to product descriptions with just the click of a button, and we were able to edit it afterwards, if we even needed to.
- Logo maker – In just three steps, Hostinger provided us with a bespoke logo based on the brand name and a description of our ideal logo, saving us time and money on building our brand presence.
- SEO assistant – Hostinger gave us SEO best practice prompts throughout the content creation process, even guiding us on which headers to use to maximize our potential visitors.
Hostinger’s AI copy generator helped us craft content for SEO. Source: Tech.co testing
Hostinger web hosting
It’s worth noting that Hostinger didn’t start life as a website builder. In fact, the company is actually a dedicated web hosting provider, offering cloud and VPS web hosting services for those trying to get websites live from any builder online.
As a result, Hostinger websites are notoriously reliable when it comes to uptime. In fact, Hostinger guarantees 99.9% uptime, which means that your site will very rarely be down for a long period of time. This can translate to improved SEO and generally a better experience for your visitors.
Who Should Choose Hostinger?
Given all the information above, it’s safe to assume you have a pretty good idea of what Hostinger offers when it comes to building a website. Still, that doesn’t mean you know who should actually choose Hostinger in the face of so many other options. Here’s who we think should choose Hostinger for their website building needs:
- Budget-conscious businesses – At such a low price with plenty of functionality, Hostinger is a clear choice for those in need of a budget-friendly website builder that can establish their online presence.
- Simple online stores – The Business plan from Hostinger unlocks ecommerce functionality at only $3.99 per month with no transaction fees, a great deal for solid functionality, as long as you don’t need advanced features such as marketplace integrations, email marketing, or revenue analytics.
- AI users – Despite the lack of overall website builder functionality, Hostinger goes big on AI, offering an AI heat map, content generator, image creator, and SEO assistant to help your site get discovered.
- Blog and portfolio sites – Because of the limited functionality due to the lack of an app store, Hostinger is better geared for less feature-necessary websites such as blogs and portfolios. Other tools. including scheduling and booking, are quite basic, and there are no third-party integrations or analytical tools, unlike nearly every other website builder in our research.
- Complete beginners – With the AI website builder from Hostinger, you can literally get a website created and live with three steps. We found that it took under a minute to have our site fully developed and available online, which can be a huge help for those unfamiliar with website building technology.
Hostinger Alternatives
Hostinger is a great option for smaller businesses on a budget, but it certainly has its weaknesses. Due to its lack of marketing features and missing app store, Hostinger doesn’t offer the same customizability or scalability as other top providers, such as Wix or Squarespace.
While Hostinger offers a decent feature set for its price, it still lags behind a platform like Shopify, which offers an extensive library of integrations to boost its commerce functionality.
Fortunately, if you don’t think this affordable platform is for you, there are plenty of other solid alternatives available. In fact, some of the best website building platforms cost a bit extra, but off a lot more. Take a look at some of them below:
| Cheapest premium plan Most affordable plan that offers premium features | Free Plan | Try it Today | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHEAPEST  |  | |  | BEST VALUE  |  |
| Square | 1&1 IONOS | Hostinger | Jimdo | Squarespace | |
|
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| | | | | | |
| Try Square | See Deals | Save up to 10% | Try Jimdo | Claim 10% off | Save 10% |
What’s New for Hostinger in 2024?
Hostinger routinely rolls out updates to its offering to make sure users are getting the most value possible. In September 2024, for instance, the team introduced a WordPress AI Troubleshooter to apply all possible fixes for 403 Forbidden errors. This functionality will significantly cut down the time it takes to diagnose and resolve a problem.
In the same month, Hostinger introduced an AI-powered image background remover feature. With this feature, users can choose a more suitable background for their product images in just a few simple steps. It’s a nifty way of optimizing your storefront.
What’s more, your end customer can now personalize their orders by inputting extra information in a custom field. For example, they might have specific delivery information or want to make a request about a particular product. It’s a great way to take your customer service a step further – which is absolutely essential for a budding small business.
Verdict: Is Hostinger Worth It?
Simply put, Hostinger is one of the most affordable website builders on the market today. Starting at only $2.99 per month and three months free, it provides the cheapest plans across the board, while not sacrificing too much when it comes to features and, more importantly, security.
Still, you better be on a budget if you want Hostinger, as it’s definitely not the best option out there. Wix and Squarespace each offer relatively affordable options with more features and advanced functionalities. If you’re on a tight budget, though, and need to get your site online soon, then Hostinger represents your most affordable option – and that is saying something.
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful product recommendations.
After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces with hands-on testing to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we put 16 website builder products to the test across 398 areas of investigation.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established a website builder testing methodology that scores each product in six core categories of investigation and 33 subcategories; this covers everything from customer feedback to design, ease of use, and more.
Our main testing categories for website builders are:
- Website Features: the capabilities and functionalities offered by a website builder, e.g. blog functionality, SEO capability, and marketing capacity.
- Design Functionality: the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using a website builder. It encompasses aspects such as page templates and customizable themes.
- Customer Satisfaction: external customer opinion. This is the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular website builder – the market position and reputation a website builder holds.
- User Experience: how user-friendly and intuitive a website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.
- Value for Money: the balance between the cost of a website builder and the benefits it provides. It considers factors such as pricing plans, subscription models, and available features.
- Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using a website builder.
When it comes to calculating a product's final score, not all testing areas are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others, which are simply "nice to have." After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs.
At Tech.co, we have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run this testing process regularly, to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
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