Our rating: 4.9 (Excellent). Our HostPapa web hosting review is unbiased, thorough and up-to date. In this HostPapa review, we will take a closer look at features, pros, cons of HostPapa based on customer reviews.
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TL;DR: The best budget-friendly web hosting company for small businesses who are just getting started or have smaller websites.
About HostPapa
Founded in 2006, HostPapa is a Canadian company based in Burlington, Ontario (though the company has additional locations in eleven countries around the world). The company is a privately-owned company that employs about 100 employees to support the 500,000+ websites under its care.
As a company, HostPapa aims to provide full-featured hosting packages and top-notch customer service. HostPapa is also an eco-friendly company that strives to use as much renewable energy as possible to power its servers and day-to-day operations.
Why HostPapa?
HostPapa boasts that its hosting options come with features and benefits like:
- Guaranteed uptime.
- Top-notch, around-the-clock customer service.
- Top-of-the-line servers and technology.
- Free domain names.
- Secure and reliable hosting.
- Easy-to-use administrative tools.
- …and more!
In the following sections of this HostPapa review, we will take a closer look at these claims. You will be able to see if they are true or not, so you can take these items into consideration when it comes time to decide on the option to purchase.
You might also like to read: Bluehost review.
HostPapa Web Hosting Plans
HostPapa offers a variety of web hosting types, including:
- Web [shared] hosting
- WordPress hosting
- VPS hosting
- Reseller hosting
HostPapa’s Web Hosting plans are shared options, which should meet the needs of most customers. All Web Hosting plans come with:
- A free domain name for the first year of service (if you opt for a 12-month contract or longer).
- Free website transfer from your old web hosting provider.
- Cloudflare CDNs to help improve page load speeds.
- Daily scans for malware so that you can stay on top of anything bad that might happen to your site.
- Website building tools to help you get up and running with a site if you do not have one yet.
- A cPanel Control Panel to manage your website, handle billing-related issues, and more.
- Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates to encrypt traffic between your site and your visitors and to improve your search engine rankings.
- Customer support.
Web Hosting plans also come with access to over 400 apps to extend the features and functionality of your website. You’ll also get one-click installers for some of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in use, such as WordPress and Joomla.
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
For those who seek a reliable option, HostPapa guarantees an uptime of 99.9% for its shared hosting plans.
Web Hosting
HostPapa offers three different Web Hosting plans to its customers.
The Starter plan, which HostPapa says is geared toward those with a basic blog or website, supports up to two websites with 100 GB of SSD storage and unmetered bandwidth.
The Business plan, which is ideal for small business owners, supports an unlimited number of websites with unlimited SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth. You will also get email services (so that you can send and receive messages using an address that matches that of your website), access to an unlimited number of MySQL databases, and a larger allocation of RAM.
The Business Pro plan, designed for those seeking better performance, speed, and security, supports unlimited websites with unlimited SSD storage and bandwidth. You’ll get all the bonuses included in the Starter and Business plans, along with hosting on better, less populated servers, an even larger allocation of RAM, automatic backups, a wildcard SSL certificate, and domain name protection.
Shared web hosting plans starting at $3.95/month. Get Started.
Unmetered Bandwidth and Unlimited Storage
HostPapa’s Web Hosting plans come with unmetered bandwidth and unlimited storage. What does this mean.
Unmetered bandwidth means that HostPapa places no limits on the amount of visitor traffic your website can receive during a specified period of time, as long as you are also abiding by the Terms of Service. If, however, the amount of traffic you receive threatens the stability of the server that hosts your website, the HostPapa team will reach out to you and ask you to:
- Implement corrective measures.
- Upgrade to a plan more suited to handling the level of traffic you receive.
Unlimited storage means that there are no limits on how much data you store with HostPapa for your site, as long as you are using the space for backups or archives.
HostPapa WordPress Hosting
Users who are seeking shared hosting for their WordPress websites should take a look at HostPapa’s WordPress plans. HostPapa will have installed WordPress on your half when you purchase these options.
The WordPress Hosting plans are very similar to the Web Hosting plans. The differences, however, are that the latter:
- Features a hosting environment that has been optimized for WordPress users
- Gets automatic updates to the WordPress core that is installed on your hosting environment
- Includes an advanced firewall to protect your site
- Comes with Jetpack Security features to protect your WordPress site against brute force attacks, malware, and spam
- Comes with Jetpack Marketing to help you get the word out about your site
If you are interested in WordPress Hosting, there are three different plans available to you. Each comes with support for a different number of websites and include a different allocation of resources.
You may also like: How to Start a Blog – A step-by-step guide for beginners
WordPress hosting solutions starting at $3.95/month. Get Started.
VPS Hosting
HostPapa offers virtual private server (VPS) hosting for those whose large, resource-intensive, heavily-trafficked websites are no longer well-served by shared hosting plans.
The VPS hosting plans support an unlimited number of domains and websites and come with lots of bonuses not typically found with VPS plans, including:
- Email functionality
- Domain reseller account
- cPanel and WHM
- Softaculous one-click installer
Those who are tech savvy and want the most control over the web hosting environment can make deep changes with the root level access capabilities. If you ever find that the resources allocated to your plan at the time are insufficient, you can scale up (or down) as necessary.
HostPapa’s VPS hosting plans are managed options, which means that the company will handle on your behalf:
- Security audits
- Network issues
- Software upgrades
- Website migrations
- Email configuration
- Firewall setup
The VPS hosting plans are also optimized for e-commerce, and upon purchase, your plan will be instantly provisioned. This means that you can get started with building your site right away, instead of waiting a couple of days.
Other features that ship with VPS hosting plans include 2 IP addresses, a free SSL certificate, and the SolusVM VPS panel. You will also get access to bulk pricing for domain names if you are interested in reselling domains.
There are five VPS plans for you to choose from:
- Plus: 4 CPU cores, 1.5 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD storage, 1 TB data transfer
- Pro: 4 CPU cores, 3 GB RAM, 100 GB SSD storage, 2 TB data transfer
- Premium: 8 CPU cores, 6 GB memory, 200 GB SSD storage, 2 TB data transfer
- Ultra: 8 CPU cores, 12 GB memory, 500 GB SSD storage, 4 TB data transfer
- Extreme: 12 CPU cores, 24 GB memory, 1 TB SSD storage, 8 TB data transfer
HostPapa VPS hosting plans starting at $19.95/month. Get Started.
Reseller Hosting
If you:
- Are interested in selling web hosting services
- Want to include web hosting as an add-on to your business’ portfolio (e.g., you are a web designer and developer, and you want to offer your customers the chance to purchase a premium package that includes hosting services)
You might consider HostPapa’s reseller hosting option.
HostPapa offers five different reseller hosting plans to its customers, and each comes with a varying amount out storage and bandwidth for you to divvy out to your customers. You’ll get cPanel/WHM to manage your accounts, and there are no limits to the number of websites and email addresses you can set up using your master account.
To help you keep your account secure, reseller hosting comes with security features like firewall, IP address block, protection against brute force attacks, network monitoring, sFTP, and an SSL certificate.
The reseller hosting options are fully whitelabeled, so your customers won’t know that you purchased “bulk” hosting from HostPapa.
Reseller Hosting solutions starting at $19.95/month. Get Started.
Specialty Hosting
If you are looking for hosting to support a specific type of product or application, HostPapa offers shared hosting plans that come customized for a specific use case. These use cases include:
- Elementor
- AbanteCart
- Piwik
- Open Web Analytics
- Serendipity
- B2evolution
- Moveable Type
- BIGACE CMS
- B2evolution
- Coppermine
- Dolibarr
- X2CRM
- CubeCart
- Avactic
- AEF
- FluxBB
- bbPress
- 4Images
- Coppermine
- Gallery 2
- Tiki Wiki
- DokuWiki
- MediaWiki
- Yclas
Again, these are shared hosting plans, so refer to our description of the general-use Web Hosting plan for an overview of what’s included. The primary difference between specialty hosting and Web Hosting is that HostPapa includes the tool of your choice on your behalf for the former option.
Location-Specific Hosting
Where your data center is located in relation to your visitors can impact their page load speeds (the farther the data packets have to travel, the longer it takes for your site to load). To that end, HostPapa offers locations-specific hosting. You can choose from the following locations for your hosting:
- California
- San Jose
- Virginia
- Texas
- New York
Domain Names
HostPapa is a domain name registrar, which means that you can purchase stand-alone domain names (e.g., without hosting services) from the company. If, however, you have an existing domain name and you are not happy with the company with whom you registered it, you can transfer it over to HostPapa.
HostPapa domain prices starting from $1.99/year. Get Started.
Websites
If you do not already have a website designed and built, HostPapa offers several tools you can use to do so.
Website Builder
HostPapa boasts that its Website Builder helps you get a website online in just minutes. The Website Builder features hundreds of mobile-friendly templates that you can use to jumpstart your design. To customize your template, you can use the included drag-and-drop editor. When done, you can publish your site with just one click of the mouse.
In short, the Website Builder is a good option for those who want to build their websites themselves, but are not proficient in CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and other web development languages.
There are four different Website Builder plans from which you can choose:
- Starter: supports a 3-page website and gets you access to 245 design templates and HTML editing features
- Unlimited: supports a website with an unlimited number of pages and gets you access to 245 design templates and HTML editing features
- Premium: supports a website with an unlimited number of pages and gets you access to 300+ design templates, HTML and CSS editing features, the ability to publish to Facebook pages, and the ability to add tap-to-call functionality for mobile visitors, Google Maps, and office hour details
- Enterprise: comes with everything in the Premium plan, plus e-commerce functionality
Online Store
HostPapa offers an e-commerce option, which is something that will appeal to small businesses looking to establish their online presence. The Online Store builder is very similar, but purchasing this option also gets you consultation services and expert assistance in case you have any issues designing and developing your store.
HostPapa offers four different Online Store options for you to choose from. None of the plans require you to pay per-item transactions fees. However, the option you choose will impact the integrations (e.g., Google Analytics, third-party marketplaces) that are available to you, whether you can support alternative payment options (like vouchers) and coupons, and so on.
HostPapa eCommerce hosting solutions starting at $19.95/month. Get Started.
Professional Website Design
HostPapa offers a managed web design service where HostPapa’s team of professionals design and build your website for you. You’ll get a fully custom design, along with copywriting, image selection and layout, and more. In the future, if you need (or want) to make any changes to your website, HostPapa will help you do so.
Your website will be fully responsive and mobile-friendly.
In addition to design and development services, you will get everything you need to serve your store to the internet. Prices begin at $99 per month. But, those who also want an online store included with their website will pay a bit more (prices begin at $199 per month for e-commerce design and development).
Read: A Thin Line Between a Basic and High-Quality Website
Email and Productivity Tools
In addition to website- and domain-name related tools and services, HostPapa offers a variety of email and productivity tools.
If you want to send or receive messages using an address whose domain matches that of your website, you can purchase add-on email services.
The entry-level Basic Email plan is a budget-friendly, entry-level option that gets you basic email functionality. You’ll get 1 GB of email storage per mailbox.
The Advanced Email option, however, builds on the Basic Email plan. You get a larger storage allocation (up to 5 GB per mailbox), file storage capability, and a shareable calendar.
Do note, however, that some web hosting plans come with email services. Before you purchase email add-ons, make sure that you do not already have email functionality from HostPapa.
HostPapa email prices starting from $1.00/month per mailbox. Get Started.
Email and Productivity Tools
If you are interested in a third-party email option and not a HostPapa-developed product, HostPapa has partnered with Microsoft and Google to offer its customers Office 365 and G Suite, respectively. Both options come with productivity tools along with email functionality.
The G Suite option comes with 30 GB of storage for your email and anti-spam security tools. You’ll get web-based office tools, including a calendar, word processing, spreadsheets, and conferencing and presentation tools. Furthermore, by purchasing from HostPapa, you’ll get support for the company, instead of relying solely on Google’s documentation.
The Office 365 option is very similar, but you get Microsoft productivity tools and email instead of Google’s. You will always be using the most recent version of Office 365, and you will get support from the HostPapa team (instead of Microsoft).
Security Add-Ons
Many of HostPapa’s hosting packages (especially the more expensive options) come with security tools. If, however, you are missing some, HostPapa offers the following add-on options:
- ProtectionPower Website Security is a suite of tools that offers you things like daily malware scans, the ability to include a trust seal indicating that your website is legitimate, and real-time alerts on any issues that pop up with your website. If you need additional monitoring or protection for your site, you can opt for one of the upgraded packages.
- SiteLock Security, which is similar to ProtectionPower, offers users malware scans and monitoring services. Upgraded packages also include vulnerability scans, FTP protection, spam and blacklist monitoring, firewalls, and protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. If your site becomes compromised, the SiteLock 911 option offers you one-time assistance with fixing your site’s issues.
- Automated Website Backup gets you daily backups of your website, email, and MySQL databases. You’ll also get version control so you can choose the specific backup to restore from.
- SSL Certificates – most HostPapa packages come with a basic SSL certificate, but if you want that offers more (e.g., protects subdomains or multiple pages), you can purchase upgraded SSL certificates
Marketing Services
To help you get the word out about your new website, HostPapa offers two marketing options.
OnePlan Connect gets you customer relationship management (CRM) and email automation to help you work with up to 1000 leads. You’ll get 1 GB of storage for your data, and you can integrate with your accounting software.
AdGuru is a tool that assists you with DIY marketing. You’ll get a marketing dashboard to track your campaigns, help with display advertising and retargeting, bid management functionality, and access to quick-build banner ads. You can also opt for upgraded packages that will assist you with selecting keywords for search engine optimization, advertising with search engines, and more.
Customer Service and Technical Support
If you have questions, the HostPapa support team (called the PapaSquad) is available 24/7 via telephone, email, snail mail, and fax. Those who need additional support beyond what is typically included can set up 30-minute, one-on-one sessions with a PapaSquad member. You will get one of these sessions free with the purchase of a web hosting plan, but you can also book additional sessions.
Knowledge Base
For those who prefer self-service resources, HostPapa offers a searchable knowledge base filled with over 2500 articles, many featuring step-by-step instructions, across 75 different categories. Some of the categories covered include hosting, email, and domains.
In addition to written articles, HostPapa offers video tutorials that cover the main features of HostPapa.
Uptime and Performance
HostPapa provides its customers access to the status of its network at all times.
We have monitored HostPapa’s performance over time. Our results show an average uptime of 99.984% (while excellent, it is something we expected given the 99.9% uptime guarantee HostGator promises).
We also see an average response time of 421 milliseconds. This value is on the slower side — with the fastest hosts, we see average response times about 300-400 milliseconds.
Hosting Plan Contracts and Payments
For most hosting plans, HostPapa asks that you purchase at annual contract at the very least. For example, Web Hosting plans come with contracts lasting 12, 24, or 36 months.
In return for agreeing to an extended contract, HostPapa offers discounts commensurate with the length of the contract. Those who purchase the longest contracts pay the least on a month-to-month basis.
Note that you can likely get additional discounts using a HostPapa coupon code or a HostPapa promo code.
Looking for HostPapa coupons and promo codes? Check out this.
HostPapa accepts different payment methods based on where you live. For full details, see the knowledge base article on accepted methods. In short, HostPapa accepts PayPal and most major credit cards. They do not accept checks, money orders, or other types of payments.
Refunds and Money Back Guarantees
Users with Web Hosting or Reseller Hosting packages (and who have opted for an annual contract) get a risk-free, 30-day hosting money back guarantee. With this guarantee, you will get a full refund of all monies paid if you cancel during the 30-day period.
Note that if you opt for a contract less than one year in length, you will only have the opportunity to cancel and receive a refund on your hosting during the first 48 hours.
The exception to the money back guarantee, however, is your domain name. All domain name registrations are non-refundable. So, if you cancel, HostPapa will withhold the cost of your domain name from your refund. You are then free to transfer the domain or point it elsewhere.
Once the 30-day period is up, you are still free to cancel at any time, though you will not receive any refunds.
Note that many of the add-on options and professional services are non-refundable.
HostPapa User Reviews
In HostPapa web hosting review, we have tried to cover everything you need to know about working with HostPapa. However, we don’t think you should just take our word for it — we recommend seeking out HostPapa reviews written by current customers to gain additional perspectives on whether this company is the right one for you!
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is HostPapa a good web host?
HostPapa is a reputable web hosting company that successfully serves over 500,000 websites. They offer full-featured plans at budget-friendly prices, and in our testing, they meet their 99.9% uptime guarantee. Their response times are a bit slower, but they are by no means the slowest company around.
What payment methods are accepted?
HostPapa will accept most major credit cards and PayPal, thought the specific payment methods the company accepts depends on where you live.
Does HostPapa offer free backups?
Some hosting packages come with free automated backups. However, not all do, so if yours does not (and you want backup services), you will need to purchase the appropriate add-on.
Is HostPapa a good option for specialty sites?
HostPapa strives to make it as easy as possible for users of specialty platforms to get up and running as quickly as possible. They offer shared hosting packages that come with the app of your choice pre-installed. This means that you can go straight into building your site once your purchase is finalized.
How many applications and websites can I host with a single HostPapa account?
The number of applications and websites you can host with a single HostPapa account varies based on the plan that you purchased. Some plans limit you to just one or two sites, while more premium (and more expensive options) allow you to host an unlimited number of sites.
You may also like: The Best Managed WordPress Hosting Services
Best HostPapa Alternatives
Was HostPapa not quite right? We recommend:
| Web Host | Starts at | Our rating | Visit host |
| Bluehost | $3.95 | 4.9 (Excellent) | Visit host |
| A2 Hosting | $3.92 | 4.9 (Excellent) | Visit host |
| Siteground | $3.95 | 4.5 (Very good) | Visit host |
Wrapping Up
HostPapa is an eco-friendly Canadian web hosting company focused on providing web hosting solutions to small businesses. In this article, we take a close look at what HostPapa offers.
We think the variety of full-featured hosting plans at budget-friendly prices, top-notch customer service, and availability of add-ons and professional services make HostPapa a good choice for many small businesses. But don’t just take our word for it — we recommend that you supplement our take with additional HostPapa customer reviews.
Ready to build your new website? Head over to HostPapa purchase your new web hosting package today!
