Pay monthly or yearly for hosting?

This is exactly why I keep a local backup of every campaign asset and landing page. The hosting account is just the billboard.

I do monthly at InterServer now (https://www.interserver.net) but honestly the peace of mind comes from knowing I can walk away in 30 days if their support tickets start getting weird. The "savings" on yearly never seemed worth it after I watched a colleague lose two years prepaid to some reseller who ghosted.

Has anyone here actually tried getting their money back through a chargeback for yearly hosting that went dark. Curious if the card networks even treat that as goods not delivered.

That's exactly what it was, isn't it

Eight days and nobody's said "just use a real provider" which is refreshing actually

Elena is still watching this thread because elena needs to decide where to move before the next billing cycle hits

Has anyone here actually used Contabo or Hostinger on monthly? Elena is not doing yearly again, not after this, but elena wants to know if the monthly price jump is worth the peace of mind or if they all turn into pumpkins eventually

Three years? I think you win the thread. Or lose it. Both.

I do monthly with Leaseweb now. Used to do yearly back when I had more optimism and fewer spreadsheets. The discount math only works if they stay alive, which is not a guarantee in this market.

Has anyone actually tried getting a refund from a dead host? Is that just money gone or is there some consumer protection thing people use?

Did anyone here actually get their money back from a yearly deal gone bad, or is it always just gone. I paid monthly at Vultr for two years then switched to yearly at InterServer and the discount was nice but now I wonder if I should have kept the safety net.

Yeah exactly, that's what I figured after month two when their status page just said "please be patient" forever

I still don't know if I technically got "burned" because they never formally announced anything, just... stopped answering tickets and eventually the domain didn't resolve

For what it's worth I went monthly everywhere after that, even if it costs more. The peace of mind is worth it to me

Though I guess if you're doing yearly, the move is to only do it with places that have been around forever and even then, maybe not

Did anyone here actually get their money back from a yearly deal gone wrong? Like, chargeback or anything? I never tried because I felt dumb for paying three years upfront in the first place

Has anyone actually had luck getting a partial refund when a yearly host folds? I've heard KnownHost has some escrow-like protection for pre-paid plans but I don't know if that's marketing fluff.

47 days and I'm still mad about it

That's exactly what it was, they just kept the website up with a "we're working on it" banner until the domain expired

Has anyone actually gotten a refund from a dead host? Like ever? I don't mean credit, I mean money back in your account

I'm genuinely asking because my dispute got denied and I want to know if that's normal or if I should keep fighting

Did anyone who paid monthly actually get their data out cleanly when these places fold? Or do you still lose everything and just lose less money.

Yeah I was being generous with "scheduled maintenance" but that's exactly what it was, they just kept the lights on long enough to avoid an automatic refund clause or something

I switched to monthly after that and honestly the peace of mind is worth more than whatever discount they wave at you, I don't care if it's thirty percent off, if the company vanishes that "saving" becomes a 100% loss real fast

Haven't tried any of the newer names like Vultr or HostHatch but I'm assuming they all pull the same stunt eventually, the yearly model just incentives the wrong things

66 days but this topic never stops being relevant I guess

This is why I split yearly payments across two providers when I do commit. Primary on monthly, secondary on a short yearly deal. If the yearly place dies I at least have live backups and no panic migration.

For what it's worth I've been monthly at Contabo for two years now — https://contabo.com — their uptime is boring which is exactly what I want.

Has anyone actually gotten a refund from a dead host though or is that just fantasy