EIG hosting companies generally have poor customer service and more downtime (your website is inaccessible) than non EIG hosting companies. As such we have collated some web hosting plans from companies which are NOT owned by EIG. We have used their TrustPilot score as a proxy for understanding their customer service values and standards.
PROTIP:
- You can search these plans and more for WordPress Hosting or VPS and Cloud Hosting.
- You might also be interested in finding a host which offers a free domain name when you sign up to their services or VPS with their own IP addresses.
Table of Contents:
- Non EIG web hosting companies and plans
- What is EIG owned hosting?
- What’s wrong with EIG owned hosting companies
- Examples of EIG Hosting Companies
- Why is Bluehost so Cheap?
Non EIG web hosts (hosting)
"Customizable" by Kamatera
Cost:
- From $4.00 p/month, renews at same rate
- Most expensive plan around $1450.00 p/month, renews at same rate
TrustPilot Review Score: 3.7/5
Server Type: VPS
Disk Space: 20 - 4000 GB SSD
Managed Hosting?: Yes or no - your decision.
CPU: 1 - 104 vCPU
RAM: 1 GB - 524 GB
Admin Software: cPanel & Plesk
WHM License: Yes
Bandwidth: 5000 GB p/month or 50 MB p/sec
Dedicated IP?: Yes, 1,2 or 4
Site Transfer: No
Shop this Plan"Tornado" by Cloudey
Cost:
- $20.00 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.4/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 10
No. Emails Accounts: Unlimited
Disk Space: 75 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Thunder" by Cloudey
Cost:
- $15.00 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.4/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 5
No. Emails Accounts: 20
Disk Space: 50 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Rain" by Cloudey
Cost:
- $5.00 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.4/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 3
No. Emails Accounts: 5
Disk Space: 15 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Managed Corporate" by KnownHost
Cost:
- $19.98 p/month for initial 1, 6, 12 or 36 month plan
- Renews at $39.95 thereafter for all plans
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.1/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 5
No. Emails Accounts: Unlimited
Disk Space: 150 GB NVMe
Managed Hosting?: Yes
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Managed Business" by KnownHost
Cost:
- $9.98 p/month for initial 1, 6, 12 or 36 month plan
- Renews at $19.95 thereafter for all plans
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.1/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 1
No. Emails Accounts: Unlimited
Disk Space: 100 GB NVMe
Managed Hosting?: Yes
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Huge" by iWebFusion
Cost:
- $15.90 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.2/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: Unlimited
No. Emails Accounts: 0-5
Disk Space: 30 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Large" by iWebFusion
Cost:
- $12.60 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.2/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: Unlimited
No. Emails Accounts: 0-5
Disk Space: 19 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Medium" by iWebFusion
Cost:
- $10.60 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.2/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 50
No. Emails Accounts: 0-5
Disk Space: 16GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Standard" by iWebFusion
Cost:
- $8.00 p/month
- Renews at the same price
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.2/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 26
No. Emails Accounts: 0-5
Disk Space: 13 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Starter" by iWebFusion
Cost:
- $5.15 p/month
- Renews at the same rate
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.8/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 16
No. Emails Accounts: 5
Disk Space: 10 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Professional Shared" by NixiHost
Cost:
- $18.00 p/month
- Renews at the same rate
TrustPilot Review Score: 3.3/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: Unlimited
No. Emails Accounts: Unlimited
Disk Space: 75 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Basic Shared" by NixiHost
Cost:
- $12.00 p/month
- Renews at same
TrustPilot Review Score: 3.3/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 5
No. Emails Accounts: Unlimited
Disk Space: 25 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Mini Shared" by NixiHost
Cost:
- $6.00 p/month
- Renews at the same rate
TrustPilot Review Score: 3.3/5
Server Type: Shared
No. Websites: 1
No. Emails Accounts: Unlimited
Disk Space: 15 GB
Managed Hosting?: No
Free Domain: No
Shop this Plan"Ruby" by Krystal
Cost:
- $14.99 p/month on monthly plan
- $12.50 p/month on 12 month plan
- $12.50 p/month on 36 month plan
- Renews at the same rate
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.9/5
Server Type: Cloud Server
No. Websites: Unlimited
No. Emails Accounts: Unknown
Disk Space: Unlimited SSD
Managed Hosting?: Yes
Free Domain:
Shop this Plan"Amethyst" by Krystal
Cost:
- $7.99 p/month on monthly plan
- $6.67 p/year on a 12 month plan
TrustPilot Review Score: 4.9/5
Server Type: Cloud Server
No. Websites: 1
No. Emails Accounts: 1
Disk Space: 10GB
Managed Hosting?: Yes
Free Domain:
Shop this PlanWhat is EIG?
EIG owned hosting is web hosting from one of the many many web hosting companies owned by the insurance company EIG. EIG is the parent company of many hosting companies for example Bluehost and HostGator are EIG companies.
What’s wrong with EIG hosting providers?
EIG hosting companies generally have poor customer service and more downtime (your website is inaccessible) than non EIG hosting companies.
EIG owned companies start to, once they have been bought by EIG, downgrade the customer service and the technical hardware that the hosting company used to use. EIG is focussed on low cost businesses with high and recurring income so they reduce the quality and quantity of the hardware which results in more server downtime (meaning your site can’t be accessed as much as it could be by your users) and lower quality customer service because the amount of service reps are decreased and the attention they put in is also decreased as they are not paid so much as previously. Likely the customer service was outsourced to countries where the wages and cost of living are lower so EIG can increase the profit margins on the income they receive from there.
Web Hosting is a lucrative and recurring income business model that people cannot easily change from (as it requires people migrating their site to another server which is complex for non technical people) so their is a large amount of profit to be made by reducing costs but keeping the people on board for often multiple years at a time on one contract. We talk more about this below in relation to Bluehost as a specific example.
PROTIP: Recently it’s become apparent that Bluehost has improved some of its speed and infrastructure but it is still expensive compared to many other web hosting plans.
Examples of EIG Hosting services
The most popular web hosting company owned by EIG is Bluehost but HostGator is also owned by EIG. When a hosting company
Why is Bluehost (EIG hosting) so cheap (hosting review)?
Bluehost seems cheap initially but the price increases dramatically after the first invoice. Bluehost likes to ‘back load’ the cost of their hosting products to the renewal cost. This means that the pricing you see on their pages are accurate for the initial invoice or contract which will last 12, 24 or 36 months depending on your choice but when you renew this same contract the price will increase.
Because it is considered hard for people to migrate their website to another host they assume that you will be too lazy to move it and or that you won’t notice that the cost goes up as it is automatically deducted from your bank account. It’s highly possible that you didn’t realize the renewal cost because it is not made obvious on their account sign up page.
With these things in mind you might want to find a good hosting alternative to Bluehost. Luckily above we have put together 16 web hosting plans which are not owned by EIG and hence have more transparent business practices.