TsoHost Review

TsoHost was founded in 2003 by the Paragon Internet Group. And to date, they have more than 250,000 customers.

TsoHost may not be one of the biggest or most well-known hosting providers out there. But that steady growth and stable leadership point to a company that knows what it’s doing.

We signed up for their cloud hosting plan and have been closely monitoring performance statistics like uptime and page load speeds.

Our goal is to compile a fair, unbiased review and let tsoHost’s data speak for itself based on the performance of our live test website.

Let’s see how tsoHost has done over the last year.

General Info & Hosting Overview

Pros of Using TsoHost Hosting

TsohHost has grown steadily and kept its founding team intact. That points to a well-run organization that (should) deliver on the most important aspects like uptime and speed.

1. Solid Loading Time 511 ms

One of the major decision-making criteria you should use when evaluating a new hosting company is speed.

The reason? Three-fourths of your website traffic will leave if pages take longer than five seconds to load.

We were very worried about the first months when we started monitoring them. With a two-second load time, it means that almost half of your traffic will leave the site and visit someone else, who has a much better loading time, at least under a second.

However, the good news is that tsoHost has really stepped up their game during the past half a year and delivered a solid speed of 511 ms.

2. Good Uptime – 99.96%

Uptime is arguably the most important criterion a hosting company’s responsible for.

The reason is that even the slightest bit of downtime — like 99% — can add up to your site being offline for almost a full day each month.

Fortunately, tsoHost has posted a strong uptime of 99.96% with 31 outages within the period we monitored them.

Last 6 months of monitoring: uptime

• June 2024: 99.99%
• May 2024: 99.99%
• April 2024: 99.83%
• March 2024: 99.96%
• February 2024: 99.99%
• January 2024: 99.98%

3. Nice ‘Bonus’ Plan Features

Like many of the web’s top hosts, tsoHost features a simple one-click installation of CMS applications like WordPress, Drupal, and ZenCart. That means you can have a new site up within minutes, and possibly selling by the end of the day.

Each shared hosting plan also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. (And unlike many other hosts, this money-back guarantee really is a good deal, with no hidden fees or other tricks to worry about.)

Their plans — even the most inexpensive and basic ones — come with a lot of extra features that are not very common with other hosts. For example, all their plans offer a free domain name and website migrations.

4. Transparent Pricing

Many hosting providers have a ton of upsells at the last-minute check-out. When you choose their plans, it often comes with a two or three years commitment with higher renewal prices.

We liked tsoHost’s pricing plans as you’ll find all the features shown in their price plans and they also show you the different price commitment prices.

The shown prices are for 12 months (approximately lb4/mo for a start-up plan) and for a monthly payment you’d be looking at a price increase of lb1 – approximately lb5/mo.

Cons of Using TsoHost Hosting

All in all, tsoHost has a lot of things to like.

Their speed and uptime are solid. Their plans, even the cheapest ones, come with some nice features like daily backups and one-click installs.

However, there are a few drawbacks to their service you should be aware of.

1. UK-based servers

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, if your site is mainly for the US market and customer base, you’d be better off with your servers located in the US not overseas.

Overseas servers often slow your site down as data transfers take longer.

2. Strict Payment Terms

The long and dreadfully boring Terms of Service is usually where all the bodies are buried.

And tsoHost’s terms were no exception.

First up, is their strict terms around how and when renewals are paid.

Here’s the problem: how often do you get a new credit or debit card throughout the year, only for the old one to be still linked to many online accounts (like hosting providers)?

If overdue invoices aren’t taken care of within a few days, tsoHost will automatically suspend your account (which means your site goes down). So keep a watchful eye on those reminder emails!

When other products purchased through them, like a domain name, expire (again, unfortunately, common when they try to run a card with an old number and the payment doesn’t go through — even though you just assume it does), that product will immediately expire the next day.

After you do make the payment right, you’ll still have to notify them by email to get your domain or site back online within the next 24 hours. So you could be looking inadvertently at a lengthy downtime period if something common, like your card details changing, happens and payment doesn’t go through.

Another potential downside is that all payments received must be in UK Pounds sterling. That means you’re on the hook for any possible exchange rate charges.

Last but not least, they reserve the right to change or adjust pricing at any point in time. That means even though your next renewal period won’t cost you more right now… it doesn’t mean that will be the case in the near future.

3. Limited and Slow Support

TsoHost has two customer support options: live chat and ticketing. Besides that, they also have a vast knowledge base.

Sounds good, right?

In theory, yes, however, in practice not so good.

Their live chat support is available only from 7 am to midnight GM. So, if you’re located in the U.S. (or anywhere else other than the UK and Western Europe) that might post a few problems.

Moreover, when we tried to contact their customer rep via chat (several times) during business hours, there was no possibility to do so, which leaves us questioning whether tsoHOST even has a live chat option or just claim they do.

This left us with ticketing. We opened a new ticket in the client area and asked some technical questions. We received clear and knowledgeable replies to all of our questions, but it took 13 hours for the customer rep to get back to us.

It’s understandable that ticketing is slower than an actual live chat, but 13 hours to get a reply is a bit too much.

4. Free SSL Not Included with the Cheapest Plans

An SSL Certificate is something that is a must-have on a website. Not only it will ensure that your website is safe and sound to browse on, but it will also help to boost your SEO.

Because of that many hosts nowadays offer a free SSL Certificate, but not tsoHost, unfortunately.

With their cheapest Economy and Deluxe plan, you’ll get a 50% discount (lb20.83/year) on Standard SSL for the first year and this only applies to annual contracts. If you sign up with their monthly plan, you’ll have to pay the full price of lb41.66/year (+20% VAT).

TsoHost Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

TsoHost offers four different shared hosting plans. All prices shown are with a 12-month commitment.

Here’s what’s included in each:

Quick Facts

• Ease of Signup: The signup process is relatively quick and painless
• Free domain: Yes.
• Payment Methods: You can pay by credit card or PayPal.
• Money-Back: 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Hidden Fees and Clauses: No domain names on some plans. Be careful about renewals.
• Upsells: There are a few upsells along the way.
• Account Activation: Usually instant, however, can take up to a day in some cases.
• Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
• Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Extremely easy, one-click installation process of the most popular apps available.

Do We Recommend tsoHost?

Yes and no.

TsoHost delivered decent page loading times and strong uptime which we liked.

We were also impressed by their relatively inexpensive plans that offer great features. We also appreciate that their pricing, although it comes with strict terms, it’s transparent and honest on their website. However, the prices are shown without VAT, which is determined by your country for billing details.

Downside? Their customer support is slow, and they’re lacking data centers and security features.

Do you have any experience with tsoHost? If so, we’d love to hear a transparent and honest review below — positive or negative!