WebHostingBuzz Review

WebHostingBuzz powers more than 250,000 websites in 140+ countries.

That’s no surprise given their uptime has been solid (99.97%) and page loading times have been fast (426 ms) over the past 6 months.

Bloggers will love access to over 450 popular applications like WordPress, while advanced webmasters will enjoy access to the latest programming languages.

WebHostingBuzz has a transparent and straightforward 45-day money-back guarantee so you don’t have to jump through hoops if you decide to cancel your subscription. This is good news, considering there’s no special new customer pricing and a strange termination clause that could trick you before renewing.

Not too bad, right?

But was WebHostingBuzz good enough to get our recommendation?

Read on to find out.

General Info & Hosting Overview

Pros of Using WebHostingBuzz

WebHostingBuzz has posted fast loading times and reliable uptime. Their plans provide access to over 450+ applications that can be installed with just a few clicks. And they have a 45-day refund policy for anyone who’s not completely sold on their service.

Here is an in-depth look at their performance over the past 12 months:

1. Fast Page Load Times (426 ms)

Speed is important when choosing a host because it has a direct impact on your visitors’ experience. For example, a two-second delay in load time resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%.

And if your host is slow, to begin with, it’ll only get slower as you start building out new pages, directly hitting you where it hurts — your wallet.

WebHostingBuzz has been showing great speed results. In the last 6 months, they’ve kept an average page loading time of 426 ms, which places them easily among the top 10 fastest hosts we’ve reviewed.

2. 45-Day Money-Back Guarantee

WebHostingBuzz has a 45-day money-back guarantee for all shared, business, and reseller plans. VPS hosting plans, on the other hand, are eligible for a refund within 30 days of purchase.

Other additional services, from dedicated servers to IP addresses, SSL certificates, and domain names will not be refunded. Like other hosts we’ve reviewed, a domain name fee will be deducted from any refunds.

However, unlike the standard ~$15 range we’ve seen with domain names, WebHostingBuzz will only charge you $10.99 for a .com or .net.

3. Over 450 1-Click Applications and Free Migrations

WebHostingBuzz comes fully loaded with over 450 popular apps. Most can be automatically installed within just a few minutes and a couple of clicks. No messy code to get your hands dirty.

If you already have an existing website that you want to bring over, WebHostingBuzz’s team will migrate it for free.

And if you’re a developer who wants access to more advanced features, you’re also in luck. Their servers fully support everything from HTML5 and JavaScript to PHP 5, MySQL 5, Perl, and more.

4. Great Uptime 99.97%

WebHostingBuzz has shown an improved 99.97% uptime over the last 6 months with only 10 outages.

So, needless to say, you’ll have your website up and running with WebHostingBuzz.

Last 6-month average uptime:

• June 2024: 100%
• May 2024: 99.94%
• April 2024: 99.96%
• March 2024: 99.96%
• February 2024: 100%
• January 2024: 100%

5. Green Web Hosting

Are you looking for an eco-friendly host?

If so, WebHostingBuzz might be for you.

They had made an environmental commitment and have sponsorship and partnership with The Woodland Trust.

The goal is to offset the energy demand from their servers and keep all of their hosting services carbon neutral.

6. Annual Prepayment Discount with Same Renewal Price

The initial sticker price for WebHostingBuzz isn’t that cheap compared to other hosts (more on that below).

But there are two pricing benefits that do fall in your favor.

The first is that they have an annual prepayment discount. So if you paid for the year, you could get two months free across the board on all plans. So the breakdown looks like this:

• Personal: $69.99
• Developer: $119.99
• Business: $269.99

On top is the monthly price for each plan, with the annual option underneath:

The second advantage is that renewal rates don’t increase.

Many other hosts will double your monthly price when your plan automatically renews. However, according to WebHostingBuzz’s billing FAQ, the price you pay basically “freezes” and gets applied to all future renewals, too. So you don’t have to worry about an expensive surprise showing up on your credit card statement a year from now.

7. Fast Customer Support

WebHostingBuzz offers 24/7 live chat, ticketing, and a knowledge base for support.

We tested out their live chat option and were happy with the experience.

The customer rep connected within a minute and answered all of our questions regarding shared hosting plans immediately and knowledgeably.

Cons of Using WebHostingBuzz

WebHostingBuzz performed well across the board. Uptime and page loading times were both great. The free migrations are a nice perk, and the refund policy is also more than fair.

Unfortunately, there were a few categories that still let them down at the end of the day.

Here’s a quick summary of the biggest issues we experienced.

1. No New Customer Discount

Some of the cheapest web hosts on the market might only cost you a buck or two each month.

How can they possibly afford to be so cheap?

New customers get special pricing to help sweeten the deal. So plans renew at a higher rate later on. This, combined with prepaying for up to three years, can help you lock in a really low rate with a new host.

It seems like almost all of the other web hosts we’ve reviewed follow this same trend. Except for WebHostingBuzz.

For starters, there is no long-term discount. You pay $6.99/month for the cheapest personal plan. This comes with a single website, 30 GB of SSD storage, 1 GB of memory, unlimited bandwidth, and free SSL. That’s pretty good on the surface, but the storage amount is fairly low. (In comparison, some other hosts, like iPage, give you unlimited storage). This basic plan does not come with a free domain name or daily backups, either.

If you wanted to upgrade to one of their bigger plans to get these features, the Developer plan costs $10.99/mo, and the Business option is $26.99/mo. You can prepay for the year, as discussed above, to bring the cost down a little bit. And your renewal pricing will not jump up, either.

But you also lose the opportunity to enjoy a new customer discount and save a bunch over the course of three or so years as you get with most other hosts.

2. Odd Termination Clause

When you sign up for a new host, you’re usually excited to get a new project off the ground. You’re probably not thinking about what might happen down the road if an issue or problem pops up.

We took a look at the fine print that is usually buried deep inside a host’s Terms of Service.

This is the place where you can usually find something that might prevent you from getting your money back or the service running like you think it should.

WebHostingBuzz has its own variation on this, too. There’s an odd termination clause that dictates how plans renew and how you can cancel to prevent being automatically charged for the next term.

Here’s what it says: “Notification of Your intent to terminate must be provided to WebHostingBuzz no earlier than 10 days prior to Your billing date but no later than three days prior to Your billing date.”

Two key points there:

1. You can’t tell them you want to cancel too early — no earlier than ten days before your billing date, and
2. You also can’t cancel later than three days before the billing date.

Sounds odd, right? You have this tiny window of time to notify them you want to cancel; otherwise, it sounds like they can basically just say “no.”

To us, that sounds like they’re just trying to build in a backdoor to not accept the majority of cancellations without at least trying to get you to pay the renewal rate for the next term, first.

3. Domain Name Not Free in Their Cheapest Plan

A free domain name is something that a lot of hosts offer with their hosting packages. Usually, it’s free for the 1st year and then you’d have to pay an extra fee.

WebHostingBuzz also offers a free domain name with most of its shared and reseller hosting plans.

But there’s a catch.

A free domain name is included only in their two more expensive plans (Developer and Business) and is valid only if you sign up annually. Their cheapest Personal Plan doesn’t have a free domain name included and it would have to be purchased separately (you’ll have to pay $10.99/year, and after a year, it renews to $14.99/year).

WebHostingBuzz Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

Here’s an overview of their shared hosting plans and pricing:

All their shared hosting plans come with cPanel, and you’ll be given a free domain name upon registration of a new account with them.

Quick Facts

• Free Domain: Not Free ($10.99/year). The free domain name is included in Developer and Business Plans.
• Ease of Signup: Very easy signup process.
• Money-Back: 45-day money-back guarantee.
• Payment Methods: Credit Card, PayPal, WebMoney, Dwolla.
• Hidden Fees and Clauses: Account termination can’t happen before ten days or after three days before the renewal date. You also can’t use more than 25% of their resources for over a minute or have 5,000+ files opened at the same time, or send over 200 emails in the span of an hour.
• Upsells: Few upsells.
• Account Activation: Quick activation.
• Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
• Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Quick installation of popular apps and CMSs via Softaculous.

Do We Recommend WebHostingBuzz?

Yes, we do.

WebHostingBuzz has performed pretty well in our tests. Uptime and page loading times have both been above average. Moreover, customer support is fast.

They have access to hundreds of applications for beginners, as well as the latest and great tech stacks for power users. Their 45-day refund policy is legitimate, too.

Their termination policy is written in a way that suggests you only have a tiny window to actually cancel before your card is charged again. And while the annual payment pricing is good, there’s no new customer discount to lock in an extremely low rate for the first three years.

We’re also not a fan of WebHostingBuzz not offering a free domain name with their cheapest plan.

Overall, they’re not quite good enough to make the TOP 10, but still a good choice.

Do you have any experience with WebHostingBuzz? If so, please leave a review below. We welcome all honest and transparent reviews – good or bad.