Making a choice about which web hosting provider to use is difficult. Everyone needs something different. To help with your decision, we have created this HostMetro web hosting review to give you a good idea about their hosting plans and what they offer for each one. Does HostMetro live up to their reputation as the best cheap cPanel web hosting around? Read on for more information on HostMetro, their pricing, security, usability, pros, and cons, and detailed HostMetro reviews.
HostMetro Service Overview
HostMetro claims to have an excellent customer service with cheap hosting options for those on a budget. They offer shared hosting only at very reasonable rates that are guaranteed to never go up for as long as you have the service. They also have a 99.9% uptime guarantee and will compensate you for any extended outages. If you need a domain name, you can register one for free when you sign up.
They promise that publishing your website means you just have to log in to your cPanel, choose your website builder, a template, then add your desired content. Finally, just make your website available on the internet. If you are coming from a different host, their support team make this transition easy for you.
Pricing Information
HostMetro offers two different plans: Mega Max Plan and Super Max Plan. Both plans are cheap, and you can pay even less if you sign up for a longer period of time. The major differences in these plans are the marketing, SEO, and security add-ons offered in the Super Max Plan, which will be explained below.
HostMetro claims to offer “Maximum” disk space and bandwidth. This is what most web hosting services call “Unlimited” or “Unmetered”. What happens is the hosting company allocates a set amount of resources that most (HostMetro claims 95%) of their customers will never reach. Once you hit that maximum amount, you can contact the hosting company to work out a way to get more resources. While HostMetro is very clear about having these limits, they never disclose what these limits actually are.
| Package Name | Dedicated to | Price | Disk Space | Bandwidth | Websites | Hosting Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Max Plan | Start up companies and blogs | $2.95-$4.95/mo | “Maximum” | “Maximum” | Unlimited | cPanel |
| Super Max Plan | Start up companies and blogs | $6.95-$8.95/mo | “Maximum” | “Maximum” | Unlimited | cPanel |
If you also want to sign up for MetroMail secure email, you have to pay $2.50/mo. For that price, you get unlimited secure email accounts, personal email addresses, secure webmail access, 10GB of total disk space, real time virus and spam filtering, and customizable spam settings.
Security & Risk
HostMetro offers the usual protection such as firewall protection and spam filtering for all of their accounts. If you sign up for the Super Max Plan, then you can have free domain privacy, which hides your registration information from a whois search. You can pay $6/year for extra domains or for a domain that is not on the Super Max Plan. The Super Max Plan also allows for Free SSL certificates and SiteLock security. If you want either of these on the Mega Max Plan, you’ll have to pay $2.50/month for each SSL or SiteLock seal that you need.
Usability & User Friendliness
Being able to use cPanel for the administrative back-end is a plus. They also offer several payment support options, such as Google Cart, Paypal, osCommerce, and ZenCart. The service allows FTP access and Server Side Includes (SSI).
If you want more than that, their Super Max Plan includes an SEO eBook, an SEO consultation, search engine submission, and SEO and marketing tools – all for free. All of these help you market your website in one location.
Their website is extremely easy to use and understand, so even beginners of web hosting can surf it and choose the best package for them without regretting it after. You get all of the information you need on the pages dedicated to their web hosting plans.
Customer Support & Additional Info
While their usability is good, their customer service leaves something to be desired. They claim to have the best customer service in the industry, but HostMetro reviews online tell a different story. When trying to contact a customer service or technical support agent, many former customers have confessed to not being able to get in touch with anyone there via phone or chat, which is what they offer for support. Those who have gotten in touch with a support associate have stated that they got little to no help. Below is the information they offer regarding customer service:
- Website: HostMetro.com
- U.S Toll-Free: 1-(800) 485-9730
- Emails: [email protected], [email protected]
- HostMetro Knowledgebase
HostMetro Service Overall Rating
Here are the quick and dirty facts about HostMetro we had to include in this HostMetro web hosting review.
What we like:
- Free Website Migration – While this is becoming more and more common, not a lot of hosts offer this for free for all of their hosting packages.
- Price Lock Guarantee – This is pretty rare among cheap hosting. Most will start low and multiply after the promotion, but not HostMetro.
What we don’t like:
- Inconsistant Customer Support – Some customers have had good experiences with HostMetro’s customer support, but the loudest reviews complain that they either can’t get in touch with customer service representatives, or they do not help at all.
- Uptime Troubles – Despite their 99.9% uptime guarantee, HostMetro has an uptime average of 99.76%, well below their guarantee.
- Slow Page Load Times – HostMetro’s average page load speed of 2,180ms is horrible. The average speed for the competition is 700ms.
- Only Shared Hosting – While they say they will increase the restrictions on resources should you exceed their unmentioned limits, HostMetro doesn’t offer any alternate types of hosting, which restricts growth.
Rating:
Web Hosting Package: 3/5
Security and Risk: 3/5
Usability & User Friendliness: 3/5
Pricing: 4/5
Customer Support: 1/5
HostMetro Top Alternatives
Here are some of the best alternatives for hosting if you’d like to find something similar.
- HostGator – At $3.95/month, you can get unlimited disk space and bandwidth for one domain. Need more websites? $2 more per month will get you just that. They also have a lot of room for growth, offering cloud hosting, VPS and dedicated servers, and even reseller accounts. The downside is that their pricing goes up after the promotional period.
- Bluehost – Bluehost is very comparable to HostGator in that they have shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS and dedicated servers, and reseller accounts for those that wish to expand or use a different type of hosting. Bluehost is less expensive, with $2.95/month as their promotional price. The biggest difference is that Bluehost’s lowest plan does not offer unlimited disk space.
- iPage – This host has one of the cheapest promotional prices at $1.99/month. They offer unlimited disk space, and domains and scalable bandwidth.Their plans also include FTP access and a cPanel administrative back-end.
HostMetro Reviews Verdict
Overall, we have to say we do not recommend HostMetro. The service is slow and unreliable. Their customer service has been reported spotty at best. There are plenty of cheap hosts out there at comparable prices and features, with even better reputations. Do you have a different experience with HostMetro? If you disagree with most HostMetro reviews, leave us a comment below.