I got a notification today that SiteGround, the web hosting company that I use to host all my sites, are having a Black Friday sale with discounts of up to 75% off their hosting plans.
The discounts apply to their shared hosting plans, and are available from Friday 23rd to Monday 26th November 2018 inclusive, and might be worth looking at if you’re in the market for new web hosting.
I’ve been with them since February this year and have been very happy with their service – in particular the way they optimise performance of WordPress websites. My sites load so much more quickly than they did with my old host, and the integration with free SSL cert provider Let’s Encrypt is also welcome.
As a caveat, I would say that SiteGround already heavily discount their hosting plans all year round. Their standard discounts tend to be around the 65% mark, and so this Black Friday sale has to be seen in that context.
To make the most of this discount you need to consider if you can afford to prepay for your hosting for a number of years. If you are willing to pay for 2 or 3 years in advance, you will pay the discounted price for the whole of that period. But at the end of the discount period you go back to paying full price, which can be a big price jump.
For example, the GrowBig plan at present is charged at £14.95 per month. It’s currently discounted by 66% to £4.95 per month. Presumably during the Black Friday sale, that price after the 75% discount will be even lower such as around £3.75 per month. If you signed up for 1 year, you’d be paying 12 x 3.75 plus VAT (at 23% in Ireland) which is a total of £55.35 (approx €64).
However after the discount period, to stay on the same plan would cost you £220.66 (approx €253) at full price for the next year. That’s quite a hike, so it’s worth bearing this in mind before you sign up – particularly if you don’t relish the prospect of moving hosting providers again next year.
This isn’t the greatest sales pitch, but I prefer to be honest and up-front with people so that they are going into something with their eyes open. And along those lines I’d also like to declare that by clicking on any link to SiteGround in this post has the potential to earn me referral income.