Which Agency Hosting Price Is Real, and Which Resets Hard at Renewal?
ScalaHosting's Entry Cloud plan advertises $14.95/mo, then renews at $39.95/mo: 2.67x the intro rate. SiteGround's GrowBig plan advertises $4.99/mo, then renews at $29.99/mo: a 6.0x jump, the largest gap in this comparison of seven agency hosting providers. WP Engine advertises $30/mo but does not publish a renewal number at all. Three providers in this same set (Cloudways, Liquid Web, and Flywheel) show no promo-to-renewal split whatsoever in their current pricing pages.
For an agency pricing out hosting for a portfolio of client sites, that gap is not fine print. It is the difference between a hosting line item that stays put for three years and one that roughly doubles or triples by year two. This page lays out exactly which of the seven agency hosting providers HostingDive has captured pricing for run an intro-to-renewal gap, how large each gap is, and which providers do not use this pricing structure at all.
The Short Answer
SiteGround runs the largest percentage gap in this comparison (GrowBig at 6.0x, GoGeek at 5.6x). ScalaHosting runs a real but smaller gap on its cloud/SPanel line (2.67x on Entry Cloud), and separately shows three cPanel-branded tiers labeled "SAVE" that do not actually save anything at renewal. WP Engine's headline $30/mo is explicitly a first-year coupon price, but the renewal figure itself is not published anywhere HostingDive could find it. Budget for an increase of unknown size, not a specific number. Cloudways, Liquid Web, and Flywheel are the contrast case: none of the three shows a discounted first term followed by a step-up renewal in its current pricing. hosting.com cannot be scored on price at all. Its reseller tier pages show bare "Buy" buttons with no dollar figures attached.
The Intro-vs-Renewal Table
Structured asset: the table below is the core asset for this page: every entity where HostingDive's capture shows both an intro price and a renewal price, side by side, plus the multiple and the billing basis. Two rows are intentionally blank on renewal: WP Engine (renewal not disclosed) and hosting.com (no price disclosed at all, excluded from the table body and covered separately below).
| Provider / Plan | Intro Price | Renewal Price | Multiple | Billing Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ScalaHosting: Entry Cloud | $14.95/mo | $39.95/mo | 2.67x | "SAVE 63%" intro, default page state; term length (1mo/12mo/36mo) not confirmed by capture |
| SiteGround: GrowBig | $4.99/mo | $29.99/mo | 6.0x | "SAVE 83%" intro, prepaid 12 months |
| SiteGround: GoGeek | $7.99/mo | $44.99/mo | 5.6x | "SAVE 82%" intro, prepaid 12 months |
| WP Engine: Startup/Essential | $30/mo (first-year coupon) | Not disclosed | Unknown | Page's own asterisk: "Product renewal pricing subject to change," with no dollar figure given |
| Cloudways: Micro | $14/mo | $14/mo (no promo/renewal split found) | 1.0x | Flat monthly, DigitalOcean Basic server, no discounted first term in capture |
| Liquid Web: Silver (reseller) | $169/mo | $169/mo ("starting price," no promo/renewal split found) | 1.0x | No coupon or first-term discount language in capture |
| Flywheel: Freelance | $96/mo | $96/mo (billed at $1150/year, no promo language) | 1.0x | Annual-only billing, no monthly-pay option shown, no discount badge |
hosting.com is not in the table above. Its reseller tier pages (Reseller 30/60/120/150) render the price cell as a bare "Buy" button in every capture, including a same-session re-capture using a real Chrome browser channel specifically to rule out a bot-detection block. No dollar figure appears anywhere in association with those tiers. hosting.com ships unranked for pricing in this comparison. See the section below.
ScalaHosting: A Real Gap, and a Labeling Inconsistency Worth Naming
ScalaHosting's cloud/SPanel reseller line runs the same intro-then-step-up pattern across four tiers, not just Entry Cloud: Build #1 goes from $29.95/mo to $54.95/mo (1.83x), Build #2 from $44.95/mo to $96.95/mo (2.16x), and Build #3 from $69.95/mo to $170.95/mo (2.44x). Entry Cloud's 2.67x gap is the largest of the four, but the pattern (an "INTRO OFFER" badge followed by a real, higher renewal number) holds across the whole SPanel line.
ScalaHosting's three cPanel-branded tiers (Scala 1, Scala 2, and Scala 3) carry "SAVE 20%," "SAVE 13%," and "SAVE 9%" badges. But on each of the three, the intro price and the renewal price are identical: Scala 1 is $19.95/mo intro and $19.95/mo renewal, Scala 2 is $34.95/mo both ways, Scala 3 is $49.95/mo both ways. There is no actual price gap on any of the three cPanel tiers, despite the "SAVE" language on the page. This reads as a genuine site inconsistency rather than an editorial error on HostingDive's part, and it is worth knowing if a "SAVE" badge is steering a buying decision: on ScalaHosting's cPanel tiers, it is not describing a renewal discount.
One caveat on the Entry Cloud figures themselves: ScalaHosting's pricing pages show a term-length toggle (1-month / 12-month / 36-month options) directly above each displayed price, and the page's plain-text structure does not preserve which toggle position was active at capture. The $14.95/mo and $39.95/mo figures above are the prices shown in the page's default rendered state, not confirmed against a specific committed term length.
SiteGround: The Largest Gap in This Comparison
SiteGround's GrowBig plan is the single largest intro-to-renewal gap found in this comparison: $4.99/mo intro against a $29.99/mo renewal, prepaid for 12 months, a 6.0x multiple. GoGeek (the tier SiteGround's own page copy recommends for agencies that want to hide SiteGround branding from clients) runs $7.99/mo to $44.99/mo, a 5.6x multiple, also prepaid 12 months. Both carry explicit "SAVE" badges (83% and 82% respectively) and both state the renewal figure directly on the pricing page, unlike WP Engine below.
SiteGround's Cloud tier is excluded from the table above by design: it is priced "Starts from $100.00/mo" with no renewal figure or discount badge shown anywhere in HostingDive's capture, so no gap (or lack of one) can be confirmed for it.
WP Engine: The Renewal Number That Isn't There
WP Engine's Essential package lists its Startup tier at $30/mo, carrying an asterisk that leads to this footnote, quoted directly from the page: "First year pricing and associated coupons are valid for new customers purchasing Essential plans only... Product renewal pricing subject to change." That confirms $30/mo is a first-year price. It does not confirm what the second-year price becomes. No dollar renewal figure for the Startup/Essential tier appears anywhere on the page HostingDive captured.
The same $30/mo also appears alongside a separate line reading "Pay $350 today" directly under the price and above the purchase button, and $350 is not a clean multiple of $30 (12 x $30 = $360). The page does not explain that gap either. Budget for both an unstated renewal increase and a checkout total that does not map cleanly to the advertised monthly rate; do not assume either resolves in the buyer's favor without confirming current pricing directly at checkout.
The Contrast Case: Three Providers With No Promo-to-Renewal Split
Cloudways, Liquid Web, and Flywheel are grouped here deliberately, because none of the three shows the intro-then-shock structure at all in HostingDive's capture, and for an agency weighing multi-year hosting costs across a client portfolio, that absence is itself a real data point.
- Cloudways prices its Micro tier at $14/mo flat, with no coupon badge, no "renews at" language, and no discounted first term found anywhere on its pricing page.
- Liquid Web lists its Silver reseller tier at $169/mo as a "starting price," with the same figure showing no first-term discount or step-up renewal language in either of its two captured partner-program pages. (Liquid Web ranks in this comparison on merit but ships unmonetized. HostingDive's affiliate relationship with Liquid Web is retired, so this mention carries no link or button.)
- Flywheel bills its Freelance tier at $96/mo, shown as "Billed at $1150/year," with no monthly-pay option and no promo badge anywhere in the capture. Worth knowing if comparing it directly to WP Engine's plans above: Flywheel's own page footer discloses it is legally WPEngine, Inc., and the two are sibling products from the same parent, not independent competitors.
None of this means these three are cheaper than ScalaHosting or SiteGround in absolute terms: Liquid Web's $169/mo Silver tier and Flywheel's $96/mo Freelance tier both start well above ScalaHosting's Entry Cloud intro price, for instance. It means an agency that has priced hosting into a client contract based on the sticker price for Cloudways, Liquid Web, or Flywheel is working from a number that, per these captures, does not have a scheduled step-up built into it. For a buyer who weighs price predictability over the lowest possible entry number, that is a real point in these three's favor.
hosting.com: Cannot Be Ranked on Price
hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting) ships unranked for pricing in this comparison. Its Reseller 30/60/120/150 tier table is fully specified on accounts, disk space, IOPs, and RAM/CPU limits, but every price cell renders as a bare "Buy" button with no dollar figure, confirmed across three separate captures including a same-session recapture using a real Chrome browser channel to rule out a bot-detection block. No third-party or review-site price estimate is used here in place of hosting.com's own number. It simply is not part of this numeric comparison.
Who Should Care About This Gap
- Buy with the renewal number in hand if: the hosting line item is going into a client contract or a multi-year agency budget. A 6.0x renewal jump on SiteGround GrowBig, or a 2.67x jump on ScalaHosting Entry Cloud, needs to be priced into year two before a client sees the number, not discovered at the renewal invoice.
- Favor Cloudways, Liquid Web, or Flywheel if: predictable, flat pricing across years matters more than the lowest possible entry price. None of the three shows a scheduled step-up in HostingDive's capture.
- Get the renewal number directly from WP Engine before signing if: the $30/mo Startup price is part of the decision. The page's own footnote confirms the price changes at renewal; it does not say by how much.
- Skip hosting.com for now if: a firm, comparable price is a requirement for the decision. It is not available in the current capture, on any tier.
The Fine Print
A few mechanics worth flagging rather than glossing over: SiteGround's GrowBig and GoGeek renewal prices are tied to a 12-month prepay, not month-to-month billing: the "SAVE" percentage is off SiteGround's own list price, not an independent discount. ScalaHosting's Entry Cloud and Build tiers show a 1-month/12-month/36-month term toggle on the same page as the price, and it is not confirmed which term produced the $14.95/mo figure. WP Engine's $30/mo figure sits next to a "$350 today" charge that the page does not reconcile against the monthly rate. None of these ambiguities change the direction of the finding: they are reasons to confirm exact terms directly with each provider before committing a client budget to a specific number.
Verdict
Seven agency hosting providers, three different pricing behaviors: a hard renewal reset (ScalaHosting, SiteGround), an undisclosed renewal number (WP Engine), and no promo-to-renewal structure at all (Cloudways, Liquid Web, Flywheel). SiteGround's GrowBig carries the largest measured gap in this comparison at 6.0x. hosting.com cannot be scored on price at all. The providers worth the closer look are the ones whose sticker price and year-two price are the same number, and right now, that is Cloudways, Liquid Web, and Flywheel, not the two providers running the largest headline discounts.
Read the full ScalaHosting and SiteGround pricing breakdowns on HostingDive, or compare each agency hosting provider's intro and renewal figures side by side before locking in a client hosting budget.
Disclosure: HostingDive earns a commission when you buy through some of the links on this page, at no extra cost to you. Liquid Web and Flywheel are named here without any affiliate link or button: Liquid Web's affiliate relationship with HostingDive is currently retired, and Flywheel has no live tracking link at this time.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Does WP Engine disclose its renewal price?
- No. WP Engine's Startup/Essential plan page states the $30/mo price is a first-year coupon rate and that "product renewal pricing subject to change," but no dollar renewal figure is published anywhere on the page HostingDive captured. Budget for an increase of unknown size, and confirm the actual renewal rate directly with WP Engine before signing.
- Which agency hosting provider has the largest renewal price jump?
- SiteGround's GrowBig plan, at 6.0x ($4.99/mo intro to $29.99/mo renewal), is the largest gap found in this comparison. GoGeek, SiteGround's other reseller tier, runs a 5.6x gap ($7.99/mo to $44.99/mo). Both are prepaid 12-month terms.
- Are there agency hosting providers with no renewal price increase?
- Cloudways, Liquid Web, and Flywheel show no promo-to-renewal split in HostingDive's current captures: each prices flat (monthly or annual-only) with no discounted first term found on their pricing pages.
- Why doesn't hosting.com have a price in this comparison?
- hosting.com's Reseller 30/60/120/150 tier pages show bare "Buy" buttons with no dollar figures attached, confirmed across three separate captures including a real-browser recapture. No number exists to compare, so it ships unranked for pricing in this comparison.
- Is ScalaHosting's "SAVE" badge always a real discount?
- Not on every tier. ScalaHosting's cloud/SPanel tiers (Entry Cloud, Build #1-3) show a real intro-to-renewal gap behind their "SAVE" badges. Its cPanel-branded Scala 1, Scala 2, and Scala 3 tiers also carry "SAVE" badges, but the intro price and renewal price are identical on all three: no actual discount at renewal despite the label.