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A2 Hosting has not traded under that name since April 2025. World Host Group bought it in January of that year and renamed it hosting.com. The same A2 Hosting figures set against Newfold Digital’s Bluehost are in our Bluehost and A2 Hosting comparison.
It is also the dearer of these two by $336.00 across three years, and the one of them anybody has measured.
Three Totals, and A2 Is Dearest
SiteGround StartUp costs $251.64 across three years on its 24-month term, and $467.64 on its annual one.
A2 Turbo Boost costs $587.64. That is $336.00 above the cheaper SiteGround term and $120.00 above the dearer one.
A2’s multiplier over twelve months is milder, at 3.0 against 6.0. However, it starts from $6.99 rather than $2.99, and a mild rise from a high base still lands high.
The Short Answer
SiteGround on price, A2 on evidence. We score them 3.9 and 3.3, and the cheaper one is the one we cannot check. The same A2 Hosting figures against a Cloudways server are in our Cloudways and A2 Hosting comparison.
That is an uncomfortable sentence to write on a page with affiliate links, so we have put it near the top.
What Happened to the A2 Name
World Host Group completed the acquisition in January 2025. The rename to hosting.com followed in April.
Reviews published well after that still describe the company as independently owned. That was true once and stopped being true.
For a buyer it means the name on the invoice is not the name searched for. We set out the same rename in another comparison.
The Dearer Host Is the Documented One
A2 records 150 to 198 milliseconds across 2026 studies, with LiteSpeed on its Turbo tiers.
No response time or uptime figure for SiteGround appears anywhere in our tables. Every SiteGround comparison we publish runs into the same gap. The same A2 Hosting figures against Kinsta are in our Kinsta and A2 Hosting comparison.
Ownership is the same story. A2 sits in our Who Owns What table with a date and a parent company, and SiteGround has no row there at all.
So we rank the checkable host lower and ask you to pay more for it. That is a statement about our research rather than about either company.
Both Multiply, and One Starts Higher
SiteGround raises StartUp from $2.99 to $17.99 after twelve months. A2 raises Turbo Boost from $6.99 to $20.99 over the same period.
Read as multipliers over twelve months, 6.0 looks far worse than 3.0. Read as monthly rates, $17.99 and $20.99 sit three dollars apart.
Therefore the multiplier misleads here. What matters is the renewal rate itself, and every rate sits beside its term for that reason.
| Host and plan | Intro → Renewal | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| IONOS Plus | $1.00 → $14.00 | 14.0× over 12 months |
| SiteGround StartUp | $2.99 → $17.99 | 6.0× over 12 months |
| SiteGround GrowBig | $4.99 → $29.99 | 6.0× over 12 months |
| SiteGround GoGeek | $7.99 → $44.99 | 5.6× over 12 months |
| ChemiCloud Starter | $2.49 → not published | Renewal shown at checkout only |
| Scala Hosting Mini | $2.95 → $11.95 | 4.1× over 12 months |
| DreamHost Launch, annual | $2.89 → $10.99 | 3.8× over 12 months |
| Hostinger Premium | $2.99 → $10.99 | 3.7× over 48 months |
| Bluehost Starter | $3.99 → $11.99 | 3.0× over 12 months |
| A2 Hosting Turbo Boost | $6.99 → $20.99 | 3.0× over 12 months |
| HostGator Hatchling | $3.75 → $10.99 | 2.9× over 36 months |
| GoDaddy Economy | $5.99 → $15.32 | 2.6× over 36 months |
| Bluehost Starter | $3.99 → $9.99 | 2.5× over 36 months |
| Namecheap Stellar | $1.98 → $4.88 | 2.5× over 12 or 24 months |
| Namecheap Stellar Plus | $2.98 → $6.88 | 2.3× over 12 or 24 months |
| Namecheap Stellar Business | $4.98 → $9.88 | 2.0× over 12 or 24 months |
| DreamHost Launch, 4-year | $2.89 → $7.99 | 2.8× over 48 months |
| DreamHost, eligible US nonprofits | One shared plan free for the account's life | 501(c)(3) or (c)(19); help article, checked 10 Jun 2026 by a nonprofit directory |
| Bluehost Business | $6.99 → $13.99 | 2.0× over 36 months |
| Bluehost Starter, second reading | $1.99 → $8.99 | Hostingstep, July 2026; conflicts with Bluehost's help page |
| Hostwinds Basic | $4.54 → $6.99 | 1.5× over 12 months |
| WP Engine Startup | $27.00 → $35.00 | 1.3× over 12 months |
| Rocket.net Starter | $25.00 → $30.00 | 1.2× over 12 months |
| InterServer Standard | $2.50 flat | 1.0×, price lock |
| Cloudways, from | $14.00 flat | no promotional term |
| Kinsta Starter | $35.00 flat | no promotional term |
| Liquid Web managed VPS, annual billing | $33.00, no promotional term | No increase described on annual billing |
| Liquid Web managed VPS, monthly billing | $36.00 → $72.00 reported | 2.0× over one month; one pricing guide, disputed |
| GreenGeeks Lite | $2.95 → $13.95 | 4.7× after one term; renewal was $12.95 before 2026 |
| ChemiCloud Starter, third-party figures | $9.95, $11.95 or $12.95 quoted | Sources disagree; 4.0× to 5.2× over 36 months |
| SiteGround StartUp, by term | $2.99 → $14.99, $17.99 or $24.99 | 5.0× over 24 months, 6.0× over 12, 8.4× month to month |
| ChemiCloud Kickstart, reseller | $8.99 → $29.95 | Term not stated in the source we read |
| InterServer reseller | $19.95, price locked | No increase described in sources |
| GreenGeeks reseller | $19.95 with WHMCS included | Promotional rate; renewal not published |
| Hostwinds white-label reseller | $10.00 with WHMCS included | Plain reseller plan excludes WHMCS |
| InMotion Core, 36-month term | $3.19 → $10.99 | 3.4× over 36 months; TechRadar, 2026 |
| InMotion Launch, 36-month term | $4.99 → $13.99 | 2.8× over 36 months; TechRadar and plan cards, 2026 |
| InMotion Core, by term | Renews at $10.99, $11.99 or $14.49 | Longest term lowest; one review, May 2026 |
A2 also sells lower tiers where sources disagree about whether LiteSpeed runs at all. The figures above apply to Turbo Boost.
What Sources Dispute About A2
The plan structure. One 2026 review says LiteSpeed runs only on Turbo tiers while standard tiers use Apache. Another says the rebrand moved it everywhere.
Telephone support. One review lists it as a strength. Customers writing in the same period say the numbers were removed.
We could not settle either, so we print both sides. The full review adds a third dispute about refund terms.
Where Neither Is Ahead
Our tables record no refund window for SiteGround and a disputed one for A2. Neither can be compared.
Both answer a telephone by their published channels, though A2’s is one of the disputed points. Our Support table records channels only, because no timed figure exists for either.
So the categories that decide most comparisons here decide nothing, and the four questions worth asking are elsewhere.
How We Research
Every figure here comes from our own tables, each row naming the source that published it, checked on 12 September 2026. Three figures are arithmetic on those rows: $587.64 is 12 at $6.99 then 24 at $20.99, $336.00 is the gap to $251.64, and $120.00 is the gap to $467.64.
Where a table holds no row for a host, we say so rather than filling the gap. We run no tests of our own. Our criteria are on our About page.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting FAQ
SiteGround, on either term. Its StartUp plan costs $251.64 across three years on the 24-month term and $467.64 on the annual one, against $587.64 for A2 Turbo Boost.
No. World Host Group acquired it in January 2025 and renamed it hosting.com in April that year. Reviews published afterwards still describe it as independently owned.
Only A2 has been measured in our tables, at 150 to 198 milliseconds across 2026 studies with LiteSpeed on its Turbo tiers. No response time for SiteGround appears at all.
Because A2 starts higher. SiteGround rises from $2.99 to $17.99 after twelve months while A2 rises from $6.99 to $20.99 over the same period. The renewal rates end three dollars apart.
Two things. Whether LiteSpeed runs on standard tiers or only Turbo ones, and whether telephone support still exists. One 2026 review lists the phone line and customers say it was removed.
The Verdict
SiteGround, by $336.00 across three years on its better term. A2 is dearer at every term either host sells.
In short, price decides this one because nothing else can. A2 carries the only measurements, the only documented owner, and three disputes we could not settle.
Whichever you pick, confirm the A2 plan structure directly. A company that changed its name eighteen months ago is still being reviewed under the old one.