A2 Hosting Review -Fastest web hosting

A2 Hosting has been around since 2001 and they’re most known for their page loading speeds.

In fact, they have delivered some of the fastest server speeds we’ve seen over the past 24 months. Also, A2 Hosting has a strong uptime, which makes their hosting service reliable.

Their customer support is quick and helpful. The hosting plans are developer-friendly, and their “anytime” money-back guarantee is a unique feature.

A significant downside is the renewal rate, which jumps up aggressively after your initial period. However, if you need a fast web hosting service at relatively cheap upfront pricing ($2.99/month) with the ability to scale with your website growth. Then A2 Hosting might be an excellent option for you.

Here’s an in-depth look at A2 Hosting’s pros and cons after signing up, paying for their hosting service, and putting it to the test.

General Info & Hosting Overview

Pros of Using A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting is one of the best under-the-radar hosting companies you might not know about, but should.

Why?

Their speed is excellent, uptime is reliable, customer service is friendly, security features are plentiful, and refund policy is liberal. On top of it all, they’re even environmentally conscious.

Let’s take a detailed look at A2 Hosting’s many perks.

1. The Fastest Shared Hosting Provider We’ve Tested (305ms)

You see a recurring theme when you go to A2Hosting.com – speed.

And A2 Hosting is, in fact, fast. They’re the fastest shared hosting provider we’ve tested, and they’ve been that way for several years now.

That’s no small feat in a world where page loading times could be the difference between keeping a website visitor around or losing them to the competition.

A2 Hosting average load time:A2 Hosting average speed 2019-2020

2. Reliable Uptime of 99.98%

On top of being lightning-fast, A2 Hosting is also quite reliable.

They had some trouble a few years ago when their uptime struggled to reach the industry-standard of 99.94%. However, they’ve turned the problems around over the past year and achieved an average of 99.98% uptime. The total downtime of their servers was only 2 hours.

Last 12-month average uptime of A2 hosting:

October 2020 average uptime: 99.98%
September 2020 average uptime: 100%
August 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
July 2020 average uptime: 100%
June 2020 average uptime: 99.84%
May 2020 average uptime: 100%
April 2020 average uptime: 100%
March 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
February 2020 average uptime: 100%
January 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
December 2019 average uptime: 100%

November 2019 average uptime: 100%Live test site: hostingfacts-a2.com | Avg. uptime and speed: 24-months+

3. Friendly & Helpful Customer Support

A2 Hosting provides 24/7 support through live chat, email, and phone. They also have a vast knowledge base if you prefer to find an answer yourself or learn something new.

We tested their customer support over the live chat and got connected with a representative in under a minute. We asked a bunch of questions and received straightforward answers to all of them. However, before you connect with an agent, you need to leave some contact information with them, so be sure to be okay with that.

Overall, it was a great support experience.

4. 24/7 Server Monitoring and Malware Scanning

The best way to keep your site safe is by preventing issues before they break out. But, extra scanning, firewalls, or layers of encryption can often slow users down. This isn’t the case with A2 Hosting. They can still perform at the highest level while giving you loads of additional security features.

A2 Hosting servers are protected by “HackScan,” a 24/7-monitoring service that scans for malware and other attacks.

Their data centers are also scalable, meaning you’re protected if a denial of service attack (DDoS) breaks out. These attacks attempt to flood your servers with traffic and knock your site offline. So A2 Hosting has got your back to handle sudden, unexpected surges.

5. Free Site Migrations (1-25 Depending on the Plan)

A2 Hosting offers to move a single existing website over to their servers without extra charge on all plans.

With the shared hosting plan, if you have multiple websites that you want to migrate, it costs $10/site extra. However, if you’re going with the Reseller, Dedicated, or Managed VPS hosting, you get 25 free site migrations. Their terms of service spell everything out in detail.

To take advantage of this, you need to reach out to their customer support department and give them your cPanel account credentials.

If your websites have any other control panel than cPanel, they might take a small fee for the extra work.

6. Content Management Systems (CMS) and Developer-Friendly Tools

A2 Hosting works seamlessly with all major content management systems.

You can install a WordPress, OpenCart, Drupal, Joomla, or Magento site with just a few clicks and don’t need a developer to do that.

A2 Hosting also has performance-enhancing plugins to make these CMSs faster, starting from the “Turbo Boost” plan. You get a free Cloudflare CDN with all hosting packages that further contribute to speeding things up.



Suppose you’re a webmaster or agency looking to host dozens of sites under one roof. In that case, A2 Hosting comes with developer-friendly tools. You can get admin-level access on servers, free server rewind backups, and multiple versions of everything from PHP to MySQL, Apache, Python, Ruby, etc.

A2 Hosting also has a website builder, appropriately named A2 SiteBuilder. However, it isn’t included in the standard hosting plans and is priced separately.

7. Anytime Money-Back Guarantee

Most hosts that we’ve reviewed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, A2 Hosting has gone further than that and provides an “anytime” money-back guarantee.

This means that you still get a full refund within the first 30 days. But, if you find the service not suitable, you can cancel anytime and receive a prorated amount back for the remaining time you’ve prepaid.

However, there are a few snags.

The first is that any refund request past the initial 120 days is issued through PayPal. Another is that ‘additional’ services like domain registrations, setup, or migration fees are nonrefundable. You get to keep anything that’s not refunded, though, for example, your domain name.

8. Green Web Hosting

A2 Hosting’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is known as “Tree Town.” They reportedly have 50,000+ trees and 150+ parks. So A2 feels a moral obligation to help protect the planet from global warming.



They have partnered with Carbonfund.org to help support renewable energies and reforestation. They also have a “FutureServe” green hosting initiative in place to help offset emissions from their servers.

This probably isn’t a deciding factor to sign up for a web host. But, knowing the company you’re working with cares about the environment is a nice extra perk.

Cons of Using A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting has many perks going for them, but we also found a few issues.

Here’s a look at each of these downsides in detail.

1. High Renewal Rates (And a 15-Day Deadline)

A2 Hosting offers lower prices with long-term plans. They also have introductory prices with their plans when signing your first term with them, which lowers the regular price for more than half.

This sweet deal ends after the initial period when the automatic renewal kicks in at the “regular” pricing. The renewal pricing is roughly double the monthly average price you first paid.

It gets worse.

According to their terms, you have to submit a written cancellation request “15 days before the beginning of the Renewal Term” through their customer portal or by emailing them at billing@a2hosting.com.

What happens if you miss this 15-day window? You will be on the hook for paying the next renewal plan, which will renew automatically, and you’re not eligible to receive any refund.

2. Restrictions on the Cheapest Plan

The introductory price for A2 Hosting’s cheapest shared hosting option (“Startup”) is currently $2.99/month (66% off the regular price). That’s not the lowest pricing we’ve seen, but it’s pretty good.

But, there are multiple restrictions to that lowest costing plan. You only get a single website, 100GB of SSD storage, and there are missing features like automatic backups and server rewind. The next tier plan already gives you unlimited websites and SSD storage, free automatic backups, and 2x more resources, starting at $4.99/month.

It makes you wonder if the cheapest plan is just there to promote a low price when the actual useful features for creating a site start at a bit more expensive plan.

The same issue applies to their website builder plan. The cheapest option with the same price of $2.99/month only gets you a single page — not nearly enough to create an actual website.

A2 Hosting Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

A2 Hosting has four pricing tiers for its shared hosting:

Quick Facts

• Website migration: 1 migration included.
• Free Features: SSL, CDN, and DNS.
• Ease of Signup: Three-step signup. Not too difficult.
• Payment Methods: Credit Card, PayPal, Check or Money Order, Bank Transfer, Skrill, UnionPay, and PayU Latam.
• Hidden Fees and Clauses: Renewal rates are higher than the introductory period. You have to cancel 15 days before the renewal period; otherwise, you’ll get automatically charged. Domain name purchases are not refundable.
• Upsells: Some subtle upsells along the signup process.
• Account Activation: Instant Activation.
• Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
• Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): The option to install WordPress and other popular CMSs option is available at checkout.

Do We Recommend A2 Hosting?

Yes, we do.

A2 Hosting has consistently delivered best-in-class speed for the last several years. They’ve also improved on server uptime, which is now more reliable. Their customer support is friendly and helpful, and all shared plans come with a free SSL certificate and one free migration.

And if you run into issues at any time while being a customer, you can ask for a refund on the prorated balance of unused time.

The only significant downside is that renewal rates are high, and the strict terms after the initial period aren’t generous. Plus, if you’re paying for the most expensive shared plan to host unlimited websites (“Turbo Max”), they still only give you one free site migration.

Those final details might not work for some people, so while A2 is quite good, it’s not the best we’ve seen, either.