Many providers of “low-cost” shared web hosting like Hostpapa advertise “unlimited bandwidth” — but it’s a scam, and you could end up with your website shut down and back-up functions blocked unless you pay higher fees. Don’t get burned. Learn from my experience.
In 2018-19, the web hosting provider Hostpapa suddenly without notice shut my website down completely until I paid higher fees. This seemed like a scam. I investigated and discovered that’s exactly what it was – and I was far from Hostpapa’s only victim. In this post, I summarize what I learned about this profitable scam aspect of Hostpapa’s regular business operations. I do it in a way that is understandable for non-technical people, and I then suggest key questions to ask before signing up with any “cheap” web hosting provider like Hostpapa.
Update April 2024: Since I first published this in 2019, hundreds of people have left comments and/or contacted me privately having the same problems with Hostpapa–they had small websites with low traffic but were being threatened and told they had to “upgrade” to much more expensive hosting plans. This has included a number of people and companies with significant expertise in web technologies, who said that they were able to technically audit activities on their own websites and determine that Hostpapa’s claims of excessive resource use were, simply, false. In addition, of those hundreds of people who left Hostpapa for another hosting provider, none have reported back to me that they ever had the same problems arise again. In light of this, I have updated the “technical discussion” section of my post.
Hostpapa gets generally good reviews. Learning #1: You cannot trust most reviews of web hosting providers. Search engines return “Reviews of…”, “Top ten…” and “Best…” lists very high in search results, so there are massive profits in posting such lists and reviews. Most reviews of the “best web hosting providers” are put together by a person or company that’s typically getting paid by the web hosting companies every time a visitor clicks through to the companies’ websites, and is paid more if the visitor signs up. So if a top-ten list gives a very bad review, it’s usually just because that particular company has no such “affiliate programs” with scam reviewers. (Reviews done by established, independent tech magazines are a better bet.)
I signed up for Hostpapa’s medium, “unlimited bandwidth,” shared web hosting plan that said they would “never charge higher usage fees” – so what could go wrong?
One day out of the blue I received an automated message from Hostpapa telling me that my website had been using up so much server resources that Hostpapa had shut my website down. I could not even access my website to manage it. The email said that I could regain access to my site if I started paying monthly fees that were ten times more than what I was currently paying.
Most people without technical knowledge probably just pay the higher fees. What choice do you have? But I had a little technical knowledge and a lot of suspicion. My WordPress blog on Hostpapa was small, and the traffic was very light. I contacted Hostpapa and explained this and reminded them I was on an “unlimited bandwidth” plan that said I’d “never be charged higher usage fees”.
Hostpapa staff said my “unlimited” plan wasn’t actually unlimited. They said the “bandwidth” was unlimited but not the “server usage”. Learning #2: The commonly advertised feature of “unlimited bandwidth” for shared web hosting plans is misleading.
For non-technical users, “bandwidth” can be understood as the width of a pipe, while “server usage”, is the amount of liquid your website sends back and forth through the pipe. Hostpapa sent me a link to their policy that described extremely tight, strict limits on “server usage” – the number of monthly drops my website was allowed to send through the pipe to web users. But this policy was never mentioned in Hostpapa’s ads or Terms of Service.
I persuaded Hostpapa to let me back into my website, and I tried to ensure that I had a backup of the content. However, Hostpapa was still throttling my website so heavily that, no matter what back-up tool I used, it would time out.
Hostpapa then sent me a list of technical tips to “correct the problems” that were causing my “excessive server usage.” I had to spend many hours researching to figure out how to implement them. I finally managed to implement them all — and it made absolutely no difference. Hostpapa shut my website down again.
Hostpapa then admitted to me that it was often the case that implementing their technical tips did not actually solve the problems. The “real” problem, their staff explained, was that WordPress has become so popular that it’s now a frequent target of hackers and malicious web-bots. These hackers and web-bots were overloading my website, they claimed. And even running WordPress firewalls and plugins like “Stop Bad Bots” might not help much, Hostpapa staff said, because they do not actually block the bad traffic from ever arriving.
For me, this just raised more questions. Isn’t bad traffic like this usually blocked at the server level, by the web hosting provider? After all, about 90% of emails circulating on the internet are spam, too. Imagine if an internet service provider refused to run spam-blockers and instead let all spam emails through to its clients and then charged its clients higher fees for all the extra email server space they were using each day. Hostpapa staff replied that they simply couldn’t keep up with blocking all of that bad traffic. They told me that, as a result, Hostpapa had set up an entire division dedicated to moving people with small WordPress sites off low-cost hosting plans onto higher-priced plans. Basically, they admitted that this scam is a major part of Hostpapa’s profit model–of course, they didn’t call it a “scam.” (Update 2024: A number of technical experts who have run into the same problems with Hostpapa have informed me that Hostpapa’s claims about these various “causes” and “solutions” are all technically implausible based on how shared hosting servers work–that’s why no actions ever solve the alleged “problems.” In addition, a number of readers forwarded this article to Hostpapa staff, who didn’t respond to any of it except to dismiss the post as “old.” Hence, another reason I’ve updated!)
I repeatedly asked to be allowed to talk to a supervisor or manager at Hostpapa, but my requests were refused.
I persuaded the Advertising Standards Council to investigate and they eventually concluded that Hostpapa was indeed engaged in false and misleading advertising.
In response to the findings of the Advertising Standards Council and another complaint I made through the Better Business Bureau, Hostpapa finally changed their advertising and Terms of Service to clarify that they will under certain conditions throttle websites, shut them down and charge higher fees (see their new ad below). However, the wording in their ad and Terms of Service “Disruptive Uses” section still make it sound like this will only ever happen if “you” engage in “abusive” activities or if “you” use “unusual” amounts of server space. Hostpapa has refused to clarify that, in fact, your site could be throttled and shut down under very ordinary conditions with no reasonable technical explanations for it.
I will never do business with Hostpapa again — I’ve found other web hosting providers that are nearly as low-cost and I’ve had no such problems. So here are some key questions to ask a provider if you are considering signing up for a shared web hosting plan:
- What are their actual server usage limits?
- Do they ever throttle client websites?
- Do they shut down client websites without notice?
- How do they deal with situations where a customer’s website may be crossing the server usage limits? And if a customer disputes that they’re crossing those limits, what resolution processes does the company have in place?
I’ve posted this just to be helpful to other people, not to make money. If you’ve found this post helpful, please post a link to it somewhere so that others are more likely to find it when they do searches. (And/or please leave a comment — if you don’t see my “Comments” section below, click on the title of this post and it should appear.)
Addendum 2024: I have not continued to research other web hosting providers, and my “list” of recommended, alternative, better providers has slowly whittled down to about two providers. I’m happy to email a recommendation to you if you ask in a comment. However, it appears that Hostpapa may be relatively rare in the scope of this scam it is running, even compared to other questionable providers; therefore, my main recommendation is to contact providers with the questions I’ve listed. That way, you let them know that people are wising up and looking for alternatives, and you get providers’ policies in writing. When you find a good one, feel free to let me know via email (I don’t want to turn the comments thread into a long list of “ads” for providers) and perhaps we can crowd-source a longer list again. Also, I encourage everyone having problems with Hostpapa to post a complaint to TrustPilot and the Better Business Bureau or other review places, summarizing this scam. If there are a lot of public complaints about this, others will hear about it — and who knows, Hostpapa might even change… You can go through a formal complaint process with the BBB, or simply post a comment here: https://www.bbb.org/ca/on/oakville/profile/web-hosting/hostpapa-inc-0107-1241393/customer-reviews. and at TrustPilot here: https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.hostpapa.com
Hi Rob
Have same issues with Hostpapa. Please, share your list of suggested alternatives
I’ve been with lunar pages, which is now host Papa. for 20 years and this year they are pulling that. Same little trick. I just it’s them today and I’m going to put it on my other server. And it’ll be interesting to see how much bandwidth I’m really using if it’s the same amount, then OK, but if it’s less then I will report them to the FCC.
I am also looking for alternatives – please share the 1 or 2 that you recommend. Best wishes.
Hi Rob, I’d like to tell you how grateful I am for your post here. I am in the process of creating a website for my startup business and was tempted to use HostPapa since it is a Canadian company and I assumed I’d be getting excellent speeds and service for my startup in Canada. However, I truly believe every word you said and I took the time to read other people’s reviews which were equally eye-opening. HostPapa ranks at the top in most Google searches and is recommended by questionable websites who, as you rightfully mentioned, get a cut every time there’s a hit or a sign up.
Please help me choose wisely and by no means will I hold you responsible for your suggestion. But because neither my background nor my experience is in any tech-related industries, I won’t be making a better choice on my own. So feel free to E-mail me with your top preferred domain-hosting service providers. Again, thank you for taking the time to write this thorough review and for updating it as needed.
Btw, my startup will be conducting business in Canada and the US and has an online e-commerce store with a very limited number of products. Nothing too fancy or complicated. My wife runs a store on Wix but I think they charge a lot considering what her needs are. That’s why I haven’t considered them for my startup. I had my eyes set on Siteground as one of the options and am still very reluctant to go with Godaddy because of all the shady practices they do when it comes to domain name registrations (cybersquatting) and auctions market, which is absolutely disgusting in my opinion. Namecheap is still an option but I don’t know much about the company. Please suggest a domain name registrar if you don’t mind. I truly appreciate your help.
I was a Hostpapa client for ten years with no issues. Then, from April this year, I started getting exactly the kind of messages that others have described: that I had exceeded my usage limits and would need to upgrade my service immediately at a cost of over 50% above what I currently pay. I am in the second year of a three-year contract, so this also means losing the third year of service with no compensation, as Hostpapa does not give refunds after 90 days. When I objected that my modest, little-visited website could hardly be exhausting Hostpapa’s resources, I was sent a grocery list of fixes I could apply to reduce my usage. I wasted my time implementing these, only to be told that they had not worked: the only solution was to upgrade. I’ll warn everyone that Hostpapa is very skilled at sounding smooth, reasonable and well intentioned. Don’t be fooled. It’s all a sham. Ultimately, my service was suspended in May for two weeks. They lifted the suspension when I insisted on escalating my case . (In fact, it was shunted laterally to another accounts manager who only made more bad-faith recommendations for reducing my usage, but Hostpapa likes to keep up appearances.) But they came back after me two weeks ago, suspending my account yet again. Despite my protests, my website remain down. I filed a complaint with the BBB today, we’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, Rob, thank you very much for opening this forum. And please send me the names of your trusted hosts, as obviously I will never do business with Hostpapa again.
This is happening to us now. They purchased our previous host, Jumpline and have completely screwed us over on the billing system. This was all in the last month. They have a ticket out on our account stating “overages” when we’re a low traffic account. I have a feeling that once billing gets with us on the ticket going currently, they’re going to try this crap.
Thanks for posting this. I almost signed up to the scam. I notice that you are not posting alternatives in Canada. Any hints as to the ones that are not scams?
Canada here as well. I looked up who’s behind HostPapa and found out he’s Ukrainian and has the flag of Ukraine next to his profile on X. With the amount of BS happening in Canada these days, I don’t think I would go with anyone who has a political affiliation and biews himself as anything else other than Canadian. In my humble opinion, it would be safe to not consider this business as a Canadian business. Just treat it as every other foreign business out there.
I see you’ve made your comment in July. Have you chosen a domain-hosting service provider or still searching? Would you mind sharing your suggestion with me if that’s ok? I’m not sure if Rob will respond to my comment or not. I hope he does. Thanks in advance.
Thank you for posting this. I was considering them for 3 websites for a non-profit. After sending a couple of questions to them by e-mail, I started getting messages back asking if we had made a choice yet. So I did some searching for “hostpappa review” and “scam” which is how I found this site. You just saved me a ton of headaches. I’m sorry so many others got burned by these guys, but your page is saving tons of other people out there. Thank you.
Got another e-mail from them asking if we were going to use their service. I sent them the link to this page noting we would not be. I got this reply claiming this page may be a paid -for article! I am surprised this is the claim when clearly there are many comments from a few years time expressing the same experience over and over again. I will credit the response for being professional and respectful. They didn’t get insulting or angry for the decision we made to not use them.
——————–
Hi XXXXXX,
Thank you for your reply.
I fully respect your decision.
Please note that such articles are posted sometimes as paid articles and the words behind them don’t always match the reality of the situation.
We never scam clients.
When one purchases a shared hosting, they need to comply with their plan limits – if they don’t, we reach out to them and give them options to resolve. We never force clients into upgrading their service, if there are other ways to resolve the actual issue.
There are negative reviews for every hosting company out there, which is inevitable.
Nonetheless, I do respect your decision.
I wish you good luck with the provider that you chose to go with.
Thanks for posting about your experiences! And for sharing my article with Hostpapa. For the record:
1) I’m a professional journalist and freelance writer (as my bio describes), but I’ve never been paid by anyone or by any company for this post about Hostpapa, and I’ve never written about any other web hosting services. I don’t advertise names of other hosting providers on this page, nor do I let commenters publish the names of hosting providers, so that readers can continue to rest assured of the honesty and veracity of everything here.
2) I and numerous other people have repeatedly brought this post to Hostpapa’s attention over the years, but Hostpapa has never officially reached out to provide any response at all.
3) On a few occasions comments have been left by Hostpapa staff or by people whom I suspected to be Hostpapa staff, giving a general, boilerplate response to the effect of ‘all of these commenters on this post really were overusing resources.’ However, when I asked these people to openly disclose their names as representatives of Hostpapa, and to answer follow-up questions, they declined. So I deleted their comments and invited them to have someone who could officially represent Hostpapa publicly and on the record contact me–and that has never happened.
Very interesting & insightful read, thank you.
After reading about your experience, I would be interested in hearing your recommendations for a hosting provider as I was considering hostPapa but I think you saved me a nightmare
Please don’t give them credit for being “professional and respectful.” The friendly, reassuring tone is a big part of the scam. What they are is slick.
Every possible way they tried to extort more money from me.
Constant emails, warning of reaching some “storage limitations” and demanding immediate signing up for more “services”
This canadian scam leader, is doing their most for alienating everyone everywhere.
Guess justin truedope is an example of how to ruing ones reputation and turning people again off
What a shihole this is
HostPapa is doing the same thing to me, claiming I’m using excessive resources while Google Analytics shows that I’m lucky to have 1-10 visitors per day. Do you have a recommended host provider I can move to? HostPapa suspended my account today!
I would like to receive your suggested alternatives to HostPapa please. I have been subjected to the same shakedown and they have now shut down my two sites!
Relieved to have found this before migrating to Hostpapa! I would appreciate any recommendations for low cost hosting providers, especially Canadian ones. Thank you!
I’ve also had the same problems with Host Papa. I’ve actually done the drastic step of making the site a static copy of a private WP site, and publishing in two steps, at great inconvenience. I would like to receive your list of suggested alternatives as well.