HostGator is one of the cheap shared hosting companies for beginners to start hosting their blog. It offers all necessary features to host your WordPress blog with one-year free domain. You can also purchase a paid email plan from Microsoft Office or Google Workspace to manage everything in one place. However, if you are not happy with their services you need to manually cancel them to avoid automatic renewal. In this article, we will explain how to cancel auto renewal in HostGator for domain and hosting plans.
Auto Renewals in HostGator
The problem with HostGator is that all the purchases will automatically renew after the end of billing cycle. Even you pay with PayPal, there is an option to setup automatic recurring payment while purchasing. There are lot of situations that you may forgot the renewal date or do not want their service anymore. For example, you may plan to migrate to another hosting company like SiteGround and want to close your HostGator account.
If you do not want to be charged, then the only option is to cancel the auto renewal process. Unfortunately, there are different processes for domains and hosting plans, and we will explain both in this article. If you are looking for cancelling auto renewal in Bluehost, check this article.
Why You Need to Cancel HostGator Plans?
Renewal price rate is one of the biggest problems with shared companies like HostGator. Though the initial contract rates are attractive, the renewal rates are multiple times higher than the first-time payment. For example, HostGator’s lowest shared hosting Hatchling plan will cost you $2.75 and you can see a small * on their price tags. You can click on the price to see a pop-up showing the prices are only valid for introductory offer. However, it will never show you the renewal rate for the plan.
To find the renewal rate, click on the “Buy Now” button and go to their signup page. Here, you can select the package and billing cycle to see the introductory price and the renewal price. For their “Hatchling” plan, you can see the first-time payment for 36 months contract is $2.75 per month which will renew at $6.95 per month. This is 150% increase in your initial payment, and you should be ready to pay for this amount to continue hosting your website.
Another problem is the one-year free domain that you get with any hosting plan. This free domain will be set to auto renew in your account and you will be charged even if you are not using that domain in your account.
Cancel Auto Renewal of Domains in HostGator
Whether it is a free domain, or you have purchased a domain from HostGator, you need to manually cancel the auto renewal.
- Login to your HostGator hosting account.
- Go to “Domains” section to view the list of domains you have purchased through them.
- You can find the details like renewal, lock, privacy along with the domain expiration date for each domain.
- Click on the “More” button against the domain you want to cancel to view additional details.
- “Auto Renew” is the last option where you can see the current status is “On”. Click on the “Change” link next to the status.
- It will show the auto renew options along with an option to extend the renewal of your domain.
- Turn off the button to enable “Auto-Renew OFF”.
- Click “Save Auto-Renew” button to save your changes.
After cancelling your auto renewal, make sure that status of “Renew” is showing as blank in the domain list.
Surprisingly, HostGator will not send any emails when you cancel your domain’s auto renewal. You may get reminder emails when the expiry date is approaching which you can ignore.
Cancelling HostGator Hosting Plan
While you have an option to turn the renewal off for domains, hosting plans work differently. You need to cancel the hosting package in order avoid automatic billing from HostGator.
- Go to “Hosting” section from the sidebar to view all your hosting plans purchased from HostGator.
- Click on the “Manage” link below your primary domain.
- You will land on a hosting detail page and go to “Billing” tab.
- Click on the “Cancel Package” button showing at the bottom of the page.
- You will be asked to provide the reason for cancelling your hosting plan. Choose one of the options from the list or type your own reason in the “something else” text box. Click on “Continue” button to proceed further.
- Finally, you will see an option to call their customer service or chat with a support representative to resolve your problems. You can follow one of these options if you want to continue with HostGator.
- If you decided to quit, then click on “Finish Cancelling” button to cancel your hosting package.
This will cancel the auto renewal and your account will be active till end of the current billing cycle. HostGator claims processing of this cancellation request may take up to 72 hours. Hence, you may need to wait for few days to get a confirmation on your cancellation. Keeping this factor in mind, make sure to cancel your account in advance to avoid cancelling account after being charged.
It’s an irony that when you purchase a hosting plan you can finish the entire purchase in a single page. However, for cancelling you need to go through different pop-ups with lot of hassle.
Cancelling PayPal Payment Setup
HostGator accepts PayPal as one of the payment methods in addition to credit/debit cards. When you choose PayPal for payment, you have two options to go with. One is to use “Payment Agreement” and other is to use “One-Time Payment”. Make sure to select “One-Time Payment” to avoid auto renewal of your services.
If you have setup “Payment Agreement” then you need to go to your PayPal account and cancel the recurring payment to HostGator. Follow the guidelines in this article to cancel PayPal agreements to stop auto renewal.
Points to Note
- Though it says, “Cancel Package”, it will essentially cancel the renewal of your hosting plan. You can continue to use hosting account till the end of your current billing cycle.
- You can also remove all payment methods by going to “Billing” section a to avoid any payments.
- HostGator offers 45 days moneyback guarantee for new purchases. So, make sure to claim your refund if you are cancelling within 45 days. However, this is not applicable for auto or manual renewal. Hence, you need to be careful in cancelling the services before being charged.
- Cancelling hosting package will not affect your domain registration. You need to cancel the auto renewal of domains separately as explained above.
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