Speed & Performance
Pricing
Features
Customer Support
Inside This Article...
A2 Hosting Review Overview
A2 Hosting started their web hosting venture back in 2001. Initially, A2 Hosting was launched as more of a hobby, but now they’re proud to offer multiple data centers around the globe for shared hosting, reseller, VPS, and dedicated servers, which we’ll discover more about in this A2 Hosting review
They claim they offer blazing fast speeds, as well as offering reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers.
In my opinion, A2 Hosting offers great bang for your buck. Whilst they may not be top of the table in terms of speed and performance, they certainly present generous features and some of the best customer support I’ve personally experienced in the web hosting world.
In my in-depth A2 hosting review, I’ll be looking at the following areas:
- Pros and Cons
- Performance and Speed
- Features
- Pricing
- Customer Support
Does A2 Hosting Sound Right For You?
Speed & Performance
A2 Hosting has an uptime guarantee of 99.9%. On top of this, they offer an anytime money-back guarantee, so if they continuously let you down in terms of SLAs, you can cancel risk-free, and get your money back on a pro-rata basis.
I didn’t really have many expectations in terms of A2 Hosting’s performance. I knew they were a great web host for customer support, but I hadn’t heard much about speed and uptime. I signed up and monitored my website using UptimeRobot to get some history regarding my website’s uptime.
The results were in and I was shocked! 100% uptime over the last 30 days, with absolutely no downtime, recorded. I think I was surprised because I didn’t really have any expectations, so this was definitely a good surprise.
I was a little disappointed, however, with A2 Hosting’s server response time. There were multiple spikes in speed over the last 24 hours which gave my website an average time of 1022.11ms. That doesn’t feel too good and would make my website fall into the slow speed category.
Bitcatcha reckons my website performs quite well in terms of response times (this is based on a real-time test). However, the results show that my website would perform better in London, with a mere 10ms response time.
The majority of my website visitors are based where I am, in the U.S., and whilst the response times in these locations are good, I’m not sure why they are better in Europe!
This suggests that perhaps A2 Hosting have put my website on the wrong data center, so I’ll check that with them and keep you updated with my findings.
Pricing
A2 Hosting has 4 shared pricing plans, starting from $2.99 per month. However, this promotional price is only valid if you sign up triennially, bringing it to a total of $107.64.
If you wish to pay monthly, you’ll have to fork out $10.99 per month, which makes it some of the most expensive shared hosting I’ve come across.
Their renewal prices are steep too, for example, their $2.99 plan totalling $107.64 triples and costs a whopping $323.64 – eek! If you’re looking for a more affordable option, you may want to check out some cheaper web hosts.
- Startup: A2’s Startup plan is suitable for hosting one website, with plenty of storage and unlimited bandwidth, it’s ideal for small websites or blogs.
- Drive: With 2x more resources and unlimited websites, the Drive plan is a great choice for small businesses or medium-sized websites.
- Turbo Boost: Packing more of a punch, the Turbo Boost introduces some of A2’s faster performance and optimised features, as well as more power and NVMe storage. Suitable for medium-sized businesses and online stores.
- Turbo Max: This plan is their most expensive plan at $14.99, offering their fastest service, along with free backups, 20x faster speeds, 5x more resources, and of course their anytime money-back guarantee.
Features
As we’ve discovered so far in our A2 Hosting review, A2 Hosting’s pricing maybe a little more expensive compared to other hosts we’ve seen like iPage ($1.99 per month) and Hostinger ($0.99 per month), however, they offer so many features in comparison. For starters, all of their shared hosting plans include an anytime money-back guarantee, so if you’re not happy with something, you can cancel without losing a dime.
Some of my favourite A2 Hosting features include:
- Site migration: When you move from one web host to another (for whatever reason) it’s super helpful to be able to move all your website files over. Most people don’t know how to do this or find it simply overwhelming. A lot of web hosts charge for this service, however, A2 Hosting doesn’t. If you want your website files moved securely to A2 Hosting, you can count on them.
- SSD: An SSD is a solid-state drive. SSDs are much faster than HDDs, so you’re website will run faster and smoother with A2 Hosting. Again, this isn’t a feature that all web hosts offer; in 2023, I’d expect many more to jump on board as A2 Hosting has done.
- A2 Optimized: Much like SiteGround, A2 Hosting has its own in-house solutions to speed up your website. A2 Optimized offers performance boosts for WordPress and other 1-click software.
- Data centers: Web hosts provide services from all around the world. Some are specific to the U.S., others in Europe, and so on. However, searching for a web host means you need to take many factors into account, including features, value for money, and performance. A2 Hosting has 4 data canter locations worldwide, meaning you can choose the best one to suit your customer base.
- CloudFlare CDN: A2 Hosting is all about making your website better and faster. CloudFlare CDN is offered free as part of their shared hosting plans. A CDN delivers content in a more effective way from your server to your website visitors. Another bonus feature which means you can provide a better service to your audience.
Customer Support
This is where A2 Hosting really shines. In fact, I’m happy to say that A2 Hosting’s customer support is the best I’ve experienced, and I really want to shout about it! Before previewing A2 Hosting’s support behind the scenes, let’s take a look at their support options.
It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but A2’s FAQs are in-depth and very helpful. For starters, you can search their knowledge base for your own questions and answers, or you can select one of their obvious categories below that.
Their helpful resources section covers guides, policies, and more. This is a great place to go if you want to follow a step-by-step, or you’re not entirely sure where to begin with cPanel or WHMCS.
A2 Hosting has plenty of support options. You can contact them about your existing services, about sales enquiries, billing, call them or speak to them on live chat. There’s so much to choose from, I find this really helpful and above and beyond what most web hosts provide.
I wanted to give you a glimpse of what to expect from their live chat service. I clicked on their live chat option and was connected with an agent within a matter of seconds. I was quickly greeted and asked what the issue was.
The agent was quick to respond to my query and directed me to where I could read more information about their backup and restore options.
The agent was able to recommend the best plan for my needs, and restrained from trying to sell me the most expensive plan based on what I had said. This is reassuring that they can tell you exactly what’s recommended without trying to take all of your money.
Their customer support service was insanely quick, in the language that I speak, and overall helpful. They backed up all of their answers with more information and resources that I could look at which I found really useful.
It’s not just me that think A2 Hosting’s support is great. As well as being known for it, I popped onto A2 Hosting’s Twitter account to see what people were saying.
A2 Hosting Review Summary
Like all hosting providers, one may suit someone but not another. A2 Hosting is a great option if you’re seeking a web host that provides awesome customer support and lots of free features.
They are pretty much middle of the road when it comes to pricing, with shared plans starting from $2.99 per month, which is great value for money when you consider the features you get with that. However, watch out at renewal as the prices triple, making them not so much value for money.
Saying that their customer support is much faster and better than most hosts I’ve reviewed. They also provide a high level of security, so I’d definitely recommend A2 Hosting for people who care about customer satisfaction and protection for your website.
On the flip side, if performance is what you’re after and reliability, I’d consider SiteGround or BlueHost, as they outrank most others in this department.
I would urge people to think about A2 Hosting; more so because they offer an anytime money-back guarantee, so you can’t really go wrong if you try them and don’t like them.
Are You Ready to Try A2 Hosting?
Did you enjoy our A2 Hosting review? With an anytime money-back guarantee, A2 Hosting is a risk-free hosting provider with lots of features and low introductory prices. Why not give them a try?
A2 Hosting FAQs
Yes! A2 Hosting offer 24/7/365 support, including live chat. Their customer support is really incredible. They offer telephone and email support too.
A2 Hosting have 1-click installations, which means you can install CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc. It is literally as simple as clicking a button, then your WordPress site will be ready for you to create.
Yes you can! In most cases, A2 Hosting will migrate your website free of charge from your existing host to your new host with A2 Hosting. This is super useful as you can have all your website’s data and files moved across without any issues.
A2 Hosting’s money-back guarantee is one of the features that people flock to A2 Hosting for. Why? Because they offer an anytime money-back guarantee. You can cancel within the first 30 days to receive a full refund, or if you decide to cancel at any other time, your refund will be on a pro-rata basis.
User Reviews
A2 Hosting Pros:
- Anytime money-back guarantee, offering great reassurance and minimising financial losses if you decide to cancel
- Awesome customer support which is highly rated and available 24/7
- Great security options, with both digital and physical protection
- All shared hosting plans include free site migration
A2 Hosting Cons:
- Turbo servers (20x faster) aren’t available on their Startup or Drive plans
- Site optimisation tools and Turbo Cache are only available on Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans
