Two numbers govern what you pay for hosting: the introductory rate for your first term, and the renewal rate afterwards. Both are stated at purchase, and the second is the one you will actually live with.
Introductory and renewal rates
Hosting is sold with a discount on the first term. On Ahosting's WordPress plan the page states $2.79 introductory and $9.79 on renewal; the reseller plan states $7.79 and $14.79.
Neither number is hidden, and the discount is genuine. The mistake is planning around the first one.
Work out what year two costs before you buy. If that is acceptable, the discount is a real saving. If it is not, you have scheduled a migration for twelve months' time, which costs more in effort than the difference.
Term length
A longer term holds the introductory rate for its whole duration. A three-year term pays the introductory price for three years; a one-year term pays it once.
The trade is money committed upfront to a host you may not have used. If you are new to them, take a shorter term. The discount is still available when you extend, and the 30-day money-back guarantee limits the downside either way.
Automatic renewal is the safe default
Leave it on. An expired hosting account takes the site offline, and an expired domain can be lost to someone else entirely.
Two things are worth checking once, and they cost a minute.
The card's expiry date. An expired card is the most common cause of a failed renewal, and it fails silently. The charge simply does not go through.
Where notices go. Renewal reminders go to the billing email. If that is a mailbox on the site being renewed, a problem with the site takes the warning with it.
What happens if a renewal fails
Not immediate deletion. There is a sequence, and the distinction inside it matters.
Reminders go out before the due date. If payment fails, the account continues briefly. Then it is suspended; the site goes offline and mail stops, and every file, database and mailbox is retained. Paying restores it in minutes.
After a further period the account is terminated, and the data is deleted. That is not recoverable without your own backup.
So a missed renewal noticed quickly costs an outage. Noticed late, it costs the site.
Domains renew separately
A domain registration and a hosting plan are different products on different cycles, even when bought together. One can expire while the other is fine.
Domain expiry is the more serious of the two. After the expiry date a domain enters a redemption period during which recovering it carries a substantial fee, and after that anyone may register it.
Losing a hosting account costs a restore. Losing a domain can cost the business name, so it is the one to keep auto-renewal on for without exception.
Changing plans mid-term
Upgrading is normally prorated: you pay the difference for the remainder of the term. Downgrading mid-term usually does not refund the difference, so it is better done at renewal.
One thing worth knowing before planning an upgrade: Ahosting's newer product line runs on separate infrastructure, and plans on the older platform cannot be upgraded or downgraded into it. Moving across means placing a new order, migrating the data, and cancelling the old plan. The product line notice picks it up from there.
Cancelling
Cancel in the client area rather than by letting a payment fail. A failed payment produces suspension, reminder emails and eventually termination; a proper cancellation ends the service cleanly on the date you choose.
Take a backup first and store it off the server, termination deletes everything, and the request for a copy always arrives after the deadline. Creating backups in cPanel goes into taking a full account archive.
If the domain is staying with you, move its DNS before the hosting ends, or it stops resolving anywhere.
The refund window
The 30-day money-back guarantee covers the hosting service. Domain registrations generally are not refundable, because the registration fee is paid to a registry the moment it is made.
The domain remains yours and can be transferred elsewhere; the fee is what is spent, not the domain.
For the full annual figure rather than the line on the invoice, How to Estimate Hosting Costs and Avoid Surprises walks through what else belongs in it.
One invoice usually covers several products with independent dates, which is why the total rarely matches expectations. For reading it, see How to Read Your Hosting Invoice and What Renews When.
Read what you are actually being charged
The invoice is the authoritative record, and it frequently contains items the plan page does not mention.
Check three things on each one. The period it covers, since a renewal invoice dated today may be for a term starting next month. The individual lines, because domains, certificates and add ons renew on their own schedules and appear separately. And the currency, where a price quoted in one currency and charged in another attracts a conversion fee that is not on any page.
Keep them. A year of invoices is what lets you answer whether the cost has crept, and it is the record you need if a charge is ever disputed. Reading your hosting invoice goes into the detail.
Know the difference between cancelling and expiring
Two things end a service and they are not the same, which matters because the consequences differ.
Cancelling is a request. It usually takes effect at the end of the paid term, and the account continues until then. Expiring is what happens when a renewal fails and nobody acts, and it begins with a suspension.
The difference is that a suspended account still exists and can be restored. An expired one is eventually deleted, and the deletion is not reversible in the way a suspension is.
So an account you no longer want should be cancelled deliberately rather than allowed to lapse, since lapsing produces a period during which the site is down and the data is still being charged for. What to do before you cancel or move hosting covers the order.
The renewal that fails without telling you
Automatic renewal is a payment instruction, and the ways it fails silently are all on the payment side.
A card that expired between the attempt and the term end. A bank declining a recurring charge from a foreign merchant. A payment method that now needs the cardholder present to approve, which no automatic attempt can satisfy. And a notification sent to an address on the domain being renewed, which is unreachable once it lapses.
The last is the circular one worth closing today. Set the billing contact to an address that does not depend on the service being renewed, and check the card expiry at the same time you check anything else annually.