Migration guide
How to migrate from Hostinger to UpperLevel
Hostinger is a budget shared/WordPress host (low intro pricing, long lock-in terms). If you have decided it is time to go, here is exactly what the move looks like: five steps, four of them ours. Our team does the hands-on work for free, you approve a preview, and your visitors never notice the switch.
- 111 5.0-star reviews
- Since 2016
- Human support in under five minutes
Why people make this move
What pushes Hostinger customers to switch
If you are leaving Hostinger over the 3 to 4x renewal jump, the AI-bot support wall, and shared-tier slowdowns, UpperLevel offers free migration, sub-5-minute real-human support (no bot loop, no phone-line dead-end), and flat pricing that never balloons at renewal, backed by a track record since 2016 and 111 perfect 5.0-star reviews.
Renewal price shock. Intro rates jump 3 to 4x (Premium $2.99 to $10.99/mo, Business $3.99 to $16.99/mo). The deal is only good if you pre-pay for 2 to 4 years, and renewal charges can hit weeks before the term ends.
No phone support. Support is live chat and email only. Reaching a human is a frequent frustration, especially during urgent outages.
AI bot wall. Kodee (the AI agent) loops and intercepts before you reach a person. Users report scripted responses, repeated follow-ups, and agents who take longer than advertised on billing and technical disputes.
Also cited by departing Hostinger customers
- Abrupt account or domain suspensions. Documented cases of legitimate sites being flagged for abuse or phishing and permanently suspended with denied backups and refunds (multiple Hacker News and Trustpilot reports, including a $200k data loss thread).
- Shared-tier performance ceiling. Entry plans run on slower shared infrastructure with limited CPU and RAM. Sites often need LiteSpeed Cache plus a CDN to hit acceptable TTFB and LCP, and migrated sites can inherit those speed issues.
Want the full cost and support comparison? Read UpperLevel vs Hostinger
Before you start
Check your Hostinger renewal date first
The single most expensive migration mistake is timing: getting auto-renewed into another term days before you leave. Here is how Hostinger handles renewal, from sourced, dated references:
Intro pricing is steeply discounted (often 75 to 81 percent off) and renews at 3 to 4x the promo rate. The official pricing page lists Premium renewing at $10.99/mo (from $2.99) and Business at $16.99/mo (from $3.99). Cloud Startup renews at about $25.99/mo (from $7.99). Third-party analyses document renewal increases of about 234 percent up to 300 percent or more on some plans, and users report renewal charges hitting weeks before the term actually expires and the free domain reverting to full price in year two. Renewal pricing shock is consistently the single most-cited complaint across review platforms.
Details are reviewed before publishing, but figures change. Confirm your own renewal date and rate inside your Hostinger account before you schedule the move.
The plan
Leaving Hostinger in five steps
This is the whole process. You do step one, share access in step two, and approve the preview in step four. We do the rest.
- Step 1
Start your UpperLevel order and tell us about your Hostinger setup
Pick a plan, or call and we will help you choose. Tell us your domain, that you are coming from Hostinger, and anything unusual about your site, like a store, a membership area, or custom code. That is all the preparation there is.
- Step 2
Hand us your Hostinger login or a recent backup
We need a way to fetch your site: either temporary access to your Hostinger dashboard or a full backup export. Credentials are used only for the move, and we confirm with you before touching anything.
- Step 3
We copy your files, database, and email
Our team copies everything off Hostinger onto NVMe storage tuned for your site: files, database, and mailboxes where they apply. You keep working as usual, because your live site stays untouched while we work on the copy.
- Step 4
Review your site on a private preview
Before anything changes publicly, you get a preview link to click through your migrated site. Forms, store checkout, logins, we test them with you. Nothing goes live until you say it is right.
- Step 5
We flip DNS with no downtime, then you cancel
When you approve, we point your domain at UpperLevel with a cutover timed so visitors never see an outage. Only after your site is verified live should you cancel the old Hostinger plan, so there is never a gap.
Worth having handy before step two: your Hostinger dashboard login, access to wherever your domain is registered (for the DNS update), and any wp-admin credentials for the site itself. Missing one? Start anyway — we will find the path together on the phone.
After the move
What week one looks like on this side
The move is the start, not the finish. From the first night, daily backups run with 30-day retention, your SSL certificate renews itself, and malware scanning with unlimited removal watches the site you just brought over. Your invoice will read the same number next year, because the renewal price is the signup price. And when you have a question, the people who physically performed your Hostinger migration are the same ones answering the phone in under five minutes.
All included, all free
What moves with you
- Your full site: files, themes, plugins, and uploads
- Your database, copied and checked row for row
- Permalinks and internal URLs preserved, so search rankings carry over
- Mailboxes and forwarders, where your email lives with your host
- PHP version matched to what your site runs today
- Free SSL issued and forced before the cutover
- DNS handled for you, timed for zero downtime
- A human on the line the whole way, in under five minutes
Questions
The Hostinger move, answered
- How long does a Hostinger migration take?
- Most moves are finished within a day of us getting access, and we agree the timing with you up front. Larger or more complex sites can take longer, and we tell you that before we start, not after.
- Do I need to cancel my Hostinger account first?
- No, and please do not. Keep Hostinger active until your site is verified live on UpperLevel, so your site and email never have a gap. Once you confirm everything works, cancel the old plan and keep the difference.
- Will my site go down during the move?
- No. We work on a copy while your current site keeps running, test that copy on a private preview, and time the DNS cutover so visitors are never staring at an error page.
- What does it cost to leave Hostinger?
- Nothing on our side: the migration is free, with no per-site fee. Check your Hostinger renewal date before you start, because cancelling right after an auto-renewal usually means asking them for a refund instead of just not being charged.
- Can I move more than one site off Hostinger?
- Yes. Freelancers and agencies regularly bring batches of client sites across. Tell us the inventory up front and we sequence the moves so nothing overlaps, with each site getting the same preview-then-cutover treatment. Our Pro tier covers up to three sites.
Moving from somewhere else?
Guides for other hosts
Ready to be done with Hostinger?
Free white-glove migration, human support in under five minutes, and a 45-day money-back guarantee. Start today and your site can be moved, tested, and live before your next Hostinger invoice.