Of the sixteen hosts we have reviewed, IONOS has the steepest renewal we have recorded. Its entry plan advertises $1/mo and renews at $8/mo — an 8.0x rise — and the intro rate holds for 12 months only. That is what makes people migrate from IONOS to Hostinger: not the first bill, which is almost free, but the second one.
Over 36 months IONOS costs $204. Hostinger's entry plan is $2.99 renewing at $8.99 — a near-identical renewal figure — but it locks the intro rate for 48 months rather than 12, so the same three years costs $108. The whole difference is the length of the lock, not the size of the discount, which is the single most under-read number in hosting.
Why the lock matters more than the discount
An $1 intro rate held for 12 months saves you $84 in year one and then costs you $96 a year for two years. A $2.99 rate held for 48 months costs slightly more up front and nothing extra afterwards, because the term outlasts the window you are budgeting for. Put crudely: IONOS's discount is larger and Hostinger's is longer, and over any realistic period the length wins. There is a fuller version of this argument, with all sixteen hosts ordered by what they actually cost, on our deals page.
What you give up
IONOS includes things at the entry level that Hostinger charges for or does not offer, and its data centre footprint in Germany is relevant if your audience is European and your compliance people care where the disks are. IONOS also assigns a named contact on some plans, which is unusual at this price. Against that, IONOS does not offer free migration, so the labour here is yours or Hostinger's — and Hostinger does offer it.
The migration, step by step
- Check your IONOS contract terms first. IONOS contracts have historically had notice periods on some products, meaning cancellation takes effect at the end of a period rather than immediately. Read the cancellation terms before you assume you can leave on a week's notice.
- Buy Hostinger on the 48-month term if the $108 figure is what you are moving for. On a 12-month term the arithmetic changes completely — run it through the true cost calculator before committing.
- Use Hostinger's free migration request and let them move it. If you would rather do it yourself: database out of IONOS's phpMyAdmin, files over SFTP, both into Hostinger's hPanel.
- Test on the temporary domain Hostinger gives you. Log in, submit a form, run a checkout if you have one.
- Drop DNS TTL to 300 seconds a day before switching, then change nameservers. Details in migrating hosting without downtime.
- Keep IONOS alive for a week after the switch, then cancel — observing whatever notice period step one turned up.
Before you move at all
If your IONOS renewal has not yet processed, you have more options than this page. Some are cheaper than migrating and none of them take an afternoon — see how to avoid a hosting renewal price increase. And if Hostinger is not the right destination, IONOS alternatives lists every reviewed host that beats it, with the specific figure for each.