Introducing Our Transparent Pricing Commitment
As an education-focused hosting provider, our pricing philosophy is simple: keep costs as low as possible without compromising quality. We know many of our users are students working with limited budgets and faculty navigating tight departmental funding. Our commitment is to offer reliable, high-quality hosting and responsive, expert support at a price point that remains accessible.
This isn’t about being the cheapest at any cost. It’s about being the most thoughtful: delivering the performance and support you need, while staying true to our mission of making the web more open and accessible to everyone. And unlike many providers, we don’t rely on hidden fees or fine print and strive to keep our pricing clear, upfront, and consistent.
But we didn’t just want you to take our word for it. We wanted to put our money where our mouth is.
That’s why we created our new Pricing Transparency page: a side-by-side comparison of our Shared Hosting plans against other major providers, looking not just at introductory pricing, but long-term value, included features, support, and the kinds of fees that are too often hidden in the fine print. We believe transparency matters, and we want students, educators, and organizations to feel confident that they’re getting reliable hosting at a fair and sustainable price.
The results are clear: while the first year promotional prices* offered by other hosting companies may seem like a way to cut costs, the tradeoffs are numerous. From pricing increases of up to $200 after the first year of hosting, to proprietary web builders that keep you trapped with no hopes of migration to a new service and no real ownership over your content, to AI support bots that never seem to actually answer your question – that "$0.01 domain" starts to feel less like a good deal and more like a hosting prison sentence.
In contrast, we’ve worked hard to keep our pricing stable and predictable for the long term. Our domain registration prices have remained unchanged for the past eleven years, and our shared hosting pricing has only increased modestly over time—from $30/year for a Personal Shared Hosting plan in 2017, to $35/year at the beginning of 2025, and just $36/year today.
At the end of the day, we believe affordability shouldn’t depend on temporary promotions or surprise renewal rates, but on consistent pricing that students, faculty, and organizations can actually plan around.
So do we measure up? Take a look to see for yourself!
And while pricing transparency is an important part of this initiative, it’s only one piece of Reclaim's philosophy. We believe educational technology should empower users rather than lock them in, prioritize human support over automated dead ends, and support an open, independent web built around ownership, flexibility, and community. If you’re interested in the broader thinking behind that mission, and why you should choose Reclaim beyond just pricing, we encourage you to read our article, Reclaim Supports Independent EdTech.
Footnotes:
*with hidden disclaimers
