cPanel, the control panel much shared hosting runs on, will charge hosts by the number of accounts on each server. Many will pass the cost on, so read renewal notices and do not move hosts in a hurry.

What changed yesterday

cPanel, the company whose control panel sits behind a large share of the world's shared hosting, announced yesterday that it is changing how it charges hosting companies.

Until now, a host typically paid one flat licence fee per server, however many customer accounts that server held. Under the new pricing, the cost depends on the number of accounts.

A shared server can hold hundreds of small accounts, which is how the cheapest plans stay cheap. For hosts that work that way, the licence turns from a minor fixed cost into one that grows with every customer.

Many will pass some of it on. Nobody yet knows how much or when, and predicting figures would be guesswork.

What the control panel is

A control panel is the set of screens used to manage a hosting account without typing commands on the server itself.

Most business owners have seen it once, when the account was set up; their web company uses it far more often.

Behind it sits a server-level version called WHM, which the hosting company uses to manage every account on a machine.

The panel is neither your website nor the server. It is the tool that lets people who are not system administrators run a shared server, which is a large part of why shared hosting is affordable.

What it actually does for your business

The third is the one to check before anything changes. If your host changes plans, panels or prices, you want to know where your backups are, how far back they go, and whether you can download a copy.

Why a licence change becomes your price

Shared hosting is a business of thin margins spread across many accounts. A fixed cost per server barely registered on any one customer's bill.

A cost per account does register, and it registers most on the cheapest plans, where the margin was thinnest to begin with.

Hosts have a few choices. They can raise prices, retire their cheapest plans, absorb the cost, or move to a different control panel. Many will do some combination.

Each of those can reach your account: a higher renewal, a plan retired and replaced, or a migration to a panel that looks different from the one you know.

What to expect over the next year

Price changes usually arrive at renewal, so a host's notice may come months from now rather than this summer.

Watch for a renewal amount that differs from last year's, a notice that your plan is being retired, or a scheduled move to new servers or a new panel.

None of these is a reason to panic. All of them are a reason to read the email properly instead of archiving it, and to check who it is going to.

Those notices go to the email address on file with the host, which can belong to a former employee or to a developer nobody has spoken to in years.

A worked example

A driving school with three instructors had its website and email on a cheap shared plan.

When the renewal arrived at the full price rather than the introductory one, the owner moved everything to the cheapest plan available elsewhere.

The move took an afternoon of copying files. Nobody moved the old email, which disappeared when the previous account expired.

The new plan had no automatic backups, and nobody set up a certificate, so the booking page showed Not secure in Chrome.

Then, in April, a plugin update broke the booking calendar at the start of the busy season. There was no backup to restore, and nobody at the new host knew the site.

The school now pays a little more for a managed plan with daily backups, automatic certificates, and somebody who answers the phone and knows the site. The saving had been a few dollars a month.

What a little more pays for

The cheapest hosting gives you space on a server and a login. Most of what keeps a business site running sits above that.

Backups taken daily, kept for weeks, and actually tested. Software kept up to date, including PHP. Certificates that renew without anybody remembering. Monitoring that notices when the site goes down.

And support from people who know your site, rather than a queue that starts each conversation from nothing. That is usually what separates a plan worth renewing from one that only looks cheap.

Questions to ask your host

When a notice arrives, or before your next renewal, a few questions settle most of it.

Ask when the plan renews and at what price, whether the control panel will change, where the backups are and how far back they go, who renews the certificate, and which PHP version the site runs.

If your web company manages your hosting, these are their questions to answer, and they should be able to answer them without looking anything up.

The counter-case

Not every account will see a change.

Hosts that use a different control panel are not affected by this announcement. Some hosts will absorb the cost to keep prices stable, and some will change prices only for new customers.

For a business on a well-run managed plan, the panel's licence is a small part of what it pays for, and any increase may be modest or nothing at all.

But a renewal notice is worth reading closely this year, and a move made in a hurry to save a little usually costs more than it saves.

Before your renewal

  1. Find your renewal date and current price.
  2. Check who receives your host's notices.
  3. Locate your backups and download one copy.
  4. Note your PHP version and certificate status.
  5. List every email account on the plan.
  6. Read any notice in full when it arrives.
  7. Plan any move for a quiet month.

Step two is the one that prevents surprises. A price change announced to an address nobody reads arrives as a charge on the card, with no time left to decide anything.

What a plan should cover in the first place is set out in what a hosting plan includes and what it does not.

Frequently asked questions

What did cPanel change?

It announced that hosting companies will pay for its licences based on the number of accounts on each server, rather than a flat fee per server.

Will my hosting bill go up?

Possibly. Many hosts that use cPanel will pass some of the cost on, most likely at renewal. Nobody knows the amounts yet, and some hosts may absorb it.

What does a control panel do for me?

It manages your email accounts, certificates, backups, files, databases, PHP version and DNS records, usually through your web company rather than by you directly.

Should I move to a cheaper host?

Not in a hurry. A rushed move can lose email, skip backups and break certificates. Compare what each plan includes, and plan any move for a quiet month.

What does paying a little more buy?

Tested daily backups, maintained software, certificates that renew themselves, monitoring, and support from people who know your site rather than a queue starting from nothing.

What should I check before renewal?

Your renewal date and price, who receives the host's notices, where your backups are, your PHP version, your certificate, and every email account on the plan.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Hosting renewal coming up this year?

Read the next notice in full. We will tell you what your plan includes and whether the renewal price makes sense.

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