Wait only if your host has cut below its normal price before. Last November SiteGround did, selling its StartUp plan at $1.99 a month against its usual $2.99, and Namecheap did, with Stellar at $0.98 against $1.98. ChemiCloud did not: its Black Friday 2025 price of $1.95 a month is exactly what it charges on 8 October 2026.
Those three answers come from two sources. One is HostingSift's nightly price snapshots, which have recorded the advertised price of every plan we track since 12 February 2026. The other is the Wayback Machine, which kept copies of the same pricing pages during Black Friday 2025. Put together, they give each host a number: the price its 2026 sale has to beat before waiting was worth it.
Black Friday 2026 falls on 27 November and Cyber Monday on 30 November. Most hosts start earlier than that. Hostinger has published its dates as 19 October to 14 December 2026, so the Hostinger figure below is the price before its sale begins.
The prices Black Friday 2026 has to beat
As of 8 October 2026, 57 of the 85 shared and WordPress hosting plans HostingSift has tracked since February (16 hosts) have shown one single advertised price on every nightly reading. For those plans, today's price is the baseline any Black Friday 2026 offer should be measured against, and it has not moved in eight months.
A few terms before the table. The intro price is the monthly rate you pay during your first billing term, the billing term is how many months you prepay at that rate, and the renewal price is the monthly rate after the term ends. "Paid upfront today" is what lands on your card at checkout, before tax and domain fees.
| Host | Plan | Intro price | Billing term | Paid upfront today | Renewal price | Same intro price on every reading since |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround | StartUp | $2.99/mo | 12 months | $35.88 | $17.99/mo | 12 Feb 2026 (205 readings) |
| IONOS | Essential | $4.00/mo | 12 months | $48.00 | $8.00/mo | 12 Feb 2026 (203 readings) |
| HostArmada | Start Dock | $1.99/mo | 36 months | $71.64* | $9.95/mo | 12 Feb 2026 (202 readings) |
| HostGator | Hatchling | $3.75/mo | 36 months | $135.00 | $10.99/mo | 12 Feb 2026 (194 readings) |
| Scala Hosting | Mini | $2.95/mo | 36 months | $106.20 | $11.95/mo | 21 Feb 2026 (196 readings) |
| GoDaddy | Deluxe | $7.99/mo | 36 months | $287.64* | $16.99/mo | 24 Feb 2026 (192 readings) |
| Bluehost | Starter | $3.99/mo | 36 months | $143.64* | $9.99/mo | 4 Mar 2026 (127 readings) |
| Hostinger | Premium | $2.99/mo | 48 months | $143.52 | $10.99/mo | 2 Apr 2026 (147 readings) |
| FastComet | Starter | $1.99/mo | 12 months | $23.88 | $9.95/mo | 19 May 2026 (135 readings) |
| GoDaddy | Economy | $5.99/mo | 36 months | $215.64* | $11.99/mo | 20 Aug 2026 (49 readings) |
| ChemiCloud | Starter | $1.95/mo | 36 months | $70.20 | $11.95/mo | 3 Sep 2026 (36 readings) |
| Namecheap | Stellar | $2.28/mo | 12 months | about $27.36* | $4.66/mo ($55.88/yr) | 26 Sep 2026 (13 readings) |
*Calculated as intro price × months; the host's page did not give a total. Source: HostingSift nightly price snapshots, 12 Feb to 8 Oct 2026. "Since" is the first night we saw that price; for Bluehost Starter and Hostinger it is also the first night we tracked the plan, so the price may be older.
Hosts whose price has not moved since February
SiteGround, IONOS, HostArmada, HostGator, Scala Hosting and GoDaddy's Deluxe tier have each shown the same intro price on every reading for seven to eight months. Bluehost's Starter has held $3.99 since we began tracking it on 4 March, and Hostinger's Premium has held $2.99 since 2 April.
For these hosts the table row is the whole test. A Black Friday price above it is no deal, and a price equal to it is the normal price with a countdown timer on top. Anything below it is a real cut, and you can say by how much.
The 28 plans that did move are not all price changes. IONOS's page swapped two plans' prices for one or two nights in July, and some of GoDaddy's movement was a test (more on that below). The real movers are the cases in the next section.
Where last year's Black Friday price is on record
Two hosts left a clean record of what Black Friday 2025 cost, because their own pricing pages were archived during the sale.
At SiteGround, the Wayback Machine copy of siteground.com/web-hosting.htm from 12 November 2025, and again from 4 December 2025, lists StartUp at $1.99, GrowBig at $3.99 and GoGeek at $5.99 in the page's own price markup. By 11 December 2025 the same markup read $2.99, $4.99 and $7.99, which is what we have recorded every night since February. The cut was 33% on StartUp, 20% on GrowBig and 25% on GoGeek. The markup does not state the billing term, so read those as SiteGround's lowest advertised monthly rate at the time. On a 12-month term, $1.99 instead of $2.99 is $23.88 instead of $35.88 for year one.
ChemiCloud's archived web hosting page from 28 November 2025 carried the banner "BLACK FRIDAY IS LIVE! Save Up to 84% + 2 Bonus Months Free" and priced Starter at $1.95 a month on a 36-month term, renewing at $11.95. The live page on 8 October 2026 shows the same $1.95 and the same $11.95. The 12-month rate is lower today than it was during the sale: $3.49 now against $3.95 then. Last year's Black Friday added two bonus months, and that is the only part of the offer you cannot get today.
Real sales already happened, just not on Black Friday
Between June and September 2026, HostingSift's nightly snapshots caught real price cuts at Namecheap and ChemiCloud that lasted from three days to three weeks. None of them fell on a holiday. On this data, the best time of year to buy web hosting is whenever your host runs one of these, and hosts do not announce them in advance.
Namecheap: the promo came back, the renewal price did not
Namecheap is the clearest case of a host whose Black Friday was worth waiting for. Its 2025 sale ran from 21 November to 5 December 2025. With the code MATRIXSHARED25, Stellar cost $0.98 a month, $11.76 for the first year. Stellar Plus was $1.78 ($21.36) and Stellar Business $3.18 ($38.16). The same pages, archived on 12 November and 9 December 2025, showed Stellar at $1.98 outside the sale.
Here is what Stellar's first-year rate has done in 2026, on yearly billing:
| Period (2026) | Stellar | Stellar Plus | Stellar Business | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 to 25 Feb | $1.98/mo | $2.98/mo | $4.98/mo | 12 nights |
| 4 Jun to 1 Sep | $2.28/mo | $2.98/mo | $4.98/mo | 77 nights |
| 2 to 8 Sep | $1.91/mo | $2.51/mo | $4.81/mo | 6 nights |
| 9 to 22 Sep | $2.28/mo | $2.98/mo | $4.98/mo | 14 nights |
| 23 to 25 Sep | $1.83/mo | $2.41/mo | $4.03/mo | 3 nights |
| 26 Sep to 8 Oct | $2.28/mo | $2.98/mo | $4.98/mo | 13 nights |
Source: HostingSift nightly price snapshots. The 23 to 25 September prices also appear in Namecheap's archived page from 25 September, labelled "69% off". March to early June is left out because our scraper misread the intro price in that window.
So the base price for Stellar has risen from $1.98 to $2.28 since last winter, and the two September sales, at $1.91 and $1.83, both came in well above last Black Friday's $0.98.
The renewal price moved too. On 5 May 2026 our readings of Stellar's yearly renewal went from $4.07 to $4.66 a month. Namecheap's own knowledge base article on the May 2026 shared hosting price change confirms the increase for renewal invoices issued on or after 19 May 2026: Stellar now renews at $55.88 a year, Stellar Plus at $85.44 and Stellar Business at $128.88. The month-to-month price is now $5.88; on the Black Friday 2025 page the struck-through price next to $0.98 was $4.88.
If you want Namecheap, waiting makes sense. Its last Black Friday price was $15.60 cheaper for the first year than today's $2.28 rate. Whether 2026 repeats it is unknown, and the year-two bill is now higher whatever you pay in year one. The full series is on the Namecheap price history page, and the plan details are in the Namecheap hosting profile.
ChemiCloud's summer sale beat its own Black Friday price
ChemiCloud's 36-month Starter rate has changed four times in a year, and the archived pages agree with our nightly readings at every step:
| Period | Starter intro price (36 months) | Paid upfront | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| October to 3 November 2025 | $2.49/mo | $89.64 | Wayback Machine |
| Black Friday 2025 (17 Nov to 7 Dec) | $1.95/mo + 2 bonus months | $70.20 | Wayback Machine, ChemiCloud's 2025 sale page |
| 21 Jun to 10 Aug 2026 | $2.49/mo | $89.64 | HostingSift snapshots, Wayback 29 Jul |
| 11 Aug to 2 Sep 2026 ("Back to Build Sale") | $1.49/mo | $53.64 | HostingSift snapshots (23 readings), Wayback 12 and 27 Aug |
| 3 Sep 2026 to today | $1.95/mo | $70.20 | HostingSift snapshots (36 readings), live page 8 Oct |
The renewal price stayed at $11.95 a month through all of it. The August "Back to Build Sale" undercut last year's Black Friday by $16.56 over three years. And since 3 September, ChemiCloud has been charging its 2025 Black Friday price as its normal price. Unless the 2026 sale goes below $1.95, the only thing worth waiting for is the bonus months. See the ChemiCloud price history for the nightly series.
GoDaddy's $4.99 was a test, not a sale
From 23 July to 19 August 2026, our readings of GoDaddy's Economy plan flipped between $4.99 and $5.99, sometimes from one night to the next. Hosting for WordPress Basic did the same. It looked like a four-week sale. It was GoDaddy showing different prices to different visitors: in August our scraper loaded the same page five times with fresh browser sessions and got $5.99 three times and $4.99 twice. We now load the page nine times a night and record the lowest price seen. Since 20 August the lowest price seen has been $5.99 every night.
Before you buy from any host, open its pricing page in a private window, and once more from another browser. If the number changes, the lower one exists, and you can come back for it.
When each host's Black Friday sale starts
Black Friday 2026 is on 27 November. These are the sale windows we could confirm from the hosts' own pages, checked on 8 October 2026.
| Host | Sale window | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger | 19 Oct to 14 Dec | 2026 (announced) | Hostinger's Black Friday page, FAQ |
| SiteGround | banner up by 5 Nov; sale prices seen 12 Nov to 4 Dec | 2025 | Wayback Machine captures of siteground.com |
| ChemiCloud | 17 Nov to 7 Dec | 2025 | ChemiCloud's 2025 Black Friday page, still online |
| Namecheap | 21 Nov to 5 Dec | 2025 | Namecheap's 2025 deals page terms, via Wayback |
Only Hostinger has published 2026 dates so far. For the other three, last year's window is the best guide, and each one started at least a week before Black Friday itself. If you are watching a host, start checking in early November.
How to tell if a Black Friday hosting deal is real
A Black Friday hosting deal is real when its first-term price is lower than the same plan's price before the sale, on the same billing term. The "% off" figure on the banner almost never tells you that, because hosts measure it against the renewal price or the month-to-month price, numbers no first-year buyer pays.
Two examples from this autumn's pages. ChemiCloud's "84% off" is $1.95 measured against its $11.95 renewal price. SiteGround's pricing as we read it on 8 October puts StartUp at $2.99 next to a month-to-month price of $24.99, which works out to 88% off on an ordinary Thursday. Last year its Black Friday banner also said 88% off.
Compare at the same billing term
Many hosts quote their lowest monthly rate on their longest term. Hostinger's $2.99 Premium price needs a 48-month prepay; on a 12-month term the same plan is $3.99. Bluehost's Starter is $3.99 on 36 months and $4.99 on 12. A sale price on a longer term than the one you compared against can look like a cut and still cost you more. Our guide to monthly vs annual vs 3-year hosting plans shows how much the term changes the bill.
Compare what you pay today, not the monthly figure
The monthly figure hides the commitment. Hostinger Premium at $2.99 is $143.52 at checkout. ChemiCloud Starter at $1.95 is $70.20. FastComet Starter at $1.99 is $23.88, because it bills one year at a time. All three advertise "under $3", and the upfront bills differ by a factor of six. Note your plan's upfront total from the table above and compare the Black Friday total against that.
Check whether the renewal price moved before the sale
A host can keep its headline steady and raise the price you pay later. Namecheap's May renewal increase is one case. FastComet is another, and a quieter one. On 19 May 2026 all four of its shared plans went up: Starter from $1.79 to $1.99 a month, Essential from $2.39 to $2.99, Plus from $3.59 to $3.99 and Extra from $4.99 to $5.49, all on 12-month terms. The renewal price rose by $1 on two of them, Starter from $8.95 to $9.95 and Essential from $11.95 to $12.95. The new prices have held for 135 nightly readings and match FastComet's live pricing page on 8 October 2026.
So a FastComet Black Friday deal at $1.79 would only take Starter back to where it was in spring, while the renewal stays a dollar higher. Our study of which hosts publish renewal prices explains why the renewal price is the number to read first. For a five-year total, the true cost calculator does the arithmetic.
What I would do between now and 27 November
If you need a site live this month, buy now from a host whose price has been flat all year. On SiteGround, last year's sale saved $12 on the first year of StartUp. That is less than one month of its renewal price. Waiting seven weeks for it makes little sense if the site has work to do.
If you have settled on Namecheap, wait. Its last Black Friday price of $0.98 was $0.85 a month below the cheapest Stellar price it has charged in 2026.
If you have settled on ChemiCloud, there is little reason to wait. Today's price is last year's Black Friday price, and its August sale went lower than both.
For everyone else, copy your host's row from the table above. When the Black Friday email arrives, compare its upfront total with that row on the same billing term, and buy only if it comes in lower.
What about VPS deals?
VPS prices have been even stiller than shared hosting this year. Of the 390 VPS and cloud plans still on sale that HostingSift has tracked since February 2026 (18 hosts), 348 have shown one price on every nightly reading. That count misses some of the year's biggest increases, because netcup and OVHcloud raised prices by launching new product lines and retiring the old ones. Neither pattern points to deep VPS cuts this Black Friday. The detail is in our report on VPS price increases in 2026, and current plans are listed under VPS hosting.
How we collected these prices
HostingSift reads the public pricing pages of 52 hosting providers every night and stores each plan's advertised price, renewal price and billing terms as a dated snapshot. The history for most shared hosts starts on 12 February 2026; a plan's first reading is when we began tracking it, not when the host set the price. Nights our system flagged as misreads are excluded, and so are plans no longer on sale. Black Friday 2025 prices come from Wayback Machine copies of each host's own pages, or from the host's sale page where it is still online.
Every host in this article has a nightly chart on the hosting price trends pages. For the wider picture across the year, see hosting price trends in 2026, and for current shared plans side by side, the shared hosting category.
Black Friday hosting FAQ
When is Black Friday 2026, and when do hosting sales start?
Black Friday is on 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday on 30 November. Hostinger has announced its sale for 19 October to 14 December 2026. In 2025 SiteGround's banner was up by 5 November, ChemiCloud started on 17 November and Namecheap on 21 November.
Are Black Friday hosting deals real?
Some are. SiteGround's 2025 sale cut StartUp from $2.99 to $1.99 a month, and Namecheap cut Stellar from $1.98 to $0.98. ChemiCloud's 2025 sale price of $1.95 is its normal price in October 2026. Compare against the table above, on the same billing term.
Is hosting cheaper on Black Friday than the rest of the year?
Not always. ChemiCloud's August 2026 sale ($1.49 a month) was cheaper than its Black Friday 2025 price ($1.95). Namecheap ran two short sales in September 2026. The deepest Namecheap price we have on record is still its Black Friday 2025 one.
Does the Black Friday price apply at renewal?
No. Namecheap's 2025 terms said "Hosting promotional prices apply to new purchases of annual plans and do not apply to renewals". Hostinger's 2026 FAQ says the price "applies to your initial subscription term". Your second term is billed at the renewal price.
Should I lock in a 3- or 4-year term on Black Friday?
Only if the per-month saving is worth the prepayment. Hostinger's lowest price needs 48 months up front ($143.52 for Premium today). A long term at a low rate delays the renewal price the longest, but it is money you will not get back after the refund window.
Can existing customers get the Black Friday price?
Usually not on the plan they already have. Hostinger's FAQ says existing customers "may receive separate Black Friday upgrade and cross-sell offers". Namecheap's 2025 promo applied to new purchases only.
Is there a hosting sale after Cyber Monday?
Hostinger's 2026 sale runs until 14 December. In 2025, ChemiCloud's ended on 7 December and Namecheap's on 5 December.
Can I get a refund on a Black Friday plan?
Hostinger's FAQ says eligible Black Friday plans carry its 30-day money-back guarantee. ChemiCloud's web hosting page, archived during its 2025 sale, advertised a 45-day money-back guarantee. Check the terms for your plan before you prepay for several years.
Originally published at hostingsift.com.
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