Renewal Notice Arrived?
Bluehost Alternative: U.S.-Owned cPanel Hosting Without The Renewal Jump
Bluehost’s advertised prices are introductory rates on a 36-month term, and Bluehost publishes what they become: Starter goes from $3.99 to $9.99 a month, Business from $6.99 to $13.99, and eCommerce Essentials from $14.99 to $21.99. That is roughly a 150% increase on the entry plan. Our Starter plan is $7.99 on a 3-year term and renews at $12.99 — higher at signup, and a smaller step when the term ends. What you are really choosing between is a low first term on a large platform, and a smaller independent host running real cPanel on hardware it owns in the United States, with site security and an SEO tool in every plan. Prices checked September 13, 2026.
How the move from Bluehost works
We handle each step so you can keep working.
“A year ago, I decided to migrate my website to their hosting platform in order to move away from big tech, and gradually, moved all of my domains over. Customer service is 5 stars. You get a one-to-one relationship as well as fast, friendly and knowledgeable service.”
Donna Gentile · Google review
Manage your hosting in cPanel
The control panel most site owners already know: files, backups, databases, email, domains and security in one place.
What The Introductory Rate Becomes
Introductory rates, the term behind them, and what each plan costs once it renews. Bluehost figures are published on bluehost.com and were checked in September 2026.
Plan | Introductory | Renews at | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
Bluehost Starter — 10 sites, 10 GB | $3.99/mo | $9.99/mo | +150% |
Bluehost Business — 50 sites, 50 GB | $6.99/mo | $13.99/mo | +100% |
Bluehost eCommerce Essentials — 100 sites | $14.99/mo | $21.99/mo | +47% |
LiberationTek Starter — 2 sites, 10 GB NVMe | $7.99/mo | $12.99/mo | +63% |
LiberationTek Ramping Up — 5 sites, 20 GB NVMe | $9.99/mo | $19.99/mo | +100% |
LiberationTek Growth — 9 sites, 40 GB NVMe | $13.99/mo | $24.99/mo | +79% |
What Changes When You Move
The Second Term Is The Real Price
Bluehost publishes both numbers, and the gap is the point: $3.99 becomes $9.99, $6.99 becomes $13.99, $14.99 becomes $21.99. Our Starter is $7.99 and renews at $12.99. Higher on day one, a smaller step at the end of the term, and the renewal figure is printed on the plan card rather than found later.
A Company, Not A Portfolio
Bluehost is part of Newfold Digital, which also owns HostGator and a string of other hosting brands. LiberationTek is a small U.S. company that owns and operates its own hardware. When you call, you reach the people who run the servers, not a shared support layer serving a dozen brands.
Real cPanel, So You Can Leave
Every Liberation plan runs standard cPanel, which means your account exports as a full backup that any cPanel host on earth can restore. That matters less on the day you sign up than on the day you decide to move, which is exactly when a proprietary panel leaves you rebuilding.
Security And SEO In The Plan
Site security and an SEO tool come with every plan, along with a free SSL certificate, a cPanel license, a 2 GB burstable port and a free domain on an annual term or longer. They are in the price rather than presented as upgrades once your site starts getting traffic.
Fewer Sites, Honestly Resourced
Our plans hold 2, 5 or 9 websites with 10 GB, 20 GB or 40 GB of NVMe. Bluehost advertises 10 to 100 sites at similar prices, which is genuinely more headroom — but the resources behind them are shared, and we would rather publish a number we can stand behind than a large one managed by limits you meet under load.
U.S. Hardware, No Tracking
Your site runs on servers LiberationTek owns and operates in the United States. We do not track, sell or share your data or your activity, and we do not remove sites over lawful speech — which is why churches, ministries and nonprofits make up a large share of who we host.
LiberationTek vs. Bluehost
Two shared hosting platforms side by side. Both sets of prices are the providers’ own published rates.
Feature | LiberationTek | Bluehost |
|---|---|---|
Control panel | Real cPanel | cPanel-based hosting |
Term for the introductory price | 36 months | 36 months |
Sites you can host | 2 on Starter, 5 on Ramping Up, 9 on Growth | 10 on Starter, 50 on Business, 100 on eCommerce Essentials |
Storage | 10 GB, 20 GB or 40 GB NVMe | 10 GB, 50 GB or 100 GB NVMe |
Domain included | One domain free on an annual term or longer | One domain free for the first year |
SSL | Free SSL on every domain you host | Free SSL included |
Malware scanning and firewall | Imunify360 on all three plans, never an upsell | Depends which plan you buy |
SEO toolkit | Bundled with all three plans | Sold separately |
Network burst capacity | 2 GB burst on all three plans | Not stated publicly |
Who owns the company | LiberationTek, independent and U.S.-based | Part of Newfold Digital, alongside HostGator and other brands |
Where it runs | Hardware LiberationTek owns and operates in the U.S. | Bluehost data centers |
Advertising and data sharing | We do not profile, sell or share customer data | Set by Newfold Digital’s terms |
Lawful-speech policy | A published promise: we will not pull a site over lawful speech | At their discretion under their terms |
Who answers your ticket | The U.S. team that administers the servers | 24/7 support shared across Newfold brands |
Liberation Shared Hosting Plans
Plan | Now → at renewal | Sites & storage | In the price, no add-ons |
|---|---|---|---|
Starter | $7.99 → $12.99 | 2 sites · 10 GB NVMe | cPanel license, free SSL, Imunify360, the SEO toolkit, a 2 GB burstable port, and a free domain on annual terms |
Ramping Up | $9.99 → $19.99 | 5 sites · 20 GB NVMe | Everything in Starter, with headroom for busier WordPress builds and line-of-business apps |
Growth | $13.99 → $24.99 | 9 sites · 40 GB NVMe | Everything in Ramping Up, sized for WooCommerce, multisite and light CRM or ERP workloads |
- Free Migration — our team moves your website, email and domain from Bluehost at no cost.
Move Your Site In 4 Steps
1. Send Us Your Details
Tell us your current plan, the sites on it and your domain. We will say which Liberation plan fits, and tell you honestly if the Site Builder or a VPS is the better answer.
2. We Move It For You
Bluehost runs cPanel, so a full account backup restores cleanly on our side. We handle sites, databases, email, cron jobs and SSL, and nothing at Bluehost is touched until you are happy.
3. Review It On A Temporary Address
Your site runs on the new server at a temporary URL while Bluehost keeps serving live traffic. You check it properly before any visitor sees the change.
4. Switch DNS And Let The Old Plan Lapse
We update DNS, issue SSL through AutoSSL and watch the first 48 hours. Then you simply let the Bluehost term run out rather than paying into another one.
What Customers Say After Switching
Real customer reviews. LiberationTek is rated 4.9 out of 5 on Google and 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot (September 2026).
Get Started
By Transferring Your Website
Liberation can transfer your website content from most site builder platforms.
Bluehost Alternative FAQs
Bluehost publishes both figures on its own pricing page. As of September 2026, Starter is $3.99 introductory and renews at $9.99, Business is $6.99 renewing at $13.99, and eCommerce Essentials is $14.99 renewing at $21.99 — all on 36-month terms. The entry plan therefore rises about 150%. LiberationTek Starter is $7.99 on a 3-year term and renews at $12.99, so you pay more at signup and take a smaller step at the end.
Not at signup, and not on sites-per-plan. Bluehost’s Starter gives you 10 websites for $3.99 introductory against our 2 websites for $7.99. Where the comparison shifts is at renewal, and in what is bundled — site security and an SEO tool are in every Liberation plan, and you are dealing with an independent U.S. company that owns its hardware rather than one brand inside a large hosting portfolio.
Bluehost is part of Newfold Digital, which also owns HostGator and a number of other hosting brands. That is not a criticism in itself — scale brings real advantages — but it does mean the support you reach and the infrastructure you sit on are shared across brands. LiberationTek is independent, U.S.-based, and the people who answer support are the people who run the servers.
Yes, and it is the straightforward case because Bluehost is cPanel-based: a full account backup restores cleanly on our side. We move sites, databases, email, cron jobs and SSL certificates, stage everything at a temporary address so your live site keeps serving traffic, and only switch DNS once you have approved it. Nothing at Bluehost is deleted — you simply let the term lapse.
Because it is your exit. A cPanel account exports as a complete backup that any other cPanel host can restore, usually within hours. Hosts that build their own control panel give you no equivalent, so leaving means rebuilding the hosting side by hand. Both Bluehost and LiberationTek run cPanel, which is one reason moving between them is simple — and a good reason to be wary of platforms that do not.
Yes. Our plans hold 2, 5 or 9 websites where Bluehost advertises 10, 50 or 100. That is a genuine difference and worth weighing. Our view is that a plan holding 100 sites on shared resources is a number rather than a promise, so we publish smaller counts with NVMe storage and a 2 GB burstable port behind them. If you genuinely need to host many sites, our VPS and reseller plans are built for it.
On hardware LiberationTek owns and operates in the United States. We do not track, sell or share your data or your activity, and we do not remove sites over lawful speech. A large share of who we host are churches, ministries, nonprofits and values-driven small businesses, and that combination is usually why they moved.
Keep Reading
More comparisons: Resources · Backup & disaster recovery · Migration services · InMotion Hosting alternative · Hostinger alternative · GoDaddy alternative · Wix & Squarespace alternative · HostGator reseller alternative · InMotion reseller alternative · DigitalOcean alternative · Linode alternative · Vultr alternative · DigitalOcean vs. Linode vs. Vultr · AWS alternative · Google Workspace alternative · Microsoft 365 alternative · Gmail alternative · Outlook alternative · Proton Mail alternative · Private email providers · Mailchimp alternative · Constant Contact alternative · WP Engine alternative · Zoho Workplace alternative · All comparisons
Shared hosting plans · Site Builder · Fully managed VPS · Transfer your website
Sources: Bluehost shared hosting plans and renewal prices, checked September 13, 2026. LiberationTek prices are list prices on this site.
Ready to switch? See the step-by-step Bluehost migration guide →
How to read a shared hosting price
Nearly every price in this category is an introductory rate, and comparing introductory rates tells you almost nothing. The number that matters is the renewal, at the shortest term you are actually willing to commit to, and it is frequently two or three times the advertised figure. Find both renewal prices before comparing any two hosts. Most of the apparent difference tends to disappear.
Next, read what “unlimited” means. Unlimited storage and bandwidth on shared hosting are governed by a fair-use or resource policy rather than by physics, and the real constraints are CPU time, concurrent processes, database connections and file counts. Those are the limits a growing site actually hits, and they are generally published somewhere considerably less prominent than the word unlimited.
Then ask about the neighbours. Shared hosting means other sites on the same server and the same outbound address, which is why mail sent from shared hosting so often lands in spam — you inherit the sending reputation of everyone else using that address. If your contact form notifications or password resets have been going missing, that is usually the cause, and the fix is to send mail through an authenticated service rather than from the web server.
Finally, ask who you reach and when. The difference between hosts at this price point is rarely the hardware. It is whether support can look at your actual account, whether they will tell you the problem is a plugin rather than the server, and whether you can get a person on the telephone. That is worth testing before you buy rather than after.
Where we stand: we publish our prices with the renewal rate visible, we keep support in the United States, and we will tell you if a cheaper plan elsewhere genuinely suits you better. Website Migration is included with hosting, email and Hub plans. If you are not on a plan, or you want a one-off move, it is $250 if you are moving an existing site — though often the right answer is a Site Builder plan rather than hosting you maintain yourself. Book a call with your current renewal price to hand.