“As a software reviewer and website owner, I had been hearing some good things about A2 Hosting, so I tested the hosting provider to provide this candid review. In the rest of this article, I’ll share my thoughts on the host’s pricing, features, performance (speed stats), support and ease of use. So, whether you’re new to hosting providers or are a veteran webmaster, if you are considering signing up with A2 Hosting, read on to see how they performed and why I’d recommend them so you can decide too!”
A2 Hosting Review
A2 Hosting was founded in 2001 and has evolved into a mid-sized company serving over 110,000 customers worldwide. While they may not have the most awards or host the most domains, they have a strong focus on “staying true to their roots” i.e excellent support and very affordable plans.
A2 Hosting provides shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress and reseller hosting, as well as several “hosting by service” plans. The company is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and is popular for their impressive server speeds and that’s particularly why I decided to review them.
A2 Hosting is rated an A+ company on the BBB directory. And with over 1,841 reviews on TrustPilot, the company has a rating of 4.5 out of 5.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Impressive server speeds
- Excellent customer support
- Very versatile hosting plans
- Top-tier security features out-of-the-box
Cons
- Plans are cheap only for long-term commitments
- Not the widest server footprint
A2 Hosting has packages for businesses of all sizes… plus excellent support to help you host your website conveniently, even if you’re a newbie!
Want to host your website on a server close to your target audience? Check out A2 Hosting today.
Rating Breakdown
To effectively compare different hosting providers, it is important to have a standardized methodology that specifies criteria to consider and then gives ratings based on how the hosts perform per criterion.
At HostAdvice, our experts have developed a hosting rating guide that measures and gives scores on how hosting providers perform so you can choose the right one for your business.
| Parameter | Score | Why we gave this score |
| PRICES | 8.0 | A2 Hosting is quite affordable with a money-back guarantee, but you enjoy the most value for money on its multi-year packages. Plus its boosted plans are slightly pricier. |
| FEATURES | 9.0 | A2 Hosting offers virtually every kind of hosting, good support, and free migrations (even for shared). |
| PERFORMANCE | 9.5 | A2 Hosting performs incredibly well with an excellent 138 ms response time plus a 99.9% uptime guarantee. |
| EASE OF USE | 9.0 | 1-click popular app installs, a modern cPanel, and a built-in website builder make it easy for you to get your website up and running. Plus the host’s user dashboard is exceptionally intuitive with a strong focus on support. |
| SUPPORT | 8.0 | A2 Hosting offers support via phone, live chat, email, and a vast knowledgebase. However, I’d give them 8.0 because it took over 30 minutes for the agent to join the live chat. |
A2 Hosting Prices & Plans – 2022
A2 Hosting offers shared, VPS, dedicated, reseller hosting, and a varied suite of WordPress-specific plans. They also offer more technical plans like email and cPanel hosting, plus hosting specifically tailored for different services – Business, Ecommerce, Agency, Non-Profit, etc.
A2 Hosting also offers Turbo Hosting plans, specifically built for speed.
On its hosting plans, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee and if you have decided to commit to the platform, you can pay using a credit/debit card, bank wire transfer, Paypal, Skrill, or write a check.
Shared Hosting
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| STARTUP | 100 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1 | $2.99 |
| DRIVE | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $5.99 |
| TURBO BOOST | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $6.99 |
| TURBO MAX | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $14.99 |
A2 Hosting especially recommends their TURBO BOOST plan – one of their boost packages – that includes everything you get with the shared hosting plan plus DELUXE WordPress features and LITESPEED cache plugins for superior speed.
VPS Hosting
Managed
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| LIFT 4 | 150 GB | 2 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $23.99 |
| LIFT 8 | 250 GB | 3 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $32.99 |
| LIFT 16 | 450 GB | 4 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $26.99 |
| MACH 8 | 150 GB | 2 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $35.99 |
A2 Hosting recommends its Mach 8 plan that includes its Turbo servers, Deluxe WordPress features plus Litespeed cache plugins.
Unmanaged
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| RUNWAY | 150 GB | 2 TB transfer | Root access + cPanel | Unlimited | $4.99 |
| RUNWAY 2 | 250 GB | 3 TB transfer | Root access + cPanel | Unlimited | $7.99 |
| RUNWAY 4 | 450 GB | 4 TB transfer | Root access + cPanel | Unlimited | $9.99 |
| SUPERSONIC 8 | 150 GB | 2 TB transfer | Root access + cPanel | Unlimited | $34.99 |
A2 Hosting recommends the Mach 8 and Supersonic 8 VPS hosting plans for its managed and unmanaged packages respectively. These are the highest tiers and include the Turbo servers, more power, and high-speed Swiftserver features. You also get the Deluxe WordPress packages.
Their unmanaged VPS plans are best for highly technical professionals and companies with IT teams who need access to mission-critical controls and want to configure servers themselves.
Dedicated Hosting
Managed
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| WARP 1 | 2 TB | 6 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $99.99 |
| WARP 2 AMD | 2 TB | 10 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $129.99 |
| WARP 2 TURBO AMD | 2 TB | 10 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $149.99 |
| WARP 2 INTEL | 2 TB | 10 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $129.99 |
Unmanaged
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| HYPER 1 | 2 TB | 6 TB transfer | Root Access | Unlimited | $109.99 |
| HYPER 2 AMD | 2 TB | 10 TB transfer | Root Access | Unlimited | $139.99 |
| HYPER 2 TURBO AMD | 2 TB | 10 TB transfer | Root Access | Unlimited | $139.99 |
| HYPER 2 INTEL | 2 TB | 10 TB transfer | Root Access | Unlimited | $169.99 |
Just like its VPS plans, A2 Hosting managed and unmanaged dedicated servers are for businesses and professionals at different technical levels. They also give you the choice between AMD and Intel processors.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| KICKSTART | 60 GB | 600 GB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $18.99 |
| LAUNCH | 100 GB | 1 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $24.99 |
| GROW | 170 GB | 1.7 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $34.99 |
| SCALE | 270 GB | 2.7 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $44.99 |
Turbo Reseller
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| Turbo Kickstart | 60 GB | 600 GB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $24.99 |
| Turbo Launch | 100 GB | 1 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $32.99 |
| Turbo Grow | 170 GB | 1.7 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $42.99 |
| Turbo Scale | 270 GB | 2.7 TB transfer | cPanel | Unlimited | $52.99 |
A2 Hosting doesn’t specifically recommend any of their reseller plans but I personally think the ‘Grow’ plan gives excellent value for money.
A2 Hosting also provides the ‘Turbo’ version on their reseller plans like with most of their other packages.
WordPress Hosting
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| RUN | 50 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1 | $11.99 |
| JUMP | 250 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 5 | $18.99 |
| FLY | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $28.99 |
| SELL | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $41.99 |
A2 Hosting JUMP WordPress is the most recommended plan especially for businesses. You get 250 GB of storage and can host up to five websites.
A2 Hosting Features
- Shared; VPS; Dedicated; Reseller; WordPress hosting
- 1 – click WordPress installs
- Free SSL certificate
- Free CloudFlare CDN
- Pre-configured caching on Turbo plans + LiteSpeed cache plugins
Of all A2 Hosting’s features, I’d say the most unique feature they offer that make them stand out from other hosts is their Turbo plans – which they claim to offer up to 20X loading speeds.
Their Turbo plans are offered as standalone packages or as boosts to their other hosting plans, giving you access to their Turbo servers, NVMe AMD EPYC servers, traffic surge protection, HTTP/2 & HTTP/3, Apache 2.4, as well as other Deluxe WordPress features.
Performance
You should always consider some important performance metrics namely – speed, uptime, and loading time – before you commit to a web host.
The server speed measures how quickly the host’s servers send data to a user visiting your website. The uptime is how consistently your host’s servers ‘stay online’. And finally, how quickly will your web pages load when a user visits your website?
A2 Hosting promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee – the industry’s standard. To measure the host’s speed and load times, I used GTMetrix to test the performance of reloaderaddict.com – a website hosted on A2Hosting.
These were the results:
Reloaderaddict.com had a fair response time (time to first byte) of 358 ms and fully loaded time of 1.3 seconds (experts recommend 1-2 seconds).
The domain had an overall performance of 98% which is excellent:
Level Of Support
A2 Hosting offers 24/7 support through:
Phone
On A2 Hosting, you get a global directory of help lines you can call per region:
If you’re intending to use phone support, make sure there is a helpline for your country.
Live chat
I love it when a host has live chat support, however, A2 Hosting always has long queues of customers waiting to speak with their live agents. And on two separate occasions, I had to wait for over 30 minutes on the queue:
It took a while but the agent joined. They were very polite and answered all my questions quickly. However, the agent was quite quick to redirect me to their articles and self-help pages when I wanted them to answer me directly.
Still, their support is great and I got answers to most of the questions I asked:
Support tickets
A2 Hosting allows customers to open support tickets, but this support feature is only available for customers who have signed up. Disappointing.
A vast knowledgebase
And finally, a vast knowledgebase with a built-in search engine and answers to most questions you may have relating to your packages:
Mailing address
I doubt if anyone in the 21st Century still requests support via old-school mail but they do have a physical mailing address:
Ease of use
Registration
Registering and signing up on A2 Hosting is incredibly straightforward and easy. To have an account, however, you need to buy one of their plans. You can simply click the “Get Started” button on their homepage and then go from there:
Once you choose a plan and checkout, you also have the option to customize your hosting plan – choose a location, add a dedicated IP, whether you want the website builder, plus several other add-ons:
Once you follow all the prompts and you have an account, you’ll have access to the A2 Hosting account management dashboard that boasts a clean, intuitive design and a direct login to your cPanel:
A2 Hosting Control Panel
A2 Hosting features a modern cPanel as its control panel where you can manage all your hosting backend – files, storage, backup, databases, domains, emails, etc:
You can access your cPanel directly from the account dashboard plus A2 Hosting also added their WordPress optimized installations. In the end, A2 Hosting cPanel has been designed to help you manage your website and servers effectively and efficiently.
Installing WordPress on A2 Hosting
It is incredibly easy to install WordPress on your A2 Hosting account. If you haven’t bought a plan yet, good news! That’s the easiest way to go. While you’re checking out, simply click the “WordPress A2 Optimized” and once you are done, WordPress will be installed automatically:
If you already have an account and plan though, you can install WordPress manually or via cPanel using Softaculous.
To install WordPress on A2 Hosting using Softaculous, see this help article.
To install WordPress on A2 Hosting manually, see this help article.
Add an email account with A2 Hosting
To add an email account to your website with A2 Hosting you can use cPanel or the Plesk panel (for Managed WordPress hosting). Simply login to cPanel, go to ‘Email Accounts’, click ‘Create’.
Next, select the domain you want to tie the email address to and then fill in your intended email address. You can then click ‘Set a password now’ or send a login link with login details to an alternate email address you’ll provide.
Then click ‘Create’ and you’ll have your account ready.
Conclusion: Do We Recommend A2 Hosting?
Despite not being one of the biggest names in the industry (not yet), A2 Hosting is an incredible host and I recommend them. In this A2 Hosting review, you’d see that they offer very versatile hosting plans suited to different businesses, great support, and incredible server speeds (one of their main strong points).
Their Turbo plans are specially optimized for speed – music to Google’s ears and the potential for higher rankings.
A2 Hosting sells itself as a host for the people – as a smaller provider with a smaller customer base, their services are quite tailored and they can ultimately cater better to their users.
