Checkdomain is a German shared hosting provider based in Lübeck, offering web hosting, domain registration, email, and website tools built primarily for the European market.
I tested their platform from registration through publishing a live site, ran GTmetrix performance tests from Germany and the United States, and submitted a real technical question to their support team.
Here is what that hands-on testing found.
The scores below reflect hands-on testing of a Business 7.0 shared hosting package. They cover the full registration and ordering flow, GTmetrix performance tests from Frankfurt and San Antonio, a live support interaction across two channels, and a knowledge base review. Scores are assigned using the HostAdvice rating methodology.
| Parameter | Score | Why This Score |
|---|---|---|
| Prices | 8.5/10 | Competitive intro rates; chargeback and reminder fees add real cost |
| Features | 9.5/10 | Domain, SSL, backups, website builder, and PHP control all standard |
| Performance | 9.0/10 | Grade A from Germany; drops to 77% from US without CDN |
| Ease of Use | 8.5/10 | Clean panel; mandatory domain gate and contract terms add friction |
| Support | 7.5/10 | Bot-only live chat; ticket was escalated but remained unanswered for a long time. |
| Overall | 8.6/10 | Solid for European buyers; support is the clear weak point |
Checkdomain offers shared web hosting across four tiers: Start 7.0, Pro 7.0, Premium 7.0, and Business 7.0. Each tier steps up in storage, memory limit, and overall capacity. All four plans include a free domain for the first 12 months, a free SSL certificate, and unlimited email addresses.
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | OS | Panel | Number of Sites | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting Start 7.0 | 75 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $6.86 | Details | ||
| Hosting Pro 7.0 | 150 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $12.67 | Details | ||
| Hosting Premium 7.0 | 300 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $16.16 | Details | ||
| Hosting Business 7.0 | 600 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $32.43 | Details |
Before you commit, there are several things worth understanding:
Introductory pricing: Three of the four plans carry heavily discounted introductory rates for an initial period. Once that period ends, the standard rate applies. The gap between the two varies by plan. Reading the cart summary before completing your order is the only way to see both figures side by side.
Contract terms: All web hosting plans carry a 12-month minimum contract and a 14-day cancellation notice period. There is no monthly rolling option on the web hosting line.
Right of withdrawal: As a German provider operating under EU consumer law, Checkdomain offers a right of withdrawal under standard statutory terms. Whether this applies depends on your location and whether the service has already been activated. The withdrawal policy is linked from the site footer.
Payment methods: SEPA direct debit, credit card, and PayPal are all accepted. No processing surcharge is applied to any of them.
Special costs to know about:
The credit card chargeback fee at €49.90 is the figure that deserves the most attention. If you dispute a credit card payment for any reason, that fee applies regardless of the outcome. SEPA and PayPal both carry substantially lower exposure at €6.90 each.
Beyond web hosting, Checkdomain also offers Website Service plans for professionally built sites and Managed Server options for buyers who need more than shared hosting. Both sit outside the scope of this review.
Checkdomain is a shared hosting provider, and the right way to test performance at this tier is to measure what a real site actually delivers to a visitor in a browser, not run raw server benchmarks.
I used Checkdomain’s built-in website builder to create a test site, selected a template, made some edits, and published it as a live page.
I then tested that page using GTmetrix, which measures the full browser loading experience: how quickly the server responds, when content first appears, and whether anything causes the page to block or shift during load. These are the metrics that tell a prospective buyer what their visitors will actually experience.
Checkdomain’s infrastructure is based in Germany, with the server node for this account located in Dortmund. I ran two tests:
Running both tests reveals something the Frankfurt result alone would not show. How much the server location affects performance for visitors outside the primary market. With no CDN included on the plan, all content is served from Dortmund regardless of where the visitor is located. That physical distance is what separates the two results.
| Metric | Frankfurt, Germany | San Antonio, USA |
|---|---|---|
| Performance Score | 95% | 77% |
| Structure Score | 96% | 95% |
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | 1.1s | 2.4s |
| Total Blocking Time (TBT) | 0ms | 0ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | 0 | 0 |
| Time to First Byte (TTFB) | 100ms | 865ms |
| Connect Time | 36ms | 451ms |
| Fully Loaded Time | 1.3s | 2.7s |
Frankfurt, Germany
The Germany test returned a GTmetrix Performance score of 95% and an overall Grade A. Breaking down what each metric means in practice:
Both TBT and CLS hold steady regardless of geography, which matters when reading the US test numbers alongside them. For a site serving visitors in Germany or the surrounding European region, these numbers are above average for a shared hosting plan.
San Antonio, USA
The US test shows what happens when there is no CDN distributing content closer to the visitor. Every request travels from San Antonio to Dortmund and back, and the latency compounds through every stage of the load process:
By the time the connection is established and the server has started responding, nearly a second has passed before the browser has received a single byte of the page. For a site where a meaningful share of visitors are in the United States or other non-European regions, this degradation is something to weigh before signing up.
TBT and CLS both hold at 0ms and 0 on the US test, confirming the performance drop is a network distance issue, not a server quality issue.
GTmetrix raised two medium-low priority issues:
Three further low-priority flags appeared: DOM size at 925 elements, JavaScript execution time at 126ms, and chaining of critical requests at 36 chains. All three sit within normal range for a standard WordPress install and are unlikely to affect the visitor experience at current traffic levels.
The structure score of 96% from Germany and 95% from the US confirms the WordPress installation itself is well configured. The performance difference between the two tests is a network issue, not a code quality issue.
On German infrastructure tested from nearby Europe, Checkdomain’s Business 7.0 shared hosting delivers strong results. A 95% GTmetrix performance score, 1.1s LCP, 100ms TTFB, and zero blocking time. These are above-average numbers for shared hosting at this price tier.
The US test reveals the expected consequence of Germany-only infrastructure without a CDN. TTFB climbs to 865ms, LCP stretches to 2.4 seconds, and the performance score drops to 77%. For a business targeting German or European visitors, the performance here is solid. For a site with a broader or US-heavy audience, a CDN layer would be necessary to close the geographic gap.
I went through the full experience from a cold start: finding the hosting product, selecting a plan, picking a domain, creating an account, completing payment, working through the client area, and setting up a website. What follows is what that process actually looked like at each stage.
One thing to flag before the breakdown: the Checkdomain website is in German with no language toggle. Navigating the ordering process as a non-German speaker requires a browser translation tool throughout.
Locating the hosting product requires a hover on “Web hosting” in the top navigation. A dropdown appears listing three entries: Web hosting, Ranking coach, and Premium Services.
Most buyers will want the first. The homepage itself is built around a domain search bar rather than a hosting call to action, which signals where Checkdomain sees its primary value and its primary audience.
The web hosting page that follows leads with three points: extra performance for web projects, 100% German server location, and PHP 8.4 support. A “Compare tariffs now” button sits below those points. For a buyer who needs GDPR-compliant hosting on German infrastructure, the page gets to that quickly without padding.
The plan comparison page is where pricing requires close attention. Four tiers are on offer.
The “SEHR BELIEBT” label on Premium 7.0 translates to “very popular.” I used Google Translate to work through the interface.
After choosing a plan, checkout does not begin. The page instead requires you to select a domain before proceeding.
The on-screen notice is explicit: to purchase a hosting package, you need an active domain, and each package includes one. There is no option to skip this step or indicate that you are bringing an existing domain from another registrar.
That mandatory gate affects two types of buyers differently. Those who want to register a fresh domain alongside their hosting find a smooth fit. Those who already own a domain elsewhere face a forced extra step with no obvious way around it.
I entered “checkdomain2026.com” and results loaded quickly. The .com option showed as available at a promotional €0.07 per month. Multiple alternatives appeared below: .de and .online at €0.07, .io at €3.79. Domain pricing varies substantially by TLD, and the rates on the common extensions are competitive for a bundled setup at this price tier.
After selecting the .com option, the sidebar confirmed the choice and displayed a button labeled “To the basket of gooods.” That triple-o typo is on the live site. It is a small slip, but for a provider that markets itself on reliability and personal service, it is the kind of error that should have been caught before publication.
The cart gives a full breakdown of the commitment before you enter any personal details. The key terms:
A Domain Protection add-on appears as “Recommended” at €0.99 per month, but it arrives toggled off by default. That is the right behavior for an optional upsell: present it, price it clearly, and let the buyer decide.
The minimum contract term of 12 months is the most significant detail on this page, and it sits in small print below the plan name rather than alongside the headline price. A buyer drawn in by the €1.00 introductory rate and reading the cart quickly is committing to a full year of billing before they have seen the standard rate even once.
Clicking through to checkout surfaces a four-step progress flow: Register, Address, Payment method, Order. Account creation is built into the checkout rather than preceding it, which means you select a plan, pick a domain, and commit to a cart before the account that will hold everything is created.
The registration form collects salutation, name, address, mobile number, email, and password. Both the terms and conditions checkbox and the marketing email checkbox arrive unchecked.
The checkout sidebar also shows a phone number and support hours during this step: +49 (0) 451 / 70 99 70, Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm, a practical detail for buyers who hit a question mid-order.
Payment options at step three are SEPA direct debit, credit card, and PayPal. All three carry no processing surcharge. After submitting payment details, the charge processed immediately. A confirmation email arrived within minutes, and the flow redirected to the client area without any additional steps.
The full process from homepage to active account ran approximately eight minutes. The mandatory domain selection adds a step that buyers with existing domains will find unnecessary, and the 12-month contract commitment takes deliberate reading to locate in the cart.
What the process handles well is showing full pricing detail, including contract length, renewal rates, and VAT, before any account information is collected.
The client area that loads after registration is clean and easy to read on first landing. The left sidebar carries the full navigation: Overview, Domains, Websites, E-Mails, Web hosting, SSL certificates, RankingCoach, Earn money, My data, Invoices, and Support. Everything is one click away without nested menus or secondary dashboards to switch between.
The main content area gives an immediate account snapshot:
That layout earns its place. A buyer who has just completed registration can confirm within seconds that their hosting package is showing, their domain count is correct, and no payment issues are open.
There is no onboarding wizard, which means you arrive at a clean view of what exists rather than being pushed through a setup flow.
Below the summary sits a grid of six action tiles under the heading “How can we make you even more successful?” The tiles link to domain ordering, website creation, Ranking Coach, support, additional hosting, and SSL certificates.
For a new buyer who is not yet sure what to do next, this section acts as a quick-start menu. For a returning user who knows what they need, it sits between them and the sidebar.
One thing that stands out in the client area is that browser translation does not catch everything. “Mein checkdomain” on the account summary card stays in German regardless of translation, and this pattern continues on the hosting management page where entire sections, including the contract and analytics menus, remain in German even with a translation tool active.
A non-German speaker managing this account on an ongoing basis will run into untranslated text at regular intervals, not just during the initial order flow.
After registration and a look around the dashboard, I wanted to see what Checkdomain actually gives you for managing the hosting itself.
Clicking into the web hosting package tile opens the hosting management page. Contract details sit at the top: plan name, contract number, duration, monthly rate, creation date, last backup date, and the domain and server hostname assigned to the package.
The last backup date showing 27 July 2026 at the time of testing confirms that automatic backups are already running without any action on your part.
The management options are organized into six categories:
| Category | What Is Accessible |
|---|---|
| Domains | Package domain management, subdomain setup |
| Emails | Mailbox management, add new email addresses |
| Apps & Backups | App installer (Blog, Shop, CMS, Photo Gallery), backup management |
| Databases | MySQL database administration, create new database |
| Security | FTP & SSH access, directory protection, SSL certificates |
| Server | PHP version settings, Cronjobs, server information |
That is a solid range of controls for a shared hosting package. PHP version management, SSH access, MySQL administration, SSL ordering, and cron scheduling are all reachable from a single screen without opening a separate panel.
For a buyer who has used other shared hosting providers with more fragmented management interfaces, the single-page layout is a practical improvement.
The lower portion of the management page covers two further areas. Informationen holds website visitor analytics, FTP access logs, and the checkdomain trust logo for your site. Vertrag covers plan switching and cancellation.
The cancellation link sits at the bottom of the page. For a provider with a 12-month minimum contract and a 14-day cancellation notice window, that placement is worth knowing in advance. It is accessible, but a buyer who needs to cancel before renewal would need to know to scroll past all the management tools to find it.
There is no resource usage panel on the management page. Storage consumption, bandwidth use, and database size are not surfaced at the package level. A buyer who wants to monitor how much of their allocation they are consuming would need to look inside the individual tools rather than reading a summary figure here.
Checkdomain’s interface is functional and organized, with a clean checkout flow and a hosting management panel that covers the core controls without switching tools.
The mandatory domain tie-in, the contract terms buried in the cart, and the absence of a resource usage summary are the friction points that matter most to a new buyer.
Checkdomain offers four support channels:
I did not test the phone line, as most international buyers will reach for live chat or a ticket before calling a German number. What I focused on was the live chat, the contact form, and the knowledge base.
Accessing the live chat is easy. The chat button sits in the bottom right corner on every page, and clicking it opens a window immediately.
At 2:44 PM on July 28, I submitted the technical question: whether OPcache is enabled by default on shared hosting accounts, whether the cache is isolated per account or shared across the server node, and whether OPcache settings can be adjusted via a user.ini file in the document root or are locked at the server level.
The bot’s response: “I’m afraid I can’t answer your question. Please ask me the question again with more context.”
I asked to speak to a human agent. The bot replied: “Our chat support is currently unavailable.” I then asked when human chat support would be available. The bot replied: “I’m afraid I can’t answer your question.
Please ask me the question again with more context.” It then asked me to rate my experience.
The entire exchange lasted two minutes. Three things stood out:
The bot directed me to the knowledge base and the contact form. For a buyer who runs into a technical problem and reaches for live chat first, this is a dead end. The channel exists, but without reliable human escalation it cannot carry the weight buyers would reasonably place on it.
Next, I clicked the contact form link the bot had provided and submitted the same question as a support ticket.
The form has a few details to know before you use it. Several field labels appear in German: Rechnungsnummer (invoice number), Betreff (subject), Nachricht (message), and the submit button reads “Absenden.”
A friendly CAPTCHA verification is required before submission. A one-business-day response is promised for Monday to Friday submissions.
I submitted the question at 2:48 PM on July 28. An auto-acknowledgment arrived within minutes. The tone was warm, signing off with “Warm greetings from the Hanseatic city of Lübeck” and pointing to the knowledge base for immediate help. Ticket number 18165414 was assigned.
Twenty-four hours later, at 1:07 PM on July 29, a reply arrived from Customer Service. It arrived within the promised one-business-day window. The content was not an answer:
“We forward the case internally to our colleagues from the department and ask for some patience. As soon as a feedback arrives, we will inform you immediately.”
At the time of writing, another full day passed with no further response. The full timeline:
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| Jul 28, 2:48 PM | Question submitted via contact form |
| Jul 28, ~2:50 PM | Auto-acknowledgment received, ticket 18165414 assigned |
| Jul 29, 1:07 PM | First human response: internal escalation, no answer |
| Jul 30 | No further response received |
A first response within 24 hours is within what was promised. An escalation rather than an answer is not unusual for a technical question that requires infrastructure-level knowledge. What this tells the reader is that for any non-standard hosting question, two to three business days is a more realistic expectation than one.
Then I looked at the knowledge base to see how useful it would be as a self-help option.
The help section opens to a category grid with a search bar at the top. Fifteen categories cover the main areas a shared hosting buyer would need:
The coverage is broad. A dedicated Malfunctions & Maintenance category is a useful signal: it suggests Checkdomain uses the knowledge base to keep customers informed during outages rather than leaving them to find status updates elsewhere. The GDPR category is relevant for European buyers who need data protection documentation.
To test the quality of the content, I picked a category relevant to my setup and drilled down into a specific article to see how detailed and current the documentation actually was. I clicked into PHP Extended Support and then the Webhosting / Server category.
It covers website creation, the app installer, and server management across five subcategories. The FTP-Programme section breaks down further into articles for FileZilla on Windows, Mac, and as a mapped network drive.
I opened the article on setting up an FTP account as a network drive in Windows. The article uses numbered steps and screenshots throughout.
Two things reduce confidence in how current it is. The screenshots show what appear to be Windows Vista or Windows 7 dialog boxes, not anything close to a current Windows interface.
The content is functional enough to follow, but a buyer expecting current documentation will notice both gaps.
The knowledge base also offers TeamViewer as a remote assistance option, which is a practical addition for buyers who prefer hands-on help over written guides.
Checkdomain offers four support channels, but their reliability varies significantly in practice. The live chat is AI-only, human escalation was unavailable during testing, and the bot cannot answer questions about its own availability.
The contact form delivered a first human response within 24 hours as promised, but that response was an internal escalation rather than an answer, with no resolution in the 48 hours that followed. The knowledge base is well-organized with 15 categories and step-by-step articles, though some content carries outdated screenshots.
For basic account and billing queries, the contact form is the most dependable channel. For technical infrastructure questions, buyers should expect a multi-day wait and plan accordingly.
Yes, for the right buyer. Checkdomain delivers what it promises for a specific audience: businesses and individuals who need German infrastructure, GDPR-compliant hosting, and a functional management interface for a European-facing website. The GTmetrix Grade A from Frankfurt, the automatic backups running from day one, and the range of controls on a single management screen are genuine positives that held up under testing.
The conditions matter as much as the strengths. Support is the weakest part of the Checkdomain experience by a clear margin. The live chat is bot-only with human escalation unavailable during testing, and the ticket channel produced an internal escalation notice rather than an answer.
Checkdomain is the right pick for German or European businesses that want local infrastructure, GDPR compliance, and a clean panel without paying for features they will not use. It’s not the right pick for buyers who need responsive technical support, a global audience without a CDN layer, or the flexibility of month-to-month contracts.
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | OS | Panel | Number of Sites | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting Start 7.0 | 75 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $6.86 | Details | ||
| Hosting Pro 7.0 | 150 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $12.67 | Details | ||
| Hosting Premium 7.0 | 300 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $16.16 | Details | ||
| Hosting Business 7.0 | 600 GB | Unlimited | 1 | $32.43 | Details |
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website Builder Start | Unlimited | Unlimited | $11.51 | Details |
| Website Builder Premium | Unlimited | Unlimited | $17.32 | Details |
| Website Builder Business + E-Commerce | Unlimited | Unlimited | $27.78 | Details |
Checkdomain is a solid pick for European buyers who need German infrastructure and GDPR-compliant hosting. Performance from nearby locations is strong, the hosting panel is well-organized, and the standard feature set covers what most shared hosting buyers need. Technical support is the weak point, with bot-only live chat and slow ticket resolution on complex questions.
Checkdomain’s servers are based in Germany. The server node tested in this review was located in Dortmund. The company’s registered offices are in Lübeck, Germany.
Checkdomain does not advertise a money-back guarantee. EU consumer law provides a right of withdrawal that may apply depending on your location and whether the service has been activated. All web hosting plans carry a 12-month minimum contract with a 14-day cancellation notice period.
Yes. A website builder is included with all web hosting plans and allows template-based site creation without any programming. Checkdomain also sells a separate Website Service product for professionally built sites at a higher monthly rate.
Yes. WordPress installs via the built-in app installer in a few clicks. In testing, a WordPress site on the Business 7.0 plan scored 95% on GTmetrix from Germany with a 1.1-second LCP. Performance from the US drops to 77% without a CDN, which matters for sites targeting an international audience.
Answer a few simple questions and find the perfect solution for you!
Start Hosting Search
