Comparison tables are built by marketing departments and compare the things that flatter them. These are the questions that actually predict what being a customer will be like.
The Money Ones
What is the renewal price? Not the introductory rate. The one from month thirteen.
What is not included? SSL, backups, restores, migration, email, staging, extra domains. Get the list of what costs extra.
What happens if I cancel in month three? Whether a refund exists, and what gets deducted from it.
The Reliability Ones
Where are backups kept, and how far back? Same server is not a backup. Two days of retention is not much cover.
Can I restore one myself? A restore that needs a ticket is a restore on their schedule, not yours.
Is there a public incident history? Not an uptime percentage. The actual list of what went wrong and when. A provider that publishes its bad days is telling you something a number cannot.
The Leaving Ones
How do I get my data out? Full file and database access, without asking permission, ideally without a fee.
Do you charge to release my domain? You should not be charged to take something you own.
What The Answers Tell You
Less the answers themselves than how readily they arrive. A provider who answers all eight plainly is one who has decided to compete on the service.
A provider who deflects, or sends you to a knowledge base article, or wants to talk about their datacentre instead, has told you how the next two years will go.
Ask us these. We would rather you did it before signing up than found out afterwards.
