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$ truecost --live

The sticker price is a promo.
We track what they'll actually charge you.

27 providers · 1,802 price points · history to 2018 · verified daily by machine

What this site is

Most web services advertise one price and charge another. The number in the advert applies to your first term; after that the subscription renews at the real price — often two to four times higher.

We check the public pricing page of every provider below once a day, every day, and record both numbers. Not opinions, not rankings bought by advertisers — just what each company published, and what changed. Everything here is free, and the raw data is yours to download.

Biggest renewal traps on record

provider / planadvertisedrenews attrap
IONOS Plan 3$1$14+1300%
GreenGeeks Lite$2.95$13.95+373%
SiteGround StartUp$3.99$17.99+351%
SiteGround GrowBig$6.69$29.99+348%
Hostinger Business$3.99$16.99+326%

Where the traps are worst

categoryplans trackedaverage increase at renewal
Web Hosting25+253%
Vpn6+132%
Security10+104%
Software2+100%

Latest report

The Renewal Hike Index — Q3 2026  ·  the average tracked plan renews at +194% over its advertised price. Quarterly, machine-computed, free to republish with credit. all reports →

Price changes we've caught

detectedprovider / planchange
2026-08-17Norton Norton 360 Deluxe$4.17 → $3.33
2026-08-17Norton Norton 360 Standard$3.33 → $2.92
2026-08-17Surfshark Surfshark One$2.79 → $4.49
2026-08-17Hostinger Business$3.79 → $3.99
2026-08-15CyberGhost 2-Year$4.75 → $5.39
2026-08-15CyberGhost 2-Year$2.37 → $2.70
WHAT THIS IS: an automated price observatory. Every number is scraped daily from providers' own pricing pages, archived, and diffed — renewal prices first, because that's the price you'll actually pay. Free to cite with attribution. How it works →