MidPhase Review

MidPhase is cheap.

Like, one-buck-a-month cheap. If life has taught us anything, it’s that something cheap often isn’t good.

One dollar doesn’t even cover a cup of coffee. How on Earth does it cover the insanely high costs to purchase and run hosting servers. Not to mention rent and employees for their HQ in the beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah.

But MidPhase is not a fly-by-night operation. They’ve been around since 1998, have teams in the UK, Ukraine, and India. Since then, they’ve merged with the UK2 Group in 2007 (who also owns WestHost).

The point is: This isn’t their first rodeo.

We purchased their cheapest shared hosting plan and set up a test site to monitor their uptime and speed over an extended period of time.

How did MidPhase perform?

Read on to find out.

General Info & Hosting Overview

Pros of Using MidPhase Hosting

MidPhase started out strong, delivering solid uptime and quick customer support.

Let’s take a closer look at other perks MidPhase has going on for them.

1. 99.92% Uptime Over 12-Months

During the past 12 months, MidPhase delivered an average uptime of 99.92% with a bit more than seven hours of downtime. In total, they had 122 outages.

MidPhase had three poor months where the uptime was below-average (February, September, and December 2021) but during the rest of 9 months, their uptime fluctuated between 99.94%-100%.

Last 12-month average uptime:

• December 2021: 99.61%
• November 2021: 100%
• October 2021: 99.96%
• September 2021: 99.90%
• August 2021: 99.97%
• July 2021: 99.94%
• June 2021: 99.97%
• May 2021: 99.98%
• April 2021: 100%
• March 2021: 100%
• February 2021: 99.68%
• January 2021: 99.98%

That’s an industry-standard result and proves MidPhase to be a reliable host.

2. Good Average Speed

MidPhase’s uptime is great.

But what about their speed?

Our last 12-month analysis showed an average speed of 750 ms (which falls below the industry-standard 850 ms).

However, during the past year they have shown a bit slower speed results – so that’s definitely something to look out for.

3. Responsive Customer Support

MidPhase offers phone support, a ticketing system, and also a live chat option that is available 24/7.

We tested out their live chat option to see how responsive MidPhase customer support is.

Their customer rep connected with us within a minute and answered our simple (site migration-related) question quickly.

In the past, we also tested out their ticketing system and also received a fast and knowledgeable reply.

Besides the above-mentioned customer options, you also have the possibility to browse their vast knowledge base.

4. Inexpensive

Did we mention MidPhase is cheap?

A long-term plan with their cheapest shared hosting option comes out to $1.00 per month.

The catch?

It’s only valid for one month. After that, the packages renew at the standard cost.

5. 99.9% Uptime Guarantee

Our MidPhase test showed excellent uptime over the past few years. However, this might always not be the case and uptime can vary.

That’s why it’s good to have some sort of guarantee that will protect you if the uptime drops too much and affects your website’s traffic.

That’s exactly what MidPhase offers – a 99.9% uptime guarantee” included in their hosting packages.

Drop below that threshold and you can ask for an account credit.

However, based on our experience so far, you thankfully won’t need to ask them about this too often.

6. Beginner-Friendly Control Panel

MidPhase’s client area is logical and easy to use. From the left sidebar, you can access your account settings, domains, WordPress, website builder. On the main screen, you can also see your active hosting packages and contact support if necessary.

What concerns the control panel, then MidPhase uses cPanel which you can access also from the client area.

cPanel is no doubt the most popular control panel in the hosting industry and for a good reason – it’s very beginner-friendly. Everything hosting-related is easy to find (also search bar is included to make it even easier for you).

Cons of Using MidPhase Hosting

One dollar hosting can’t be all perfect. There are a few drawbacks to consider if you value other hosting features besides saving the most.

Let’s start with security.

1. Lack of Security Options in Their Cheapest Plan

Many web hosts will provide a long list of security apps available with a few simple clicks to lock down your site and keep things secure from nefarious attempts. Some will even go above and beyond, performing preventative maintenance services to make sure you’re OK.

And what’s even better?

Most of these features are offered for free.

MidPhase, however, is not that generous. For example, Dedicated SSL Certificate, which’s basically a must-have option to have on a website, would have to be purchased for an extra cost of $34.99/year. You’ll only get it for free if you sign up with their most expensive plan.

The same goes for Dedicated IP Address and Stats2 Web Analytics – if you want these, be ready to pay $5.00/month and $2.00/month respectively.

2. Site Migrations Not Included

Free site migration is something a lot of hosts include in their plans. Even, if it’s not free, hosts usually offer at least a paid website transfer service that would be done by their professionals.

That’s something that can save a lot of time and hassle.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case with MidPhase. Site Migrations (neither free nor paid) are not included in their hosting plans. This means, that if you already have an existing website and you want to transfer over to MidPhase, you’d have to do all the heavy lifting yourself.

Sure, if you’re already an old-timer in the hosting world it shouldn’t be a problem, but if you’re not very tech-savvy the whole process can be a bit overwhelming.

3. High Renewal Pricing (Across All Products)

MidPhase’s $1.00/month sticker price for their Web Hosting Personal package looks pretty good on the surface.

However, if you’ve been in the game as long as we have, you’ll know that advertised pricing usually comes with a few ‘gotchas’ that can come back to haunt you if you’re not careful.

Sadly, MidPhase is no different in this case.

The biggest catch, in this case, is the high renewal cost when your first plan expires. Your price will basically become multiple times more expensive.

The Starter Plan, for example, goes from $1.00/month up to $5.00/month. The Pro Plan goes from $1.00/month to $7.00/month, while the Enterprise Plan also increases from $1.00/month to $9.00/month.

If you’re on a tight budget, it’s definitely something to look out for.

MidPhase Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

Here is a quick overview of MidPhase hosting plans to help to determine if they are a good fit for you:

Quick Facts

• Free Domain: Yes, with all plans.
• Ease of Signup: Friendly and easy-to-use three-step signup process.
• Money-Back: 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Payment Methods: All Major credit cards, PayPal.
• Hidden Fees and Clauses: There’s a limit of 200,000 files and 10GB cumulative database size on all shared hosting accounts. Exceeding this limit may result in the termination of your account.
• Upsells: Lots of upsells.
• Account Activation: Quick account activation.
• Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
• Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Quick and easy install of popular apps and CMSs with Softaculous.

Do We Recommend MidPhase?

Yes. But there are some better options available.

There are serious questions to consider prior to signing up with MidPhase. Primarily the lack of security features and high renewal prices.

Despite that, if you’re looking for a quick, cheap option with good uptime, speed, and support, MidPhase might be worth a roll of the dice.

Have you used MidPhase? Please leave your MidPhase review based on your experience – positive or negative – to help us provide honest and transparent reviews.