About Mainstay

Mainstay exists because most hosting reviews are written for the click, not for the business owner. They rank on the lowest promotional price, bury the renewal cost, and treat 'uptime' as a marketing word rather than a revenue number. We do the opposite: we rank small-business hosting on business fit — uptime SLA, support, professional email and room to grow — and we always show the renewal price next to the intro price.

How we assess a host

We assess hosts on five weighted factors: a credit-backed uptime SLA, support quality and availability, professional email, scalability, and honest long-term pricing. We do not run our own load tests or publish invented benchmark numbers. Where we quote uptime, it is the host's own published SLA or a named third-party monitor such as UptimeRobot or HostAdvice, with the date we checked it. Where we quote a price, it comes from the host's own checkout or terms and is shown as a dated band, because hosting pricing changes constantly and varies by term and region.

Independence and non-affiliation

Mainstay is an independent publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any hosting company named on this site; brand names and logos are used only to identify the services we review. Some outbound links are affiliate links, and if you buy through one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That commission never changes a ranking, a score, or a criticism — and where a service that pays us nothing is genuinely the better choice, we say so plainly. The details are in our affiliate disclosure.

Keeping it current

Hosting plans, prices and SLAs move, so our recommendations carry the date they were checked and we revisit them when hosts change what they publish. If you spot a figure that's gone stale or a claim you think is wrong, tell us — accuracy is the whole point. You can reach us via our contact page.