A2 Hosting / hosting.com Specs (2026): Managed Linux Intro vs Renewal, No Root, and the VPS Refund Exclusion

The VPS plan table that used to live under the A2 Hosting name is now hosting.com managed Linux. The 4 GB card prints $23.20 a month for a 1-year term and $58 on renewal, root is not included, and the money-back page excludes VPS. This page sets out those published limits for September 2026. This site measures nothing.

✓ Figures from hosting.com cards
✓ Intro and renewal shown together
✓ No measurements

Short answer

  • Brand: live SKUs are on hosting.com. a2hosting.com/vps-hosting served hosting.com marketing copy on 2026-09-29, not an A2 plan grid.
  • 4 GB intro: Managed cPanel 4GB, $23.20/mo for a 1-year term (2 cores, 4 GB, 100 GB NVMe, cPanel Solo). Prepaid line $278.40. Renewal $58/mo.
  • Root: "Root access is not provided." cPanel is the access path on this ladder.
  • Refund: the money-back page lists VPS and dedicated servers as not covered. Shared hosting is a different product.
  • LiteSpeed: one block says every Managed cPanel Server includes it; another says LiteSpeed replaces Apache on 16GB+ plans. Both sentences are on the same URL. This page does not pick one.

See current hosting.com managed Linux plans →

Plain official link, not an affiliate hop. Confirm the term toggle (the cards below were read on the 1-year display) and the second invoice at checkout.

An earlier version of this URL ranked Turbo against Standard with CPU, disk and network scores framed as this site's own tests, including a CPU score of 4,000. None of those figures were measured here, and they have been removed.

1. A2 Hosting is now the hosting.com ladder

This is the turn. Buyers still search A2 Hosting VPS. The URL that used to hold an A2 plan table, a2hosting.com/vps-hosting, opened hosting.com marketing copy on 2026-09-29: shared hosting, "your own cloud server, sometimes called a VPS," and bare metal, without the old A2 Runway grid. The SKU page with CPU, RAM, NVMe and two prices per row is hosting.com managed Linux. Customer quotes on the money-back page still say "previously A2 Hosting" and "formerly A2." This specs page follows the live cards, not the retired brand chrome.

The hub on hosting.com/hosting/vps-hosting/ splits the product into unmanaged and managed. A footnote on that hub says the promotional price shown is for a 12-month term and renews at the regular rate when the introductory term ends. The managed Linux cards read for this page were on that 1-year display. A 1-month toggle exists on the same widget; this page does not copy 1-month dollars that were not captured. Currency on the cards is USD. Tax basis is not printed next to the amounts.

2. Managed Linux: intro, prepaid year, and renewal

Eight virtual plans scale by RAM. Each VPS card lists dedicated CPU cores, NVMe capacity, one dedicated IP, SSL, a managed-server chip, and cPanel Solo. The 4 GB through 64 GB cards also print a 1-year prepaid amount and a renewal rate. $23.20 x 12 = $278.40, $36 x 12 = $432, $56 x 12 = $672, $92 x 12 = $1,104, $167.20 x 12 = $2,006.40; those products match the prepaid lines. The 128 GB, 160 GB and 256 GB cards print a monthly intro and a "was" price at 60% off, without the "Pay $X today" sentence. This page does not invent a prepaid year for those three.

Plan as printedCPU coresRAMNVMeIntro / mo (1-year display)Renewal / moPay today (as printed)
Managed cPanel 4GB24 GB100 GB$23.20$58$278.40
Managed Server 8GB48 GB150 GB$36$90$432
Managed Server 16GB816 GB300 GB$56$140$672
Managed Server 32GB1632 GB400 GB$92$230$1,104
Managed Server 64GB2464 GB800 GB$167.20$418$2,006.40
Managed cPanel 128GB32128 GB1.2 TB$364$910not printed on the card
Managed cPanel 160GB48160 GB1.4 TB$464$1,160not printed on the card
Managed cPanel 256GB64256 GB2 TB$732$1,830not printed on the card

The "was" figures on those cards are the same numbers as the renewal line on 4 GB through 64 GB ($58, $90, $140, $230, $418) and the crossed-out monthly on 128 GB and up ($910, $1,160, $1,830). Budget the renewal unless checkout shows a different second invoice. Extra cPanel accounts are a separate sentence: autoscale licensing at cPanel's pass-through rate, invoiced around the 15th of each month. One cPanel account is in the plan price; more accounts are not folded into $23.20.

Bare metal is on the same URL, under Managed Dedicated Servers: not virtualized, dedicated 1 Gbps with 10 Gbps available, and three named SKUs. Those rows print "From" prices, not a 1-year prepaid line.

SKU as printedCoresRAMDisk as printedCPU as printedPrice as printed
Bare Metal 1 (Managed)1232 GB2 x 960 GB NVMe RAID1AMD EPYC 4245PFrom $299/mo
Bare Metal 2 (Managed)2464 GB2 x 960 GB NVMe RAID1AMD EPYC 4465PFrom $399/mo
Bare Metal 3 (Managed)32128 GB2 x 960 GB NVMe RAID1AMD EPYC 4545PFrom $599/mo

Bare Metal 3 prints "128GB de RAM" on the card. This table keeps 128 GB and does not treat the extra word as a different SKU. Disk options other than the RAID1 pair are listed as available; this page does not price them.

3. No root; cPanel Solo and WHM on the same page

The managed Linux page is explicit: "Root access is not provided. This is intentional. It's what allows us to patch, secure, and maintain the underlying system reliably on your behalf." The FAQ restates that you access everything through cPanel. That is a vendor "we do not" sentence, not an inference from a missing checkbox.

Every virtual card in the ladder prints cPanel Solo. A later "Everything on every plan" block also advertises cPanel and WHM, "plus WHM access to manage multiple client accounts above it." Those are two labels on one URL. Solo is what the SKU cards print; WHM is what the feature grid prints. Extra cPanel logins are the autoscale add-on, not a silent upgrade of Solo into a reseller stack. Unmanaged is the published path if the need is root rather than a panel.

4. LiteSpeed on every plan, and LiteSpeed from 16 GB

Do not flatten this. The performance block says: "On 16GB+ plans, LiteSpeed replaces Apache, handling concurrent traffic more efficiently with built-in caching that bypasses PHP entirely for cached requests." The feature grid says: "We run every server the same way. Every Managed cPanel Server comes with LiteSpeed, CloudLinux, Monarx, Softaculous and much more regardless of which plan you're on." A comparison matrix fetched as markdown on the same day listed Apache on the smaller columns and LiteSpeed on the larger ones. This page quotes the two prose sentences and leaves the matrix as a third surface, not a tie-breaker.

The same feature grid claims a paid full LiteSpeed license and LSCache for WordPress. Magento is called out for LiteMage on 16GB+. None of that is a measurement from this site. The hero still prints "20x Faster Performance with AMD EPYC CPUs, NvME Drives." Treat 20x as marketing copy on that page, not as a result.

5. The 30-day guarantee, and where VPS sits

hosting.com sells a 30-day money-back story on a dedicated page. Covered, as printed: shared hosting, Hosting for WordPress, email except Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, and reseller plans purchased directly. Then the exclusion: "The guarantee doesn't apply to a few specific items: domain name registrations and renewals, VPS and Dedicated Server plans, SSL certificates, and other third-party services such as Microsoft 365." The same page says those products "aren't refundable," including renewal fees. Service terms put "All Products, except for Domains, Servers and certain third-party supplier products" in the no-quibble window, and point billing detail at a refund policy. India-localized terms (en-in) print a different VPS window (7 days). This US-facing page uses the global money-back URL and the global service terms, and does not import the India table.

Free migrations and a 99.99% uptime line are on the managed Linux page. Those are not a refund. Confirm cancellation in the customer panel; terms say convenience cancellation is through the online form and that terminating for convenience leaves charges for the then-active term.

6. Unmanaged is a configurator, not this table

Unmanaged Linux lives at hosting.com/hosting/vps-hosting/unmanaged/linux/. The page offers Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 12 and AlmaLinux 9, AMD EPYC, NVMe, a 99.9% uptime SLA, full root, and a Monthly / Annually / Triennially control. It does not print a fixed dollar grid in the text captured for this page. A Product JSON-LD Offer on that URL listed price 9.99 USD with priceValidUntil 2025-12-31. That date is in the past relative to this write-up, so $9.99 is not used as a current unmanaged rate. Search snippets still advertise unmanaged "from $4.99/mo (was $9.99/mo)"; those chips were not a readable SKU table in the configurator capture. If you need an unmanaged quote, the configurator and checkout are the source, not this table.

7. Locations as printed

Managed Linux copy says 10 locations, "mostly in Equinix facilities," without a city table on that URL. Unmanaged FAQs on the sister page name: London, New York, US West, Canada, Singapore, Sydney, Mexico, Europe, Dubai and Mumbai. New York and US West are the United States names on that unmanaged list. This page does not treat an older Detroit or Phoenix sentence as a current datacenter list, because those names were not on the URLs read on 2026-09-29.

Daily backups on managed Linux are described as running to a separate server, with customer restores from the control panel. Bandwidth allowances were not printed on the eight virtual cards captured for the table above, so they are not filled in.

8. What these pages do not print

  • A 1-month dollar column for the eight virtual plans. The widget has a 1-month control; the figures above are the 1-year display.
  • A prepaid year on Managed cPanel 128GB, 160GB and 256GB. Only intro and "was" printed.
  • Transfer / port speed on those eight cards. A markdown conversion of a spec matrix showed terabyte columns; that matrix is not copied here because the live cards did not show it.
  • Tax, sales tax, or VAT next to the USD amounts.
  • A current unmanaged SKU price. The JSON-LD $9.99 offer had expired as of the date on that field.
  • A Windows VPS table on the managed Linux or unmanaged Linux URLs read for this page. That is a scope note, not a claim that Windows is unavailable somewhere else on hosting.com.
  • IOPS, single-thread scores, or "20x" as a measured result.

9. Measuring the parts that are not published

CPU model on the virtual plans (beyond AMD EPYC as a family), disk IOPS and achievable throughput are measurable on a server you control. Managed Linux does not give root, so those commands run only as far as the panel and SSH user allow. This site publishes none of those measurements. The benchmarks hub has the commands used on providers that sell a root VPS. Unmanaged is the hosting.com path that prints root; it still needs a checkout quote for the dollar amount.

The A2 Hosting VPS review is a separate URL. This page does not take scores, $7.99, Runway or Turbo-tier test claims from it. For a cheap US VPS with root and a printed monthly grid, the comparison that belongs elsewhere is cheapest VPS and the InterServer review. WordPress application limits are on the WordPress on VPS guide.

Before treating $23.20 as the bill, read the $58 renewal, the 1-year prepaid line, and the money-back exclusion for VPS. hosting.com links on this page are plain official URLs, not affiliate links.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the cheapest managed Linux VPS on hosting.com?

On the managed Linux page in September 2026, Managed cPanel 4GB prints $23.20 per month for a 1-year term: 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, one dedicated IP, SSL, and cPanel Solo. The same card says pay $278.40 today, then $58/mo on renewal. $23.20 times 12 is $278.40; that product matches the prepaid line. Tax is not stated on the card.

Is this still A2 Hosting?

The live VPS SKU page is hosting.com, not a plan table on a2hosting.com. a2hosting.com/vps-hosting in September 2026 served hosting.com marketing copy. hosting.com's money-back page carries customer quotes that call the company "previously A2 Hosting" and "formerly A2." This page reads hosting.com's managed Linux cards. It does not reuse A2 Runway or $7.99 figures from older third-party write-ups.

Do I get root on managed Linux?

The managed Linux page states: "Root access is not provided. This is intentional." Access is through cPanel. The same block points readers who want full root at unmanaged options. Unmanaged Linux is a separate URL with a configurator, not the table above.

Is there a 30-day money-back guarantee on VPS?

The money-back page covers shared hosting, Hosting for WordPress, email (excluding Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace) and reseller plans bought directly. It then lists what is out: "The guarantee doesn't apply to a few specific items: domain name registrations and renewals, VPS and Dedicated Server plans, SSL certificates, and other third-party services such as Microsoft 365." Service terms put servers outside the no-quibble window as well. Confirm the product in the cart; this page does not treat a shared-hosting 30-day line as a VPS refund.

What does "20x faster" mean here?

The managed Linux hero prints "20x Faster Performance with AMD EPYC CPUs, NvME Drives." That is vendor marketing on the product page. This site publishes no measurements of page load, CPU, disk or network, and does not translate 20x into a hardware ranking.

Sources

Prices, specifications and quoted phrases are from hosting.com pages, read on 2026-09-29. Prepaid-year products are arithmetic on the printed monthly intro and are labelled as matching the "Pay $X today" lines. This site publishes no measurements. hosting.com links on this page are plain links, not affiliate links.