About The Hosting Mill

We started testing hosts because the reviews we read could not be checked

The Hosting Mill is an independent review site run by people who build and look after websites for a living. Our job is to put hosting plans through a fair, repeatable test and report what happened — in language that someone choosing their first host can follow.

§01 — Why we exist

Most hosting advice is written by people who earn from it — including us. So we show our working.

Hosting is one of the most heavily affiliate-marketed products on the internet. That is not a secret, and we take part in it: some links on this site pay us a commission. What we found missing was evidence. Lists ranked by commission rate looked identical to lists ranked by performance, and readers had no way to tell which was which.

So we built a method that anyone can read, buy plans the way a normal customer does, and publish the numbers behind every score. When a host that pays us performs badly, the review says so in the first paragraph. If that costs us commission, the method is working.

The Mill name comes from that process. Every plan goes through the same steps, in the same order, for the same length of time — and what comes out the other end is a verdict you can trace back to the data.

§02 — What we stand for

Four principles behind every review

Evidence before opinion

Every claim in a review should be checkable against a measurement, a screenshot or a dated support transcript.

Disclosure by default

Affiliate relationships, test dates and the method version are shown on every review, at the top, not in a footer.

Plain language

We write for the person buying their first plan, while keeping the raw data for readers who want it.

Reviews that age honestly

Hosting changes fast. Reviews are re-tested and carry a change log, so an old verdict never pretends to be new.

§03 — Who does the work

A small team with clear roles

Reviews are produced by a small editorial team. Separating these roles means the person who runs a test is never the only person who checks it.

Test engineers buy plans, build test sites, run monitoring and keep the raw data.
Editors turn the data into readable reviews and check every figure against its source.
Support testers run the graded support conversations without seeing earlier results.
Partnerships manages affiliate agreements and is kept out of scoring entirely.

§04 — How we make money

Affiliate commission pays for the test plans. Nothing pays for a score.

When you buy hosting through some links on this site, the host may pay us a commission. It does not change the price you pay. We use that income to buy test plans, run monitoring and pay the people who do the work.

Partnerships staff never see scores before publication and have no input into them. We review hosts we have no commercial relationship with, and we keep reviewing hosts after an agreement ends. We do not sell sponsored posts, paid rankings or “best of” placements.

Want to know how a review was made?

Our complete method is public, versioned and open to criticism.