A Small Orange Reviews 124

A couple of months ago, half of my websites were hacked and infected with malware. A Small Orange took them offline to prevent propagation and subsequently sent me an email, informing me that I had to clean and restore my websites either by myself or by hiring a professional team. They warned me that failing to do so immediately would lead to the suspension or termination of my accounts. It took me weeks to resolve the issue, during which time my websites were down. However, despite the downtime, I was charged the full hosting price. The professional team that assisted me explained that my websites had several layers of protection and there was no concrete proof of hacking; rather, it was likely an infection spreading from another (weaker) website in the shared server onto mine. A Small Orange, however, insisted that it was impossible, claiming their servers were bulletproof. Subsequently, they wiped my account, forcing me to start from scratch using backups from a year ago. I wasn't allowed to use any recent backups under the assumption they might be infected. This experience led me to question why A Small Orange promises website safety and charges for support when, in my case, the responsibility and cost fell on me, despite it not being my fault.

I have been with A Small Orange for 12 years, starting when they were ranked among Life Hackers' "Five Best Web Hosting Companies" in 2012. I initially migrated one website from GoDaddy to give them a chance and was impressed with their great deals and decent service. However, as the years passed, A Small Orange expanded and adopted practices similar to other large companies, leaving me dissatisfied.

They began increasing my monthly fee without any notification or agreement, gradually adding a few cents to my fee every month. Despite my discussions with them, they insisted it was to "offer a better service," leaving me with no choice. This is especially concerning since, at one point, I was promised that my fee would always remain the same. However, it has now exceeded +40% of the amount stated in my agreement and continues to rise every month. While I understand occasional price adjustments for improvements, the added cost seems outrageous, especially considering the declining service quality.

In that same interaction regarding a fixed fee for life, they explained that I had a special discount for trusting them with my business as a small company. They assured me that if I ever wanted to upgrade, they would respect that discount. However, when exploring upgrade options, they completely disregarded their promise. According to them, since the upgrade would require 'a new account,' it wouldn't have any 'history' with them, thus not benefiting from any discount.

Bottom line: stay away from A Small Orange.

AVOID AVOID AVOID. I've been with a small orange for more than a decade because when i bought into it they were a solid and trustworthy company that provided good affordable plans. I decided to stop my plan because it had gotten expensive and i wasn't using it - renewal date was still 3 weeks away however they took my money 1 month in advance and REFUSED to refund it ($287) - saying that they could give me a credit note to use for their services - what on earth am i going to do with that? surely it's not legal to take the money so far in advance and not give it back before the renewal date? Radio silence now - i feel to totally ripped of - what a scam! AVOID AVOID AVOID

Hosting itself has been ok. Business transactions are terrible if anything doesn't go perfectly smoothly with no changes. The biggest single problem - which they have refused to respond to - is they save all payment card info and offer you no way to either delete or replace. Recently we paid our annual bill with a new, manually entered card, but they sent the receipt to the holder of the card we used last year, but actually *charged* the amount to a card we last used 2 years ago!

The absolute worst! Garbage. At one distant time, they were the best. Then they got bought out. When I discovered that my hosting account had been renewed for another year, I immediately contacted them using their terrible chat support. Refused to refund me for a renewal even though I haven't used their services in over a year. I asked weeks prior for them not to renew me, but they said they had no record of me contacting them. Their chat system doesn't allow transcripts to be emailed nor does their billing allow you to remove a credit card on file. So it's their word against mine. Every answer is canned and scripted. They don't operate on morals or principle. Greedy, shady business practices. Stay away from them at all cost. Seriously, the other reviews are dead accurate.

Do not use a small orange, they hold you hostage and won’t let you cancel your account, they only have a form to submit problems and no phone number to speak to someone in the company. I tried to cancel my account two months ago and I am still getting autopay emails with money I can’t seem to access and get back from them. They tell you to remove your PayPal subscription through the PayPal app to fix the problem, but then it loops you back to their website again to do it all over again. Very DARK patterns with terrible support and no quick resolution or they ignore your form submissions completely. I loved this company ten years ago, but now I would never recommend this platform to anyone. Run the opposite direction!

Absolutely the worst. Pulled money out of my account 7 days ago and refusing to cancel and refund my annual subscription. Horrible service and support. I haven't been able to access my emails in 6 months yet they're keeping me hostage for another year.

I've used them before and this was the worst experience ever! They lured me with discounts but service is terrible. Stay away

Extremely unhelpful support, will keep sending me the same copy pasted answers instead of answering any queries or concerns, upsold me addons to prevent future malware removal, and then turned around and said the addon only SCANS and LOCATES the malware, doesn't remove it - even when removing is in the name and that's what they promised me.

Scammed me out of a yearly subscription on a account that I had not logged into in years for a corrupted linux box

I've been a customer of a small orange for nearly 10 years, and while they were a great little hosting company back then, they've clearly had changes in the last few years resulting in really fundamental things not working at all. For example I was unable to log into my account for over a month, resulting in me losing my domain and access to my email.
I'd advise everyone to stay as far away as possible, and any current customers should move all services off this provider as quick as they can

would not allow me to cancel online and would not refund my money.

They will STEAL YOUR MONEY overcharging your card with increased renewal fees NO MATTER IF YOU CANCELED OR TRANSFERED AWAY!

If you complain they won't give the money back - they only refund as credit to reuse their crap service longer. There are so many reviews about the same scam. AKA. RUN AWAY!

Do not trust anything they say. If you have ever registered with them, contact your bank or Paypal to remove ANY LINK before they STEAL your money! I never got my money back even though I've moved my domain a month earlier than due date for renewal. No one will help you after they have charged you. You need to block your card and any link all by yourself, don't trust them.

This is the third time in 6 months the email for our organization has gone down. There is no explanation as to why, no help when we put in tickets, we are completely at their mercy making it impossible to conduct business. It has been 5 days with zero resolution. In December it was 2 weeks. They claim a guaranteed 99.9% "up"time! Obviously this is not the case.

They used to be really good but now their service isn't fit for the purpose, in fact we are looking at suing them for gross incompetence and loss of business, this may take a while but it's about time they got their comeuppance:
We've had several issues (SSL certificates not working, email not working, long time to respond, downtime etc) with them but the most annoying one is their answering of emails, instead of keeping a thread going by replying they answer on a separate one which means if the answer is incorrect which it usually is the next person who picks this up doesn't know what the original question was. If you transposed this comical approach to a war zone, they would get us all killed
We are now transferring to a different host
If I could give minus 5 stars I would

Monumentally pathetic. Complete loss of site for months. Useless ‘support’ never fixed a thing. Had to put a credit card block on them to stop them renewing without my permission

I wish I could leave a zero.

Like many others, I was a customer when it was HostNine - and they were great. Over a decade. I came back to see ASmallOrange had acquired H9...expected the same great quality...

I have a reseller account, and have not been able to access it for 3 months. Support tickets are unanswered. I asked billing to wake up support. Unanswered.

Garbage, I'm afraid, now. Stay away. Too bad, they were one with rich features like choosing server location.

I was a customer for many years based on recommendations from others, but the company must have changed hands because things went from good to terrible over a period of time. First it was errors with my site. When I contacted support they would always try to sell me some product to "fix" it. Or they would say it was fixed (last time it was php-related) but visitors to my site were still getting error messages.

The latest issue was with billing. My card was charged without authorization. They admitted their error but would not refund my money! This was unethical and the last straw. I switched hosts last month and do NOT recommend A Small Orange anymore.

I've used A Small Orange since 2007 and they used to be fantastic. In the past the support was speedy and helpful on the rare occasions I've had to use them.

When I had a major issue with my site recently (which wasn't their fault, I should add) the support was unhelpful, slow and seemed to only be able to parrot back things that I'd told them. The knowledgebase articles are also woefully out of date.

Unfortunately, after 15 years of loyalty, I've left - my sites are ported elsewhere and account closed.

I went with this small company for hosting and domain registration in 2013 after hearing many good things. Shortly after, I heard they sold to another company. The price of my hosting plan started to go up gradually. At first it wasn't much, and it was once every few years. Since 2020, it has been increasing EVERY YEAR, and never have I been notified, let alone given any reason why. I was last charged $303.47 last year for a plan that started at $177 in 2013.

I cancelled my plan immediately that day I was last charged. Hopefully they don't screw me over and charge me again. This year's charge will be $364.16, a whopping $60.69 increment over last year. I dare you to give me another example of an annual subscription plan where the price goes up YEARLY. At this rate if I never cancel, I'll be paying thousands in a few years. I've likewise moved my domains out, the prices of which have been consistently increasing too.

Looking at the other reviews, how they don't respond to customers and how their pricing tactic, I believe A Small Orange is trying to run the company down by getting rid of all active customers. Looks like the parent company bought it to eliminate competition.

The worst of all time - they don't answer any messages or any tickets and their panel doesn't even loads, pure scams.