Hostinger Business (Now Unlimited) vs Cloud Startup: When Shared Stops Working
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Quick answer
Hostinger renamed the Business plan to Unlimited in September 2026. Unlimited at INR 249/month handles a WordPress business site with a blog and forms up to roughly 100,000 visits a month. Move to Cloud Startup at INR 599/month when you run a WooCommerce store taking more than a few orders a day, a membership or booking site, or expect campaign traffic spikes: it adds 4 dedicated CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, a dedicated IP and priority support. Cloud Startup also dropped from INR 849 to INR 599 in the restructure.
The plan names changed in September 2026
If you are comparing "Business vs Cloud Startup", Business is now called Unlimited. Same product, same price point, new name. Cloud Startup kept its name and got cheaper, dropping from INR 849/month to INR 599/month on the 48-month term, which changes this decision considerably.
Shared versus dedicated, in plain terms
On Unlimited you share a server's CPU and memory with other customers. Hostinger caps what each account can use, but if a neighbour's site gets hammered, your pages queue behind it. On Cloud Startup your CPU and RAM are yours: 4 cores and 4 GB, with a dedicated IP address and priority in the support queue.
| Unlimited (was Business) | Cloud Startup | |
|---|---|---|
| Resources | Shared pool | Dedicated 4 cores / 4 GB |
| Storage | 50 GB NVMe | 100 GB NVMe |
| Websites | 50 | 100 |
| Inodes (files) | 600,000 | 2,000,000 |
| Dedicated IP | No | Yes |
| Backups | Daily | Daily and on demand |
| Support | Priority 24/7 chat | Priority 24/7 chat |
| Visits guidance | ~100,000/month | ~200,000/month |
| Intro price (48 mo, India) | INR 249/month | INR 599/month |
| 4-year cost with GST | about INR 14,100 | about INR 33,900 |
The gap is about INR 19,800 over four years, down from roughly INR 37,000 before the restructure. Cloud Startup is a much easier recommendation than it was in August.
Stay on Unlimited if
- The site is a brochure site, a service business site or a blog
- Traffic is under roughly 100,000 visits a month
- WooCommerce is present but takes a handful of orders a week
- You are not running ads that can send a burst of visitors in an hour
Most of the client sites we host are in this group and Unlimited serves them well, especially with LiteSpeed caching configured properly.
Move to Cloud Startup if
- You run a WooCommerce store with more than a few orders a day. Checkout, cart and account pages cannot be cached, so every one of those requests hits PHP and the database. Dedicated CPU is what keeps checkout responsive.
- The site has logged-in users: memberships, courses, booking systems, customer portals. Same reason: logged-in pages bypass the cache.
- You run campaigns. A Meta or Google Ads push, a newsletter or a TV mention slows a shared plan exactly when the traffic is worth the most.
- You need a dedicated IP for a payment gateway, an API whitelist or email deliverability.
- You have a large media library or a big catalogue. Unlimited allows 600,000 files and directories; Cloud Startup allows 2,000,000, and inode limits catch people out long before storage does.
What we have seen on client stores
A WooCommerce site with 300 products and 10-15 orders a day on the shared tier showed checkout page times of 2-3 seconds under normal load and 6+ seconds during a festival sale. The same site on Cloud Startup, with nothing else changed, held checkout under 1.5 seconds through the next sale. The difference is dedicated CPU for the uncacheable pages, not raw speed on the homepage, which was fast on both.
Cloud Startup versus a VPS
Some developers will tell you to buy a VPS instead. Check the numbers first: Hostinger's cheapest KVM VPS is INR 699/month on a 12-month term, which is more per month than Cloud Startup at INR 599, and it is unmanaged. You maintain the operating system, security patches, PHP versions and backups. For a business owner without a technical team, Cloud Startup's managed environment is both cheaper and less work. We only recommend a VPS to clients who have a developer on retainer.
Our pick
If the site sells, books or logs people in, buy Cloud Startup on 48 months. At INR 599/month it is the plan we recommend by default when a client asks for one answer. For a content site or a service business, Unlimited is the sensible choice and you can upgrade from hPanel when the numbers justify it.
Related guides
Hostinger Premium vs Business (Now Unlimited): Which Plan Do You Need?
Business is now called Unlimited. The five differences against Premium, and the site types where the extra INR 100/month pays for itself.
Hostinger Plans and Price in India (2026): Which Plan Should You Buy?
Every Hostinger India plan with intro price, GST, renewal cost and 4-year total, at all four term lengths, and which one to buy.
Best WooCommerce Hosting in India (2026): By Store Size and Order Volume
Checkout cannot be cached. Which host handles it at each store size, and what it costs in INR.
Frequently asked questions
How much more does Cloud Startup cost than Unlimited in India?
About INR 350/month more on the 48-month term: INR 599 against INR 249 before GST, or roughly INR 33,900 against INR 14,100 over four years including 18% GST. Cloud Startup dropped from INR 849 to INR 599 in the September 2026 restructure.
Is Hostinger Cloud Startup worth it for WooCommerce?
Yes once the store takes more than a few orders a day. Cart, checkout and account pages cannot be cached, and dedicated CPU keeps them responsive during sales. Small catalogues with occasional orders run fine on Unlimited.
Does Cloud Startup include a dedicated IP?
Yes. All Hostinger cloud plans include a dedicated IP address, which the shared plans do not. That matters for some payment gateways, API whitelists and email reputation.
Is a Hostinger VPS cheaper than Cloud Startup?
No. The cheapest KVM VPS is INR 699/month on 12 months against INR 599 for Cloud Startup on 48 months, and the VPS is unmanaged. A VPS only makes sense if you have a developer who will maintain the operating system.
Can I upgrade from Unlimited to Cloud Startup without downtime?
Yes. The upgrade is done from hPanel, Hostinger moves the account, and there is no DNS change because the domain stays on the same nameservers. Expect a short window of slower responses while files move.
How many visits can Hostinger Unlimited handle?
Hostinger guides around 100,000 visits a month for Unlimited and 200,000 for Cloud Startup. Cached pages stretch those numbers a lot; uncacheable pages like checkout shrink them.
Written by
Chirag Darji, Founder of VGraple
Chirag has built and hosted business websites since 2011 and currently runs 45+ client sites on Hostinger from Ahmedabad, India. Every recommendation on this page is based on sites VGraple manages, with prices checked on 19 September 2026.