Yes. You can move your web hosting to a bigger or smaller plan at any time from the client area. Upgrading is quick and safe. Before you downgrade, check that everything in your account fits in the smaller plan, because a plan that's too small can stop your website and email working.
Upgrade or downgrade your plan
- Go to Services → My Services (https://www.hooplahosting.co.nz/client/clientarea.php?action=services) and click the hosting service you want to change.
- Click Upgrade/Downgrade in the menu on the left.
- Choose the new plan. The price shown is worked out pro rata for the rest of your current billing period, so you only pay the difference for the time that's left. For example, if the new plan costs $2 a month more and you're halfway through the month, you'd pay $1.
- Confirm the change and pay any invoice it creates. The new plan is applied to your account automatically once that's done.
Before you downgrade: check your disk usage
Your disk usage includes everything in the account: website files, databases, backups you've made in cPanel, and every email in every mailbox. If your account is using more space than the new plan allows, it'll be over quota as soon as the change goes through. When that happens, your website can show errors (such as a 500 Internal Server Error), cPanel and webmail may not load properly, and new email can bounce.
To check before you downgrade:
- Open your hosting service under Services → My Services. The service page shows how much disk space you're currently using and your plan's limit.
- Compare that figure with the disk space of the plan you want to move to. Leave some room to spare, because email keeps arriving and websites grow over time. Staying under about 80% of the smaller plan's limit is a good rule of thumb.
- If you've just deleted a lot of email or files, wait a little and refresh the page. Usage figures can take a short while to update.
- If you need to free up space first, see Disk space full or nearly full: find what's using space and free it up. Emptying the Trash and Spam folders in webmail and deleting old backup files from cPanel's File Manager usually make the biggest difference.
Check your monthly bandwidth too. If your usage is close to the smaller plan's traffic allowance, the account can be suspended automatically when it goes over, until it resets the following month or you upgrade again.
Downgraded and now something isn't working?
If your website or email stopped working straight after a downgrade, the account is probably over its new disk limit. The quickest fix is to move back to the larger plan the same way, through Upgrade/Downgrade on the service page, then free up space before you try again. If you can't get into the client area or cPanel, open a ticket from Support → Open Ticket (https://www.hooplahosting.co.nz/client/submitticket.php) and we'll put you back on your previous plan.
When you're running low on space
When your account gets close to its disk limit, we'll email you, and an upgrade suggestion appears on your service page in the client area. Upgrading straight away avoids any interruption to your website and email.
VPS and reseller plans
Reseller hosting is changed the same way, using Upgrade/Downgrade on the service page. Remember to count the disk usage of every cPanel account you've created under your reseller account.
For VPS plans, see Manage your VPS from the client area. After upgrading a Cloud VPS, you may need to expand the disk yourself: see Expand your VPS disk after upgrading your plan.
Want to cancel instead?
If you no longer need the service at all, see Cancel a service or stop a domain renewing.
