The renewal invoice is not a mistake. The price you signed up at was a first-term price, and the one on the invoice is the real one. Every registrar that sells email this way prints both numbers, one large and one small, on the same page. Here is what those pages say today, how to find your own renewal figure before it is charged, and what a price with no introductory year looks like.
Short answer: you bought a first term at a promotional rate, and the plan renewed at the regular rate. Registrars and web hosts sell email as an add-on to a domain, and the add-on is priced to look like nothing at checkout. The regular rate is disclosed, usually in smaller type next to the promotional one, and it applies from the second term onward. Nothing changed about the service. The discount ran out.
That is legal and, read carefully, honest. It is also easy to miss when you are buying a domain at eleven at night and ticking the email box because it says $0.39.
What the pages say, in their own numbers
Hostinger's email page (hostinger.com/email-hosting, checked 6 October 2026) lists its Starter mailbox at $0.39 a month, struck through from $2.99, and states beside it that the plan renews at $1.59 a month for a 48-month term, all paid upfront. The page also says the monthly rate is the total divided by the number of months, so the first bill is around $19 for four years of one mailbox and the next one is around $76. Four times.
IONOS (ionos.com/office-solutions/email-hosting, same date) lists Mail Basic 1 at $1.10 a month with a 3-year term, "then only $2/month". Mail Basic 25, with twenty-five accounts, is $2 a month on the 3-year term and then $4. The multiplier is about two, and the term is three years, so the second price arrives late enough to be a surprise.
Namecheap's Private Email page (namecheap.com/hosting/email, same date) shows its Launch plan at $0.00 for the first month and "Renews at $14.88/year" underneath, with the note that free trials convert to an annual plan and that promo codes discount the initial purchase only. The jump is from nothing to $14.88, which is a small number that feels large because the first one was zero.
GoDaddy's email page (godaddy.com/email/professional-business-email, same date) prices Microsoft 365 Email Essentials at $1.99 per mailbox a month for the first one-year term, next to a struck-through $8.99, and says auto-renew pricing applies to each active mailbox. The page does not print a separate "renews at" line, so the struck figure is the list price rather than a quoted renewal; the direction is clear either way.
Bluehost (bluehost.com/google-workspace, same date) sells Google Workspace Business Starter at $3.50 a user a month on a 12-month term, "renews at $7.00/mo", and states that the promotional price is for the first term only. Double, per person, after a year.
Nothing changed about the service. The discount ran out.
How to find your renewal price before it is charged
The number is in three places. The order confirmation email from the day you bought, which usually lists the term and the renewal rate below the total. The product's page in your account, where the renewal date and amount sit next to an auto-renew toggle. And the pricing page itself, where the regular rate is the struck-through or "renews at" figure beside the headline.
Put the renewal date in your calendar now, a month early. A month is enough to move a mailbox somewhere else without a gap, and most hosts will not refund a renewal that has already been charged. If auto-renew is on and you are not sure you want to stay, turning it off does not cancel anything today; it just stops the charge and makes the host send you a reminder.
When moving is worth it, and when it is not
If the renewal is a few dollars a year for one mailbox, pay it and move on; your time is worth more than the difference. The maths changes when the add-on was priced per mailbox and you have several, or when the term is long. Four years of three Hostinger mailboxes at the renewal rate is about $229 upfront. Twenty-five IONOS accounts on Mail Basic 25 renew at $4 a month for a three-year term. At that point a flat monthly price with no term is simply cheaper, and you are not locked to a date.
The move itself is a copy, a DNS change and a cancellation, in that order, and it is explained step by step in how to move your email without losing a message. Start it a month before renewal, not a week.
What a price with no intro year looks like
Some hosts do not do first-term pricing. The price on the page is the price on day one and on day four hundred, and there is no term to renew because the plan is monthly. Faivelo is one of them: $6 a month for unlimited mailboxes on up to three domains, or $5 a month if you choose to pay yearly, and the yearly option is a discount rather than a trap because the renewal is the same figure. The trial is fourteen days with no card, so there is nothing to convert.
That is not a claim that flat pricing is always cheaper. One mailbox at $1.59 a month is less than $6, and if that is all you will ever need, the renewal is the better deal. It becomes the worse one at the fourth mailbox, or the first time you want to leave before a four-year term ends. The compare page lays the two models side by side so you can see where your own numbers fall.
One price, no second term
If the renewal invoice was the push you needed, Faivelo is $6 a month for every mailbox on your domain, no first-term rate and no four-year commitment. Copy your mail over before the renewal date; it takes an afternoon.