SiteGround Cloud is a solid hosting plan with Google Cloud Platform. The pricing is also competitive that you can start for $100 per month with 8GB RAM, 4 CPU Cores and 40 GB SSD storage. However, the problem is that you can’t reduce the SSD storage space if you have purchased it additionally. I bought additional 40 GB storage and was paying $20 more for many years. Since I do not need that additional space, the only option is to downgrade to one of the shared hosting plans and then upgrade again to Cloud.
Downgrading Cloud to GoGeek Plan
You may also consider downgrading within shared hosting plans or from Cloud to shared hosting due to reduced traffic. If your traffic went down considerably, you could downgrade to one of GoGeek, GrowBig or StartUp shared hosting plans as needed.
In this article, I will explain moving from Cloud to GoGeek plan which is what I have done. If you have multiple sites, make sure to follow the steps for each site except steps 5 & 6 which are at hosting account level. Email (step # 3) and DNS (step #4 & #5) related steps are needed only if you are using SiteGround’s webmail and NOT using SiteGround’s DNS nameservers. Otherwise, you can ignore those steps and follow other steps.
Step #1 – Check Current Cloud Server Usage
Unlike SiteGround Cloud setup, their shared hosting plans have limitations on server usage. Below are the limits for GoGeek plan:
- DB – 1000 MB
- Email – 10000 MB
- Storage – 40 GB
- Inodes – 600000
- CPU Seconds – 4000 per hour, 40000 per day and 800000 per month
- Program Executions – 40000 per day
So, you need to understand the current server usage details to find the suitable shared hosting plan to downgrade.
Login to your SiteGround hosting account and go to “Websites > Websites” section. Click the “Site Tools” button against your site.
Site Tools “Dashboard” section will show disk usage and inodes details under “Site Information” section.
CPU Seconds and Programs Execution can be found under “Services > Hosting > Settings of your plan > Statistics” section after you login to SiteGround site.
Step #2 – Backup Database and Content
Before proceeding make sure to backup all your site’s files and databases. Once you are in Site Tools, go to “Site > MySQL > phpMyAdmin” and click the “Access phpMyAdmin” button. Select the database and export to your local computer.
You can download files remotely using FTP account or “Site > File Manager” section in Site Tool.
Step # 3 – Note Down Email Configurations
I am using SiteGround webmail, so just need to note down the configurations as the server’s name will change with downgrading.
- Go to “Email > Accounts” section and click the three vertical dots against your email account.
- Go to “Manual Settings” in the pop-up and note down your current email configurations.
- If you do not remember the password, you can reset and note down the new password.
Note that the email configurations will NOT change except the incoming and outgoing servers. So, you can simply change the server names in your mobile or desktop email client for the mails to work after downgrading.
Step #4 – Pause or Stop Your CDN Setup
I had purchased the domain from GoDaddy and was using Cloudflare CDN. So, need to disable Cloudflare before initiating the downgrade.
- Login to Cloudflare’s dashboard and check the “DNS” status in “Overview” section. As you can see, it shows “Full” indicating the complete DNS entries are managed at Cloudflare and not at SiteGround.
- Scroll down to bottom of “Overview” page and click “Pause Cloudflare” link showing under “Advanced Actions” section in the right sidebar. Confirm your action and pause the CDN setup.
If you are using any other CDN using nameservers, consult with your CDN provider on how to disable it. Later you need to rescan the DNS settings as downgrading to shared hosting will change the server’s IP address.
Step #5 – Change DNS in Domain Registrar
Since the domain registrar is GoDaddy in my case, I need to change the nameservers in GoDaddy DNS settings. SiteGround’s nameservers are:
- Primary – ns1.siteground.net
- Secondary – ns2.siteground.net
If you are using any other domain registrar and using custom nameservers, consult with them on how to change to SiteGround’s nameservers.
Step #6 – Downgrade Hosting Plan in SiteGround
Now that you have backed up the content and changed DNS to point to SiteGround’s server, it’s time to start the downgrading process.
- Go to “Services > Hosting” section in your SiteGround Cloud hosting account.
- Click the “Settings” link showing against the plan that you want to downgrade.
- Click the three dots icon showing against your hosting plan and select “Downgrade” option.
Step #7 – Choose Shared Hosting Plan
You will see all shared hosting plans with the pricing details. The price is the renewal price and NOT the initial discounted price you see on their sales page. Select the plan to find whether it can support your current setup.
I select GoGeek plan and the limitations will be shown as 40 GB storage, 10000 MB email storage and 1000 MB database size. I will also lose client role and custom packages available with Cloud hosting setup. You can select StartUp or GrowBig to find the inodes limit, DB size and email size matches your need. In most cases, StartUp will not work with as it supports single site. Either GrowBig or GoGeek will be your suitable option.
Click the “Downgrade” button and the order will be processed.
This will submit a ticket to SiteGround support and you will see a confirmation mentioning “Downgrade Request Submitted”.
Step #8 – Wait for Confirmation from SiteGround
Click the “View Ticket” link or go to “Support History” section to find the automatically created downgrade request ticket.
Once the downgrade starts, your site will go down instantly. Make sure to have a third-party monitoring service like UptimeRobot monitor so that you will get an email notification when the site goes down.
Step #9 – Test Site After Confirmation
In my case, the process was completed in 30 minutes though it was on Saturday (as the instructions say 2 business days). The ticket was updated after a while though I got a notification from UptimeRobot that the site was up.
Check everything is working fine on all the sites and reconfigure your emails and FTP accounts with the new shared hosting server name mentioned in the ticket’s response. You can also find the new server’s IP address in “Site Tools > Dashboard > Site Information” section.
Points to Consider for Downgrading
- The total server change took 30 minutes and the site will be down during this time. So, plan your activities accordingly. Though the instructions on the downgrade page says not to publish any content (as if the site can be accessed), all sites in your account will be down.
- All existing backups (including staging sites) in Cloud server will be deleted and you can’t get them again.
- You need to change the hostname in your FTP and email configurations for them to work.
- Shared hosting will be activated with 3 months plan.
- The balance amount in your Cloud plan will be calculated on prorate basis and will be adjusted in your shared hosting payment.
If you exceed shared hosting server usage, check out the steps to upgrade to Cloud plan from shared hosting account in SiteGround.
