At Hostinger, I led the redesign of the Upgrade Hosting flow, a critical funnel for driving revenue growth. Research revealed that users faced friction from unclear plan recommendations, limited flexibility, and a lack of seamless payment options. By benchmarking competitors and synthesizing insights, I designed a new flow that introduced 1-click payments, clearer plan comparisons, and flexible subscription adjustments.
The result was a smoother, more trustworthy experience that empowered users to upgrade with confidence. An A/B experiment confirmed a significant uplift in upgrade conversions, and the new flow has since been adopted as Hostinger’s standard, continuing to support business growth today.
User Feedbacks
From the user review, we identified several key insights that shaped the direction of the upgrade flow design:
Clear comparison is essential: Users need to see the difference between their current plan and the new one, with a focus on the most relevant and popular features rather than every single detail.
Upgrade transparency builds trust: It’s important to indicate how pricing is recalculated and to automatically show the new expiration date before payment.
Seamless experience is expected: Upgrades should feel effortless, with everything moved automatically in the background, reducing friction and confusion.
Flexibility for alternative plans: Users on specific hosting products (like Woo or WordPress hosting) may not always see the full upgrade list, but they should still be able to seamlessly upgrade.
Highlight key advantages: Showing the differences between hosting types (e.g., Shared vs Cloud) helps users make more informed decisions.
Competitive Analysis
To design an effective seafarer-focused career app, it is important to understand how existing recruitment platforms operate and what gaps remain. By analyzing competitors, we can identify strengths to adopt, weaknesses to avoid, and opportunities to create a more tailored experience for both seafarers and companies.
Here are the key insights:
Strengths across all competitors
Clear and flexible upgrade pages that allow users to compare all plans at once.
Weaknesses across all competitors
No option to change the subscription duration during the upgrade process.
No recommendations or guidance provided to help users choose the most suitable plan.
Platform-specific notes
GoDaddy: Simple flow but lacks plan recommendations and flexibility in duration.
HostGator: Shares the same weaknesses as GoDaddy, with the additional drawback of a longer upgrade flow that may add friction.
Namecheap (EasyWP): Offers clear comparison but suffers from the same issues—no duration adjustment and no recommendations.
Overall insight
Competitors focus heavily on plan comparison but lack personalization and contextual assistance, leaving users to make decisions without support.
In summary,
Website owners need upgrade flows that highlight key differences and show recalculated details upfront, so they can feel in control of their purchase.
Design Opportunities
Based on the competitive analysis and research findings, I translated the key opportunities into actionable design requirements. While competitors provided clear plan comparisons, they lacked personalization, flexibility, and seamless payment experiences.
To address these pain points, the final design requirements focused on four core areas:
1-click payment within the same page: Reduce friction by allowing users to complete the purchase without navigating across multiple steps.
Highlight the recommended hosting plan: Provide clearer guidance so users can quickly identify the best option for their needs.
Emphasize the main differences between packages: Ensure plan comparison goes beyond surface-level details, making it easier for users to evaluate value at a glance.
Easily adjustable subscription period on the same page: Add flexibility and transparency, allowing users to choose the most suitable billing cycle without leaving the flow.
These requirements became the foundation of the design exploration, ensuring that the upgrade flow not only aligned with user needs but also provided a smoother, more trustworthy decision-making experience compared to competitors.
Here was the final design that we bring to the table:
Impact
The redesigned upgrade flow was tested against the existing version in an A/B experiment, and the results showed a significant increase in upgrade click-through rates. While the exact numbers are confidential, the improvement was strong enough that the company adopted the new flow as the standard experience and continues to use it today.
Beyond the quantitative results, the changes directly addressed the pain points identified in research and competitive analysis:
Users could now complete an upgrade in fewer steps thanks to 1-click payment.
Clearer plan recommendations and package comparisons reduced uncertainty and decision fatigue.
Flexible subscription period adjustments provided transparency and control, helping users feel confident in their choice.
Overall, the seamless and trustworthy experience aligned with user expectations and outperformed competitor flows that lacked personalization and flexibility.
Although I was not at the company during the full rollout to production, the fact that the design has been maintained and actively used until now strongly signals its long-term success and measurable impact on business growth.
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