Sitelock Honest Review – Glad I Didn’t Buy It and the Alternative
Why I did not buy Sitelock? First i need you to tell my story, Around the end of May 2016, I had an issue with my Bing Advertising Account. It is banned because they detected a malware on my website.
This issue made my income stop, and must be solved quickly, so I started chatting with my hosting provider to ask if they can scan and remove malware. Unfortunately, they don’t provide that kind of service and they recommend using Sitelock.
If you visit their website ( Not an Affiliate Link ), you must send a custom quote to get the price.
I managed to chat with 1 of the sales representatives and got the price info.
Secure Starter = $ 49/Month
Secure Speed= $ 79/Month
Secure Site = $ 159/Month
Secure VIP = $ 179/Month
You can see all the feature info here: https://www.sitelock.com/plans.php
Sitelock partnered with many hosting providers and they provide packages that are pretty much different from the official site.
From my hosting account, hostmonster, I can see their products and the price. Here is their plan.
The Features in my hosting account include
- Daily Malware Scan
- Automated Malware Removal
- Web Application & Outdated Application Scanning
- Blacklist Monitoring & Protection
- Official Sitelock Badge
I asked the Sales Representative what is the difference, and they say I must contact the hosting because the hosting provider and sitelock have different contractual agreements to alter the products and plans as they see fit.
I also asked about the money back guarantee and the customer service says the money back guarantee is different; it depends on the contract.
So my guess is the service between each hosting provider has different features and different price packages and terms.
Ok back to my story. So for my case, basically if I want to remove the malware, I need to purchase the Fix Plan on my hosting account, which is $95.88 annually.
I almost dove in to buy, but I’m glad I did research before I bought it.
If you Google “Sitelock,” surprisingly there are 5 negative 1-star Google when I wrote this review. Like in this screenshot.
( Note : By The Time I Wrote This Review . The Negative Review on the Google is All Gone! )
Also I found 60 customer reviews on this site http://sitelock.pissedconsumer.com/
And there are 4 reviews (2 positive and 2 negative) on https://www.consumeraffairs.com/business/sitelock.html
From this you can see almost all users have horrible experience with the service.
My friend also has a website problem. Some posts are missing, link is redirected to blank or other page. He then tried a free trial of sitelock on bluehost. But his problem still wasn’t solved. He researched and said to me that some people experience the same issues too. He then give up and try different hosting because he think bluehost might have messed up with his website and tried to promote sitelock to solve the problem, although there is no concrete proof for this thing.
But if you go to the website I mentioned before, there are some complaints about bluehost, justhost and hostgator scamming the customers with sitelock’s partnership. Coincidence?
Because of these things, I decided not to take the Sitelock service and I tried to find another trusted alternative, which is Sucuri Website Antivirus.
Sucuri, Better Alternative than Sitelock
After searching around the Internet, I found a great and affordable Website Antivirus Service called Sucuri.
The Basic Plan of Succuri only cost me $ 199.99/year, which includes Monitoring, Scanning, Blacklist Removal, Unlimited Malware Removal, CloudProxy Firewall, Hacking/Bad Bots and Attack Protection for 1 full year. That only cost me $ 16.99/Month
Compared with the plan from my hosting for the same features (Prevention & Fixing Malware) it cost $41.99/month, which is 2.4 x more expensive.
The price of sitelock official website is also expensive. The Basic Secure Starter cost $49/month, which is more expensive than Succuri Business Plan, which is the most expensive and complete plan in Sucuri.
Additionally, the Money Back guarantee is various and depends on the contract. Contrary to the Sucuri, which has a clear 30-day money back guarantee if they cannot remove the malware. I guess it is pretty clear why I choose sucuri over it
Verdict and Conclusion
I personally never tried sitelock, but I recommend you don’t try either, because there are a lot of negative reviews, different money back guarantees, and the price is expensive.
If you have problems with your website, I recommend you to go to sucuri, since I have tried it and they solved my malware problem. It has better features and a cheaper plan than sitelock.
