Most hosts give you 7 days. Some give 14. We give 45 days with the full Rapids plan unlocked from minute one. This post explains why we set the trial that long, what you can actually do with it, and how to make the right go/no-go decision before the 45 days run out.
Why 45 days
Hosting decisions have long tails. You sign up, migrate a site, the site looks fine. Two weeks later traffic spikes during a campaign and you discover the host throttles you. Or a plugin you depend on starts misbehaving on their PHP version. Or it's slow when serving from your country's network even though it tested fine from your office.
A 7-day trial doesn't show you any of that. By the time you'd notice, the trial's over.
We chose 45 days because it covers:
- A full monthly billing cycle of your business — invoices, recurring jobs, automated email runs
- A traffic spike if you have any (newsletter send, Black Friday rehearsal, whatever)
- One real deploy cycle of your stack, including the inevitable "fix the thing that broke at 11pm" moment
- Long enough to reach support twice with real questions and see how they respond
If you can't get to a confident yes/no in 45 days, more time wouldn't help — the bottleneck is information, not duration.
What's actually included
Everything on the Rapids plan ($12.50/mo equivalent), with no asterisks:
- 15 websites (addon domains + parked domains + subdomains)
- Unlimited SSD storage
- 15 MySQL databases
- Free Let's Encrypt SSL
- Daily backups, kept for 30 days
- One-click WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, 400+ apps via Softaculous
- cPanel access with file manager, email, DNS, terminal
- Free
.comdomain registration if you decide to upgrade to annual
What's not included on the trial:
- VPS / dedicated server resources — those start paid from day one
- Premium support escalation (we'll still answer; just no SLA)
- White-label reseller features
- The free
.comdomain bonus until you commit to annual billing
How to sign up
- Go to rivervo.com/panel/register
- Create an account with email + password (or use Google sign-in)
- Pick the Try Rapids 45 days free option on the plan selector
- Add your payment method — we won't charge anything until the 45-day trial ends, and you can cancel from the panel any time before then with one click
Your hosting account is provisioned in about 60 seconds. cPanel is reachable immediately, you can install WordPress and start uploading.
What to actually test in those 45 days
Week 1 — the migration test. Move (or build) your real site. Don't use a clean WordPress install with the default theme — that doesn't tell you anything. Use your actual theme, your actual plugins, your actual database. If you don't have a real site yet, install one with WP Reset seeded with realistic data.
Week 2 — the traffic test. Run a load test against the trial site. k6.io and loader.io both have free tiers. Hit it with 100 concurrent users for 5 minutes and watch the response times. If they stay under 500ms, you're fine for most use cases.
Week 3 — the failure test. Deliberately break something. Update plugins to latest, change PHP version, restore an old backup, delete a file and recover it. See how the platform handles edge cases. (No real damage — your test site is isolated.)
Week 4-5 — real-world traffic. If you've got a low-stakes side project or staging site, point it at the trial account and serve real users. Read the analytics. Watch error logs. Touch every part of the workflow you'd touch in production.
Week 6 — the support test. Open a non-trivial ticket. "I need help configuring X" or "Y isn't behaving as expected." Track the response. Test our chat too. Fast support is the part most reviews can't tell you about because it varies per company per quarter.
By day 45 you'll have hard data, not just first impressions.
Common questions
Will my data be deleted after the trial if I don't upgrade? Yes — 14 days after trial expiry the account is suspended; 30 days after expiry it's permanently deleted. Backup whatever you want to keep before day 45. We'll send 3 reminder emails so you don't get caught.
Can I extend the trial? Yes, in two cases — we'll extend by 14 days if you let support know during a major migration, or up to 30 days if our infrastructure had a documented incident during your trial that affected your testing.
Can I switch between Rapids/Delta/Stream/Current during the trial? Yes, plan changes are free during the trial. We default you to Rapids because it's the most representative, but if your real workload is heavier or lighter, switch.
Do I keep the data if I do upgrade? Of course — paid mode is just a billing flag. Your databases, files, configurations all stay. Zero migration when you decide to commit.
When am I actually charged? On day 46 — never during the trial itself. If you cancel from the panel before then (one click, no questions), the card is never charged. If you let the trial roll into a paid subscription, the first charge is for the plan you picked.
After 45 days
Decide based on data. If it worked for your real workload — your trial rolls into the paid plan automatically and we keep your account running through the change. If it didn't — close the account from the panel, no questions asked, and the card you added during signup is never charged.
If you're somewhere in between (looks promising but you didn't get to test enough), open a ticket and tell us what you couldn't test and why. We'll usually find a way to extend it for you.