Our Dime - Render Web Hosting Audit

Render

Parent company: Render Services, Inc.

Web Hosting Provider

Type: Cloud Hosting

render.com

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True North

Capital: Foreign

Capital: Foreign (profits)

Control: Foreign

Control: Foreign (decisions)

The True North score for Render is 0/100, reflecting a primary economic anchor in the United States. As a US-based cloud hosting provider, the entity's capital, control, and operational value flows are likely retained outside of Canada. Economic participation is currently characterized as foreign service provision without verified domestic retention vectors.

Vector Breakdown

Inputs

low

0 /20

Upstream infrastructure and data center dependencies are not verified and remain difficult to infer reliably.

Capital

Capital (profits)

medium

0 /40

United States legal entity signal suggests that profits and ultimate ownership likely flow to foreign stakeholders.

Control

Control (decisions)

medium

0 /20

Strategic governance and decision-making appear to reside in the United States based on the primary entity identity.

Operations

medium

0 /20

There is no indication of a significant Canadian operational footprint based on the provided US-anchored identity signal.

Forensic Summary

What We Could Verify

Pricing

✅ Verified

Refunds

✅ Verified

Support

✅ Verified

Canada Fit

✅ Verified

Research Snapshot

Checked: 2026-02-08

Provider name (payload): Render
Official domain: render.com
Canonical Canada URL: Unknown

Corporate Footprint

Parent company: Render Services, Inc.
Headquarters location: San Francisco, California

Sources

Parent company

"These Terms of Service... constitute a binding agreement between you and Render Services, Inc."
Source
Headquarters

"Those located in the Bay Area love our sunny, beautiful SoMa office."
Source

Pricing Clarity

Intro starting monthly price: $7 USD/mo
Renewal/regular monthly price: $7 USD/mo
Billing term required for intro: monthly
Notes: Pricing is in USD. A free tier is available for personal projects and non-commercial use.

Sources

Intro price

"Starter | $7/month | 512 MB RAM | 0.5 CPU"

Source

Renewal price

"Starter | $7/month"

Source

Billing term

"$7/month"

Source

Refunds & Cancellation

Money-back guarantee (days): 0
Refund exclusions: All cancellations
Auto-renewal stated: Yes

Sources

Money-back policy

"You may cancel your User Account at any time; however, there are no refunds for cancellation."

Source

Refund exclusions

"you understand and agree that you shall receive no refund or exchange for... any unused time on a subscription"

Source

Auto-renewal

"Any change to our Pricing or Payment Terms shall become effective in the billing cycle following notice"

Source

What They Offer

Hosting types offered

Cloud Hosting

Other

Control panel

Custom

PaaS provider offering static sites, web services, private services, background workers, cron jobs, and managed databases.

Proprietary web-based dashboard for managing cloud services and infrastructure.

Sources

Hosting types

"Render is a unified cloud platform to build and run all your apps and websites."

Source

Control panel

"You choose a region for your service or datastore during the creation flow in the Render Dashboard"

Source

Support

Channels

Ticket

Knowledge Base

Live Chat

24/7 stated: No
Notes: Live chat is available for Team plans and above. Standard support is via email and ticket portal.

Sources

Support channels

"Reach out to support@render.com or sign in to submit a request in the support portal."

Source

24/7 support

"The Render Helpdesk is closed during the US weekend (Saturday and Sundays) as well as major US holidays."

Source

What’s Included

SSL: Yes

Email: No

Backups: Yes

Sources

SSL

"Render provides free, fully managed SSL certificates for all your services."

Source

"Render does not provide email hosting. We recommend using a third-party email provider."

Source

Backups

"Render continually backs up all paid Render Postgres instances to provide point-in-time recovery."

Source

Canada Fit

Available

Canada servers: No

Data location notes: No data center regions are currently available in Canada.

Sources

Canada availability

"You can deploy Render services to any of the following regions to minimize latency for your users: Oregon, USA; Ohio, USA; Virginia, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore."

Source

Canada server region

"You can deploy Render services to any of the following regions... Oregon, USA; Ohio, USA; Virginia, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore."

Source