After you've narrowed down your selection of hosts to 3 or 4, based on all of the above criteria, it's always best you look at previous user reviews before making a choice.
If those indicate a positive overall vibe towards the host, you can safely assume there's not much that can go wrong by going with them. If, on the other hand, there's lots of dissatisfied server owners complaining, you can rest assured there's no reason why your experience would be any different. Find out the reason(s) why users were - or weren't - satisfied with each provider and make a decision as to whether that's a dealbreaker for you or not.
Lastly, we suggest you gravitate towards "Verified" hosts when possible. We implemented this verification system to highlight hosts that are legitimate companies of good standing within the Minecraft community. That doesn't exclude the possibility of you having a bad experience with them. Nor does it mean an unverified host will be any less good. It is, however, something you should most definitely keep in mind when making your choice from our list.