Finding the best host for your WordPress site can be a challenge. If you are on a tight budget, it becomes even more difficult. There is no shortage of cheap web hosts. However, some of them offer such cheap prices by compromising on performance. For example, they might have frequent downtimes, zero customer support, slow load times that frustrate your SEO efforts, and so on. Therefore, when looking for cheap WordPress hosting, your focus should be on finding the right balance between price and reliability. In this article, we look at how you can get cheap WordPress hosting, as well as some of the best cheap WordPress hostings you can get.
How To Get Cheap WordPress Hosting?
When looking for cheap WordPress hosting, basing your decision on the stated monthly pricing alone can be misleading. What started as a cheap WordPress hosting plan might end up becoming very expensive in the long run. Aside from the monthly fees, there are some other factors you need to consider; we go through all of them in this article.
We’ll do our best to give you the perfect overview of what makes a hosting company cheap and how you can ensure that you keep paying the lowest price possible while still using an excellent quality hosting service. We will also be talking about which companies you should avoid at any price; if you have looked through other lists with cheap hosting services, then you’ll see that we do not mention GoDaddy, and yes, that’s intentional. We won’t be advertising poor hosting providers in this article.
Most lists are quite simple to get an overview of; they list the hosts in order by who pays the most. That makes it a challenge for a user to get an actual overview of who’s worth using and who isn’t. We won’t follow that logic; this is our honesty after owning a website for over ten years.
Promotional Pricing
Most of the prices listed for cheap WordPress hosting are usually promotional prices. This means that the prices are only applicable during your first billing cycle. For instance, if the web host requires you to pay upfront for a year, the fees for that year will be calculated based on the promotional price. Once the year is up, renewing your hosting will cost a lot more than the first year’s price, depending on the host. Some hosts might give you the option of locking the promotional price for two or three years, but you have to pay upfront for the two or three years. Paying for hosting three years upfront is a bit of a gamble, but it can help you save a significant amount of money.
Upfront Payments Website Limits
The lowest hosting prices usually apply only when you pay for several months. Many hosts require you to pay 12-month increments to access their cheapest plans. Therefore, while the monthly fee might be low, the actual amount you need to pay to get the hosting might be a bit higher.
How many domains are offered with the plan? Some WordPress hosts only allow you to host a single site if you go for the cheapest package. If you plan to host more than one site, buying an individual hosting package for each domain can end up being more expensive compared to WordPress hosts that have slightly higher prices while offering unlimited domains.
Cheap WP Hosting With Storage And Bandwidth Limitations
Some WordPress hosts might promise unlimited storage and bandwidth even for their cheapest plans, but sometimes this can be misleading. For instance, a host advertising unlimited storage and bandwidth might recommend their cheapest plan for sites that receive traffic below a certain number, say less than 10,000 unique visitors in a month. While this is sufficient for someone who is just starting, it can be problematic for someone to migrate an existing website with a higher amount of traffic.
Hosting Companies With A Low Monthly Subscription Price
Finding cheap WordPress hosting is easy if only the initial payment you want to save money on. The issue is that most hosting companies have a signup discount, so you get a huge discount when you purchase your hosting – and you might even get your domain for free!
While this seems like a good offer, it’s really not; the month/year after you have to renew your guess what, it’s expensive. You cannot run a website without hosting, and migrating is a pain, so you’re forced to stay with your overpriced hosting company and keep on paying. That’s no fun.
That’s why we recommend that you choose a long-term solution with a cheap hosting provider who doesn’t charge a huge fee when there are no discounts involved. Luckily, there are many hosting companies like that; all of them can be found on the list at the top of this article.
Customer Support and Other Great Features
What kind of customer support is offered with the cheapest plan? It would help if you went for hosts that offer 24-hour phone support. Sometimes, there might be an issue with your hosting, causing your website to go down. In such cases, you want to ensure that you can reach the host’s support regardless of what time of day it is. If phone support is not offered for the cheapest plan, you might lose more money on downtimes than saving on hosting.
The above are some of the most important considerations you should keep in mind when looking for cheap WordPress hosting. However, it would help if you also considered some extras, such as WordPress software updates, automatic website backups, website migrations, and so on. While they are not essential, they make things a lot easier for you. If they are not offered in the cheapest hosting plans, you can still use some tools to implement these extras, though doing so might push up your costs a little bit.
What Is Cheap?
Any WordPress hosting plan that costs $5 per month or less can be considered cheap. If you have to pay for a year upfront, that translates to $60 or less. Some of the cheapest WordPress hosting plans cost as low as $35 per year. Don’t forget that all hosting companies do their best to make their prices look cheap.
Falling into the trap of pricing plans that look easy with “discount,” “free domain,” and other offers plastered all over is easy. They’re everywhere when it comes to hosting, and it’s very misleading. The issue is that hosting is not a temporary expense if you own a website. It’s impossible to have a website without using a hosting service.
Find a Genuine Good Offer
Sure, you might save 30% the first year or get it for a low price, but that’s just postponing the real pricing issue. It’s important to note that not every website host is evil or guilty of doing this, but a lot of them are. The hosting companies recommended on our list are cheap long-term and not just for the first purchase.
We don’t recommend dishonest companies who try to hide their pricing or have a bunch of hidden fees.
Namecheap is the hosting company for our site; we started by using it because of the low price, and sure it is cheap, but it’s also low quality. Migrating is tough, so make sure you don’t end up picking a too low-quality hosting company to save some money as we did.
What Is The Best Cheap WordPress Hosting?
Now that you know how to get cheap WordPress hosting and what cheap actually means let’s look at 5 of the best providers of cheap WordPress hosting.
SiteGround
This is one of the best WordPress hosts in the market. Their cheapest plan costs $3.95 per month or $47.40 per year. Despite this seemingly low price, their hosting is quite reliable, with a great balance between low price, advanced WordPress features, and decent speeds. With their cheapest hosting plan, your site can support up to 10,000 unique visits in a month, as well as 10 GB of storage space. If you are just getting started, this is more than enough for you.
SiteGround’s cheapest hosting package comes with a great set of features. The package is WP-CLI enabled and gives you access to one-click WordPress installs and automatic WordPress updates. The package also provides you with a free drag-and-drop website builder that makes it easy for you to build a professional website even if you have no prior experience. In addition, if you have an existing website, SiteGround allows you to transfer it to your SiteGround hosting account for free.
Low Prices & Fast Loading Time
SiteGround’s SuperCacher technology ensures decent speeds. Besides, they have servers on three continents, increasing your load speeds regardless of where a visitor is accessing the website. With your hosting, you get a free SSL certificate as well as a free shopping cart installed. Other extra features on SiteGround’s cheapest hosting plan include daily backups, spam protection, and anti-hack protection. They also offer great support, which is available 24/7 via phone, ticket, and live chat. However, you can only host a single website on this plan.
Good For Business?
We understand that SiteGround is very advanced with its technology and data centers which gives them good speeds. The cost is very low considering all the options that you will get with them. Are they good for business, though? Many times the people most concerned with cheap hosting are the business owners. You don’t have to worry that their low cost comes with inferior service. In fact, they are poised to work perfectly with online shops and accept payment over the Internet.
Business Compliant
Many are concerned with accepting payments online. How can you do it correctly? Will your customers be in any danger of getting hacked? Make sure your host is PCI compliant or follows the same standards.
PCI is an abbreviation that refers to the payment card industry. If you have intentions of being successful in business, you need to understand who meets data standards. DSS or data security standards for SiteGround are some of the best in the industry. Data security standards developed over time so that vendors and shops could have a unified approach to security. It prevents credit card fraud and hackers from stealing card details. Your customers are going to be safeguarded and much more likely to continue to do business with you well into the future. If you have not checked with your current host on their level of compliance, you need to look into it immediately. It could mean the difference between a successful business and everything coming crashing down.
SiteGround Protects Your Data
SiteGround has set out to be completely in compliance with all laws considering data security. They want you to feel comfortable handing over your business or page to them. For many, that is the most important thing that they own. PCI DSS has requirements known as control objectives. SiteGround is always on top of these to make sure your data is safe, along with all the people that do business with you.
This means they built up a stable and protected network for you. They are always scanning for intrusions and malware. Data from cardholders are protected at all costs. Accessing data is strongly guarded and controlled. It should not be easy for employees or other people to access private information.
The networks and frameworks are also tested on a regular basis. This is in accordance with the information security policy they set up. When you consider the level of professionalism, you would expect to pay much more for their service.
Keep in mind, SiteGround is no longer PCI DSS compliant. They do follow excellent procedures to make sure your data is kept under lock and key. By watching DSS guidelines, they have created a very secure system considering the extremely low price they charge customers. If you need PCI compliance, you can always seek another host, but the cost will be higher.
Bluehost
This is one of the biggest names in the WordPress hosting industry and is one of the few web hosts that have been officially endorsed by WordPress.org. WordPress’s endorsement shows that they are among the best in the market, and with prices starting at $3.95 per month, it is easy to see why they are so popular. With their cheapest package, you get free registration for a single domain, 50 GB of storage space, unlimited subdomains, one-click WordPress installation with automatic WordPress updates, access to the site analytics dashboard, access to cPanel and SSH, free website caching, FTP site transfer and an unmetered MySQL DB. You also get a free SSL certificate and access to the Bluehost app marketplace, as well as a free drag and drop site builder.
Unlimited Possibilities
There are unlimited possibilities with the Bluehost WordPress hosting package. Its set of features can host all kinds of websites, from online stores and galleries to personal blogs and consultancy sites. Bluehost also offers excellent 24-hour customer support, both through phone and live chat. The support is quite helpful and will help you with any technical issues you might be facing and provide you with guidance on how to set up your website. On top of that, you get access to the Bluehost knowledge base, which you can use to reference whenever you get stuck.
UltaHost
UltaHost is a premium WordPress hosting company. You may see the hosting brand on some of the popular Themeforest and Other popular WordPress themes as a recommended Fast WordPress Hosting, Ultahost offers cheap and reliable hosting plans to its customers. They run services on cutting-edge technology and offer exceptional customer support. Their plans are so customized that they are suitable for every business, from the ideal starting point for most businesses to an advanced solution that can easily handle multiple high-traffic sites.
Ultahost WordPress Manager makes your WordPress website management and maintenance a simple, effortless task. More websites mean more deadlines to meet, but with Ultahost you’ll have the power to take your WordPress workload to the next level.
Namecheap
From the name, you can already tell that this is a company that prides itself on its cheap WordPress hosting packages. In the past, Namecheap had WordPress hosting offers going for less than $1 per month. While these offers are no longer available, Namecheap has retained its reputation as one of the best providers of cheap WordPress hosting, with their cheapest plan currently going at $2.88 per month. With this plan, you get 20 GB of storage, with your files stored in SSD (Solid State Disks). Unlike the other hosts on this list, Namecheap allows you to host three websites on a single account. You also get unlimited bandwidth and the ability to choose between servers based in the US or the UK.
Discount Hosting With One-click WordPress Installation
With this plan, Namecheap offers you one-click WordPress installs, which can be done through Softaculous. Another thing that separates Namecheap from the other hosts featured in this list is that you don’t have to pay 12 months upfront to take advantage of the low prices. Instead, you can renew your hosting after every month. Besides, they have excellent support via live chat (with short waiting times) and an extensive knowledge base with lots of tutorial articles. You also get a free PositiveSSL certificate for one year, unlimited parked domains, 30 subdomains, 100+ free apps, and automatic website updates twice a week.
Hostgator
This is another big name in the WordPress hosting market. Hostgator has been in the market since 2002, during which time they have managed to build a reputation for themselves as reliable providers of cheap hosting through their huge discount offers. Hostgator’s cheapest hosting plan, known as the Hatchling Plan, costs just $2.75. Despite its seemingly low price, the Hatchling Plan comes with an impressive set of features.
Hostgator’s cheapest hosting plan gives you access to a flexible and user-friendly control panel and provides you with unmetered bandwidth. You also get unlimited email accounts, FTP accounts and sub-domains, free SSL certification, and access to the free Hostgator site builder. The Hostgator site builder comes with 100+ templates to make the process of building your site a lot easier. If you have an already existing website, Hostgator allows you to transfer your domain and your website as well as your Script and MYSQL databases, all for free.
Hostgator Tools
You also get access to various tools – such as AWStats and Raw Long Manager – that allow you to keep track of your website’s statistics. The plan also allows you to install forums, counters, portals, blogs, and instant shopping carts. It also provides you with custom error pages, password-protected directories, and automatic website backups each week. Their support is available 24 hours a day through live chat. As if all this is not enough, you also get a 99.9% uptime guarantee and a 45-day money-back guarantee, all for the low price of $2.75.
iPage
At $1.99 per month, iPage offers the cheapest WordPress hosting package. How do they manage such low prices? iPage manages to offer such low prices by focusing on beginners who do not need a lot of fuss and flexibility on their website. Their cheapest plan is a bare-bones version that does not offer many of its competitors’ features. This might be a problem for webmasters with heavy user loads, but if you want something to get your website started, this package can help you save a lot of money as your business grows. Despite this, they still have some quite useful features.
Is iPage Secure?
When you are considering some of the cheapest hosts, you also have to wonder if they are going to be secure. Are they cutting corners? With iPage, you won’t need to worry about that. You are going to get cheap hosting that saves you big and still retains excellent protections. You can expect the following from them:
- Scans for your site to find malware and where you are vulnerable
- Prevent your site from getting blacklisted by the big search engines, including Google
- Use a seal on your site to show that you care about security
When starting a business, price is one of the first things you are concerned about. How much is everything going to cost? When you have a brick-and-mortar store, you are looking at rent, lights, and paying for employees. With your website, you want to keep that as low as possible. Not a problem. iPage is designed to be low on price but they didn’t make up for the difference with shoddy infrastructure.
A Low Price For Protection
Many times, a low price indicates you are getting an inferior product. That is usually accurate. In this case, though, you can start with iPage and get protected by them for under four dollars each month. That might seem too good to be true but take into account economies of scale. Once they develop their system, most things on their end are all automated. This is how they can offer excellent customer service through their 24/7 phone number and also provide you with so many tools to protect your business.
They have SiteLock which looks at your site for malware and code that could compromise you. There are threats that are popping up all the time. If you go to WordFence, you can see the threats developing almost in real-time. Each month, there is another risk you need to worry about.
You could use tools like WPScan to do an audit of your site. Try an audit on the security for your site before and after you start getting protection from iPage. You might be surprised by the results.
iPage can get you instant notifications if they think you are at risk. That gives you time to make changes and shut down things before hackers can gain a foothold. If there is anything going on with your page they don’t like the look of, you are going to be the first to hear about it through email and the control panel.
Their system is so advanced, it can even automatically pull out viruses and contain them. There is no further action needed from you as the end-user. When you keep your site secure, you are helping the whole community. One less hacked machine hurts the hackers.
Free Domain For Your WordPress Website
Their cheapest plan comes with unlimited bandwidth, storage space, and free domain. It also comes with pre-installed plugins that can help you if you are a beginner and a customized control panel. The control panel is very user-friendly, even for beginners. iPage offers support via email, phone, and live chat. While their customer support representatives are quite knowledgeable, wait times for email and live chat sometimes get a bit long. iPage tops off its offer with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Wrapping Up
If you are starting with your website and are on a budget, it is important to find cheap WordPress hosting to get you started before upgrading to a more expensive plan as your business grows. When looking for a cheap hosting plan, you should look beyond the listed monthly fee. Check whether the fee is a promotional offer and consider upfront payments, hosting limitations, quality of support, and other extras that you might want on your site. Overall, if you are looking for cheap WordPress hosting, you won’t go wrong with one of the web hosts listed above.
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