The best cheap web hosting in 2021

Can you really buy a month’s worth of quality web hosting for less than the price of a Starbucks Grande cappuccino? Indeed you can, as we discovered when researching the web hosting services in this buyer’s guide. The average advertised monthly price for the 10 hosting providers we looked at is a low, low $3.19 — just add content.

We also discovered, when we looked a little closer at the details of those cheap web hosting plans, that three of the immutable laws of bargains still apply here. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Always check the fine print. And, most important of all: You get what you pay for.

You’re an ideal candidate for the services we review here if you already have experience with web hosting and don’t need much hand-holding. If you lack those technical skills, consider hiring a designer/consultant who has the requisite background, and let them help with the comparison.

The listings that follow offer a starting point for your research and do not represent hands-on reviews or formal recommendations. All information was accurate as of February 2021, but details can change on a moment’s notice. Because the details of promotional prices and hosting plans vary so greatly, we haven’t included prices in the capsule listings that follow and instead recommend that you compare prices and plans carefully based on your long-term needs. Our goal is to provide the information you need to build a shortlist and then evaluate and compare alternatives, ideally using the trial period each provider offers.

Is the price right?

All the above web hosting providers are well-established companies, and at a glance, they all promise pretty much the same entry-level offerings. The cheapest plans offer shared hosting for an introductory price of a few dollars a month. So, what’s the catch?

For starters, these plans offer storage space and bandwidth on servers that are shared with other customers. The more sites that share a single server, the more likely your visitors are to encounter slow performance; shared servers also offer a greater risk of security breaches.

Some of the low, low prices you see on the landing page for these web hosting services are introductory offers. When the promotional period ends, the regular prices can be significantly higher. 

Likewise, the low advertised price might require a lengthy commitment. At HostGator, for example, the advertised starting prices range from $2.75 to $5.95 a month, but when you click the Buy button, you’ll see that those rates are for a three-year contract. If you’d rather go for a month-to-month deal, the price ranges go up dramatically, to $10.95 to $16.95, which is also the price you agree to pay when the promo period ends.

Another common gimmick is the “limited time” offer: Buy now before the price goes up! Some of the hosting providers we checked out included a countdown clock on the home page. When we went back a few days later for a second fact-checking pass, the countdown clock had been magically reset.

Those prices might still be a good value, but you’ll have to dig a bit to make accurate long-term comparisons.

Upsells and options

Those dirt-cheap teaser rates are designed to lure you in, and some web hosting providers are not shy about making up the difference by charging extra for features like backup and site migration; here, too, you’ll have to factor those costs in before you can make an informed choice.

A low-cost shared hosting plan is probably good enough for a personal website. It’s also adequate for a basic business site whose main purpose is to serve as an online calling card and a landing page for visitors who want to know more about your organization. It’s not a good choice for a site that occasionally needs to handle large spikes in traffic or e-commerce.

If you choose a cheap plan, expect regular upsell offers for more full-featured (and significantly more expensive) plans. Those upsells come in a wide range of plans. Some of the most popular include these:

Website builder tools Typically, you don’t get much hand-holding with these services, as you might with turnkey solutions like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress.com. Some hosting providers do offer wizard-driven tools that allow less technical sophisticated customers to build a site by pointing and clicking. DreamHost, for example, offers its theme-based Remixer tool as part of a shared hosting plan.

Managed WordPress hosting Most of the companies listed here have a managed WordPress offering that insulates customers from the chore of managing the underlying web server or installing and maintaining their own WordPress instance. Most such offerings include a selection of ready-made themes; others include WordPress-oriented website builders.

Virtual private servers (VPS) In the bare-bones shared hosting environments, multiple tenants share the hardware and software resources of a single server. In a VPS, multiple tenants share the physical server hardware, but each server instance is isolated from the others using virtualization software, with resources (memory and storage, for example) assigned directly to the VPS. This configuration ensures that performance remains consistent, regardless of what’s happening with other sites that share the physical server hardware. It also dramatically reduces the likelihood of security issues that can affect accounts in a shared hosting environment. This type of solution can be managed or unmanaged, and costs significantly more than a shared hosting plan. 

Dedicated servers This is the most expensive option of all, with physical hardware dedicated to a specific customer and not shared with other accounts. This option is most appropriate for high-traffic websites that can’t afford any downtime, but the price is far from cheap. At A2 Hosting, for example, the non-promotional price for a managed dedicated server starts at $200 a month, compared to $70 for a managed VPS, and $11 for a basic shared hosting plan.

Other evaluation criteria

When choosing a hosting package, there’s more to consider than just a low price and a feature table packed with checkmarks. We considered a wide range of extra factors that can be crucial when it comes time to separate contenders on your shortlist of hosting providers.

Let’s start with the most important factor of all: A money-back guarantee. Every provider we surveyed offers at least 30 days during which you can try the service risk-free. DreamHost has a 97-day “zero risk” guarantee for its shared hosting plans, and A2 Hosting offers a full refund for the first 30 days and a pro-rated refund for unused service after 30 days. We strongly recommend taking advantage of that trial period to test the following factors:

Customer support How many contact options does the provider offer for the plan you’ve chosen? If phone support isn’t available and email and ticket-based systems are the primary mechanism for problem resolution, how quickly does the support team respond?

Bandwidth and storage For shared hosting plans, most providers offer “unlimited” data transfers and storage, but there’s invariably a page full of fine print that requires you to abide by “reasonable” restrictions and acceptable-use policies. More expensive plans typically include hard limits on storage and monthly data transfer.

Backup Every provider offers the ability to create manual backups and download them to local storage, but automated online backups are the most reliable way to recover from a disaster such as a sitewide compromise. Most hosting providers offer automatic backups, but some charge extra. Bluehost, for example, offers the Codeguard site-backup tool for an extra $2.99 per month. Be sure to check the retention policy to see how long backups are preserved.

Performance As a rule, the less you pay for a shared hosting plan, the more likely you are to encounter slow page loads, because those low-cost plans typically cluster more shared accounts on the server. The simplest way to boost speed is to choose a higher-priced storage plan, especially one like A2 Hosting’s Turbo plan, which includes support for caching and HTTP/2. Also, look for content delivery network options such as Cloudflare.

Security Every provider brags about its secure infrastructure, and as a solitary customer, it’s impossible to put those claims to the test. You can, however, look for basic security best practices. Does the provider offer multi-factor authentication? Are crucial software packages updated automatically, or are you required to stay on top of updates yourself? How easy is it to add SSL support, and how much does it cost to renew a certificate? Ask the support department whether they will assist if your website is hacked, and if so, how much the repair will cost.

Email and domain options Several providers offer free domain registration as part of a hosting package, but of course, the cost of that registration is built into the bill for the plan itself. And don’t expect to find any loopholes: Every provider that we checked with will assess a fee to recover that registration cost if you cancel your plan and try to transfer the domain. In addition, you can expect basic web-based email options from every provider, with some offering more advanced features. If email is important, make sure to test those offerings during the free trial period.

More resources:

Susan Preston of Clearly Presentable, a New Mexico-based website and presentation design firm, provided research assistance for these listings.