Whether you have a personal blog, business website, or full-on online store, you need a Hosting provider. The good news is that there is no shortage of options. The popularity and competition in the industry also mean that you can find extremely cost-effective options as well.

However, doing all the research yourself can take a lot of time and effort. You may also not know all the factors to consider or what hidden costs to look out for. Luckily, we’ll cover all of these questions and more in the article below.

Time is money, so let’s get right into it!

Things to Know Before Looking for a Hosting Provider

Today, hosting isn’t that complicated. However, there can be many factors that affect the pricing. To make sure you get a good deal and avoid any unwanted surprises, make sure that you find out all of the following before committing to a host:

1. Renewal prices: Most hosting providers offer discounts as an incentive for new customers. However, when your term is up, the cost goes back to the normal rate. This can be more than double the original price, so make sure you check it.
2. Free plans, trials, and refunds: Most hosts offer at least one of these options so that you can test the service. You might want to try out a few to see which one looks worth the cost. However, make sure you understand the terms, such as duration, whether a credit card is required, and what costs are non-refundable.
3. Support: Basic support is usually included with paid plans. However, you might get premium/priority support with more expensive plans. VPS/dedicated server customers should also consider managed hosting if they don’t know how to manage a server. Some support even includes security or third-party help.
4. Backups: Backups are crucial to protect your valuable data and save your progress when building a site. Not all hosting providers offer free backup or may limit the number, duration, or storage for backups.
5. Hidden limits: Many hosts today offer “unlimited” storage or bandwidth. However, there are usually soft limits in the fine print. This is to prevent one customer from draining all the resources for themselves. Make sure you understand these as some hosts clearly state them in the T&Cs. Instead of limiting bandwidth or storage directly, some may also limit the number of visitors or files.
6. Extra costs: To host a website, you’ll need a domain. This is usually included with shared hosting or website builders. SSL certificates are also crucial for security and trust. Both domains and SSL certificates renew after a certain period. Make sure you know the terms and whether you’re covered for life or a limited number of terms. They typically cost around $10 – $20 a year each. If you have a website where security is a high priority, you may need a premium SSL certificate which can cost anywhere from $100 to $1,000 per year.

What Types of Hosting are There? What Do They Cost?

Self-Hosted

In theory, you can host a website yourself for completely free. However, this will require some technical expertise and a complicated setup process. You will also need to ensure that your ISP allows hosting and that you can run a computer as a web server 24/7.

Depending on your traffic, websites can drain a huge amount of data. Hosting providers with the resources can often do this for much cheaper than you can as a consumer.

Today, hosting can be incredibly cost-effective if you know how to choose the right option for you. For the vast majority of people, it simply makes more sense to pay for a professional hosting service. It will save you an incredible amount of time, effort, and will probably work out cheaper in the long run.

Website Builder

Website builders are becoming increasingly popular tools. They are aimed at people who want the easiest and most fun experience possible when building their website.

What makes this category different is that it’s as much a software product as a hosting service. You’re in effect paying for both the website building tools and the hosting, all rolled into one.

Most website builders use a form of Shared Hosting, particularly for entry-level accounts. However, some upgrade users to VPS or dedicated servers on higher-tier packages. Usually, you unlock more features, resources, content, and support with more expensive plans.

Builders can also have different niches, such as design, marketing, or e-commerce.

Squarespace, for example, has always been positioned as one of the more design-focussed builders:

Today, most website builders include the basics you need, such as a domain and SSL certificate for free.

Pricing typically varies from $10 to $50 for typical consumer-facing plans. Business or e-commerce capable packages, typically start at $25 to $250.

Here you can see the pricing of the most popular website builders today:

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is usually the most affordable type of hosting. While shared hosting is usually aimed at individuals, such as bloggers or entrepreneurs, it can also be adequate for small, growing businesses.

It’s called shared hosting because you share physical resources with other customers. That’s why it’s more suited to low-traffic websites without high computing requirements.

Most shared hosting services cater mostly towards hosting WordPress with cPanel. Both these technologies are free, which contributes to their affordability. However, they sometimes give the option of using another CMS, website builder, or even a custom site.

Similar to website builders, shared hosting plans typically come with all the basics.

Some hosts also divide shared hosting plans between entry-level and business/e-commerce plans. The latter provides more resources, stability, and support at a higher cost. However, it’s still generally more affordable than VPS or dedicated servers.

Shared hosting costs range anywhere from just $1 to $30 per month for the first term. However, they can go up to $10 – $60 at the renewal rate.

This is especially true as shared hosting providers usually base their default pricing on very long terms. For example, these prices from Bluehost are for 36-month terms:

Options focussed on high-performance or large-scale business sites can cost hundreds of dollars a month. You’ll also have less crowded servers, leading to more stable, reliable, and performant web hosting.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting lies somewhere in between shared hosting and dedicated servers. While your website will share physical devices with others, these will be virtually separated.

This means a higher degree of security and more dedicated resources. A VPS plan is typically the next step for shared hosting customers who have outgrown their bandwidth/storage limits or resource allocation. So, it’s usually used by medium-traffic sites for large-to-medium businesses.

VPS hosting plans don’t always come with website basics like SSL certificates or domains. This is because their users typically already own their own domains and premium SSL certificates.

Some hosts offer Windows VPS hosting which is usually a bit pricier. There are also managed options for more background technical support that costs considerably more. As you can see, A2Hosting’s managed VPS plans are 3 – 4x pricier than the unmanaged options:

VPS pricing can range widely. Some might be cheaper than shared business hosting, while others can be over $1,000.

Since it uses high-grade equipment, storage and bandwidth are usually not Unlimited. However, the hard limits might be more than the soft limits used by shared hosting providers. You’ll also need to compare each plan’s CPU and memory resources to see whether it’s suitable.

Dedicated Server Hosting

With a dedicated server, you’ll get a physical server device dedicated exclusively to your hosting needs. This represents the ultimate level of power and stability when it comes to hosting.

A dedicated server also comes with a whole, dedicated CPU. The more powerful the CPU, the more expensive the server. The price also depends on memory, storage, and bandwidth. Like a VPS, you typically don’t get a free domain or SSL certificate. Some hosts also offer managed services at extra cost.

You can find specialized dedicated servers for things like gaming or graphics processing. When comparing dedicated servers, you always need to consider the quality of the parts as well as their actual resources. For example, NVMe storage is better than typical HDD or SSD storage.

Here you can see a list of the hardware requirements to consider when looking at InMotion’s dedicated servers, for example:

Dedicated servers are therefore also the most expensive form of hosting. Costs typically start at around $50, but may scale up to thousands of dollars:

Conclusion

Well, you should now have a better idea of the range of hosting prices and options available to you. As you can see, you should start by figuring out what type of hosting you need. After that, you can compare similar providers from our list of the best web hosting companies. Now that you know what to look for and have a benchmark, the process will go much smoother.

Good luck, and happy shopping!