Bluehost is a great choice if you’re starting your first WordPress site. While you can host a WordPress site with virtually any host, Bluehost offers a range of features, plans, and capabilities that make it a better experience for beginners.
It’s definitely a good place to start, but is it right for you? Let’s find out.
The Pros and Cons of Bluehost
Every web hosting service has its flaws, even the most exclusive. Here’s an in-depth look into Bluehost’s top good and bad features.
What Bluehost Is Good At
Bluehost is a well-rounded hosting provider that offers a blend of solid support, security, and reliability at an easy-to-stomach price point.
Great security: Bluehost includes helpful baseline protections on its hosting plans, and you can add backup and security products if you want more coverage. For example, CodeGuard can provide automated backups and monitoring, and higher-tier hosting options can include more hands-off management features (like automated backups and additional security tooling).
Fast support: Bluehost has a large help center and 24/7 live chat, which is what most beginners need day-to-day. If you prefer talking to a person, phone support is available on many plans and tiers. Most users report that support is helpful when you need quick resolution.
On top of that, you can always browse the knowledge base for FAQs, tutorials, and step-by-step help articles on common WordPress and hosting tasks.
Easy to set up: Not only is Bluehost one of the most popular web hosting services on the market, it’s also beginner-friendly once you’re inside the dashboard. The onboarding process is quick, and the interface is designed for people who are building their first site.
If you use its WordPress builder alongside hosting, Bluehost’s WonderSuite-style setup wizard will ask you a few questions about your goals, what you want to add to your site, and your site name/tagline. After that, you can pick a theme and get WordPress installed automatically—so you can focus on the parts that matter (pages, design, and content) instead of backend setup.
High-performing options as you grow: Bluehost has higher-tier plans (and separate product lines like Cloud, VPS, and Dedicated hosting) that give you more resources, better performance headroom, and more control as your site starts to pull real traffic. If you outgrow shared hosting, it’s relatively painless to move up within the same ecosystem.
Reasonable pricing: Bluehost frequently runs strong introductory discounts, and most plans include a free domain for the first year on eligible terms. You also get a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you’re not locked in if it’s not a fit.
Bundling hosting with domain registration: Normally, we recommend sticking with web hosts for hosting and domain registrars for domains—even though most providers of each service tend to offer the other. But Bluehost is one of the exceptions. For beginners and new websites, it’s a great way to get a free domain name for one year with an affordable hosting package from the same provider. This bundle is more than just a great value. It simplifies the website creation process, and it’s just one less thing you have to do when you’re getting started.
You can claim your free domain during checkout after you select a hosting package. If you haven’t decided on a domain name yet, that’s fine—Bluehost still lets you sign up for hosting first, and you can redeem the free domain later (as long as you do it within the redemption window on your plan).
What Bluehost Is Lacking
Here’s where we’ll dip into some downsides of Bluehost. Some of these may not affect your hosting provider decision much, but others may find one or more of these flaws to be a deal-breaker.
Free migrations: Bluehost lets most WordPress users move their sites in with a free WordPress migration tool, but fully hands-off migrations still aren’t free. If you want Bluehost’s team to do it for you, you can expect to pay for its professional website transfer service. Also, VPS and dedicated migrations typically require more manual work than standard shared WordPress sites.
Constant upsells: Once you select a pricing plan from Bluehost, you’ll get reminders of other features you can buy during checkout. And it doesn’t end there—expect the usual popups and in-dashboard prompts nudging you toward upgrades and add-ons. It’s annoying, but it doesn’t automatically mean the hosting itself is bad.
Managed WordPress is tied to specific plans: Bluehost offers standard WordPress hosting, but the fully managed experience (automatic daily backups, performance features, and a stronger uptime commitment) lives on its newer WordPress Cloud platform. If you want the “we’ll manage it for you” setup, you’ll need to pay more than the entry-level shared WordPress plans.
Bluehost Pricing and Hosting Plan Options
Bluehost offers quite a few different hosting packages, like most other providers. We’ll break down a few of the most popular options below, with their benefits and pricing.
Bluehost Shared WordPress Hosting
Shared hosting is an affordable place to start and is the most popular among first-time Bluehost users. This specific package is best for blogging, hobbies, or small business websites.
Plans typically include essentials like a free domain for the first year (on eligible terms), a free SSL certificate, and WordPress installation. Higher tiers usually add more performance resources and convenience features like staging tools, enhanced support options, and stronger backup capabilities.
Bluehost offers its best introductory pricing when you pay upfront for a longer term. Renewal rates are higher than promotional signup rates, so keep that in mind if you’re budgeting long-term.
On renewal pricing (12- and 36-month terms), Bluehost’s shared plans typically line up like this:
- Starter: $11.99/mo (12-month) or $9.99/mo (36-month)
- Business: $15.99/mo (12-month) or $13.99/mo (36-month)
- Plus: $13.99/mo (12-month) or $11.99/mo (36-month)
- Pro: $18.99/mo (12-month) or $16.99/mo (36-month)
Bluehost Online Store
Bluehost offers ecommerce-focused WordPress plans built around WooCommerce. The main differences between tiers are the level of ecommerce tooling and the amount of included resources and add-ons.
These plans commonly include an ecommerce-ready theme, ecommerce analytics, product tools, and a bundle of ecommerce-friendly WordPress plugins. Promotional pricing varies depending on term length and current discounts, and renewal rates are higher than signup rates.
Bluehost WordPress Cloud Hosting
Bluehost’s WordPress Cloud hosting is designed for WordPress sites that need more resources, power, and performance—without you having to manage infrastructure yourself. These plans are fully managed and include automatic daily backups and a stronger uptime commitment than typical shared hosting.
As such, you won’t have to worry about managing or maintaining servers on your own. You don’t have to be a developer or IT pro to use them, which isn’t the case with a lot of other cloud hosting options.
You’ll also get security basics like DDoS protection, a free SSL certificate, and 2FA support for account security.
There are four options to choose from, including:
- Cloud 10: $75 per month; 10 websites, 125 GB of storage, 20 vCPUs
- Cloud 25: $155 per month; 25 websites, 175 GB of storage, 75 vCPUs
- Cloud 50: $250 per month; 50 websites, 225 GB of storage, 150 vCPUs
- Custom Cloud: Contact Bluehost for a custom solution
Bluehost VPS Hosting
Bluehost’s VPS plans are a strong fit for growing sites and for developers who want more control and more predictable performance than shared hosting. These virtual private servers come with root access, so you can make changes at the server level without the limitations of shared environments.
The best part about Bluehost VPS is that it gives you flexibility and customization without the enterprise-level cost of fully dedicated hardware.
You can use VPS hosting to run multiple sites while splitting resources across projects as needed (within your plan limits).
There are three different VPS tiers:
- Standard VPS
- Enhanced VPS
- Ultimate VPS
Bluehost’s promotional pricing changes frequently, but renewal pricing (on 36-month terms) typically renews at $53.99, $83.99, and $128.99 per month for Standard, Enhanced, and Ultimate—so be sure to account for the jump after your introductory term ends.
All plans come with cPanel and a single dashboard to manage your tools in one place. You’ll also get generous bandwidth allowances (often marketed as “unmetered,” with standard usage policies).
Bluehost Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is an excellent option for businesses that need maximum performance, isolation, and control. With a dedicated server, you’re not sharing critical resources with other customers—so you can run higher-traffic sites and heavier workloads more reliably.
A dedicated hosting server provides a high level of protection, security, and control. These servers are separate from one another, so each customer gets full access to their server without being impacted by other users.
With Bluehost dedicated hosting, you can expect stable performance, root access, and a more predictable environment for demanding sites.
This package is best for high-traffic sites or resource-heavy projects where you need dedicated CPU, RAM, and storage to keep everything running smoothly.
Some additional features and benefits you get on dedicated hosting include:
- Extreme speed
- Fast provisioning
- RAID storage options
- Root access
- Dedicated support
- Storage upgrades
- Free domain for one year (on eligible terms)
On renewal pricing, Bluehost’s dedicated server tiers typically price out like this (24–36 month renewals):
- Standard: $176.79 per month (renewal on 24–36 month terms)
- Enhanced: $259.19 per month (renewal on 24–36 month terms)
- Premium: $379.18 per month (renewal on 24–36 month terms)
Bluehost also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on these plans, which isn’t common in the web hosting industry at the dedicated server level.
Bluehost FAQ
Bluehost is one of the best web hosting provider on the market today. It’s a great option for new websites looking for a fast and reliable hosting service that includes a free domain for one year and a free SSL certificate.
Bluehost also provides world-class support available 24/7. There are plenty of plan options to choose from, including shared hosting packages, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, online store hosting, WordPress hosting, managed WordPress cloud hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and more.
You can trust Bluehost with your web hosting needs. Bluehost powers more than two million websites worldwide, and it’s one of just three web hosting providers that’s recommended by WordPress.
Bluehost even offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. So if you’re not happy with the service or you feel like it’s just not delivering what you’d hoped for, you can always request a full refund for your web hosting service—no questions asked.
Bluehost and WordPress work best when you use both of them together. That’s because Bluehost is a web hosting provider, and WordPress is a CMS.
Bluehost offers plans with one-click WordPress installations for simple setups. You can even get WordPress-specific hosting through Bluehost, where WordPress is automatically installed and updated to ensure high-level performance and security. Bluehost has been recommended by WordPress since 2005, and the WordPress experts at Bluehost are available 24/7 to help you with setups, migrations, designs, and ongoing support.
Bluehost is generally a better value than GoDaddy for web hosting because you get WordPress-friendly features, modern NVMe storage, and a free domain bundled into a lower starting price.
GoDaddy remains the bigger name in domain registration, but you can still get a free domain name with your Bluehost web hosting plan. Check out our side-by-side comparison of Bluehost vs. GoDaddy for more information.
Right now new customers can get web hosting from Bluehost for just $1.99 per month with a 12-month contract. This plan normally renews at $9.99 per month, so it’s a great discount that you can unlock here without having to enter a promo code.
The special offer comes with a free domain name for one year and a free SSL certificate. All purchases are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee from Bluehost.
Bluehost is better than DreamHost for new websites that want to bundle domain registration with web hosting and a website builder, all from a single provider. DreamHost is cheaper than Bluehost, and it’s a better option for websites seeking month-to-month plans—something that Bluehost still doesn’t offer. DreamHost also has a 97-day money-back guarantee compared to Bluehost’s 30-day refund policy.
Check out our side-by-side comparison of Bluehost vs. DreamHost for more information.
Bluehost is better than HostGator for WordPress hosting. It’s also easier to use than HostGator and provides everything you need to build and host your website under one roof. HostGator works well for websites seeking an explicit uptime guarantee and scalable resources when your website gets more traffic.
To determine whether Bluehost or HostGator is right for you, refer to our complete guide comparing Bluehost vs. HostGator.
Bluehost is overall better than SiteGround for budget-conscious users and for people who want WordPress, a domain, and an AI-assisted builder from the same place. Bluehost is also more affordable than SiteGround at renewal on most shared terms.
However, some of SiteGround’s plans offer a better value than Bluehost when you compare the cost against features and resources.
Bluehost is cheap because it provides shared web hosting. With shared plans, multiple websites share the same server and the same server resources. This isn’t as costly for Bluehost to maintain, so the savings get passed to the customers.
Bluehost also offers cheaper plans to new customers. These promotional rates are up to 60% cheaper than the regular pricing when you lock in a 12 or 36-month contract. But the cheap Bluehost plans will automatically renew at the normal rate when the initial contract expires.
Comparing the Best Web Hosting Services
We spent hours reviewing different web hosting services. You can check out our comparison guide here.
Overall, Bluehost a great choice for those who are new to WordPress because it comes with everything you need to get started with WordPress—from a free domain name and automatic WordPress installation to a free drag-and-drop page builder and thorough step-by-step instructions for every step of the way.
With extensive product offerings like WordPress hosting, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and multi-tiered pricing plans, we think most users will enjoy the Bluehost experience.
Even though Hostinger is our top recommendation in this category, Bluehost is definitely a web hosting service worth looking into.
