Best Cheap Web Hosting

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We’ve launched dozens of websites over the last decade using just about every cheap and high-end web hosting service you can imagine. Based on our experiences, Hostinger is the #1 choice for cheap web hosting. It’s beginner-friendly, packs a lot of punch with more than enough resources for new websites, and starts at just $0.99 per month.

The Best Cheap Web Hosting for Most

Hostinger is our top cheap web hosting recommendation because it offers the cheapest long-term pricing without sacrificing the essential features you need to get started. 

On the introductory plan, you get four years of hosting for $47.52. It comes with 100 GB of bandwidth, 30 GB of storage space, one email account, and a free SSL certificate. Overall, it certainly doesn’t feel like a cheap service since it comes with everything you need (aside from a domain name) and a beginner-friendly user interface.

The 7 Best Cheap Web Hosting Options to Consider: 

1. Hostinger – Best cheap web hosting for most
2. DreamHost – Cheapest month-to-month web hosting
3. Bluehost – Best cheap web hosting for WordPress
4. GreenGeeks – Best for image and video-heavy websites
5. SiteGround – Best for users who need extra support
6. A2 Hosting – Fastest cheap web hosting services
7. HostGator – Best for cheap cloud and VPS hosting

When It Makes Sense to Go With Cheap Web Hosting

One of our favorite WordPress web hosting providers is WPEngine. It’s fast, reliable, and you get a ton of other perks (like a 100% hands-off white-glove hosting experience).

The catch? It’s $30+ per month on the cheapest plan. Ouch.

When your website is new, you don’t need all those fancy add-ons or fully-managed hosting services. They’re absolutely overkill for new websites.

Instead, you need cheap web hosting that’ll get you up and running as fast as possible with an affordable price tag that doesn’t put you out of business before you even get started.

Which… is why cheap shared hosting exists.

It’s an accessible option for small or new websites with little traffic and a limited number of files, images, and pages. 

The good news is that you can start with one of these cheap hosting options and upgrade to better services when you start to see a decline in site performance and can justify the added monthly expense.

The bottom line: if you’re just getting started, cheap web hosting is excellent. We actually highly recommend it. But don’t forget to think about where you want to be in five years and choose a hosting provider that can scale with your website.

#1 – Hostinger — Best Cheap Web Hosting for Most

If you’re looking for the best long-term pricing and an excellent overall introductory plan, Hostinger’s Single Shared Hosting is our top recommendation. With it, you get everything you need to launch your new website (without breaking the bank). 

With most options on this list, you have to pay close to $100 or more upfront. But with Hostinger, you only have to pay $47.52 for four years of hosting services.

The best part is that even after your initial contract term, monthly prices renew at $2.99 per month, which is significantly cheaper than all the other options listed here. 

So, for less than the cost of a cup of nice coffee, you get:

• One website
• One email
• 100 GB of bandwidth
• 30 GB of SSD storage
• Free SSL certificate
• One-click WordPress installation
• 24/7 customer support
• 99.9% uptime

However, the plan doesn’t come with a domain name, so you’ll need to buy one separately. You can do so through Hostinger or one of our top domain registrar recommendations. 

Most domain names are $8 to $12 per year. The cost is easily justifiable since you’re getting such a great deal on hosting. 

Alternatively, you can upgrade to Hostinger’s Premium Shared Hosting package ($1.99 per month), including a free domain name for the first year. With this plan, you also get 100 email accounts, 20 GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth. 

The Premium plan is also a great option if you run out of storage space or hit your monthly bandwidth cap on the Single plan. 

As such, Hostinger can scale alongside your website as it grows, delivering more resources and improving your site’s performance along the way for just a few dollars more per month. 

Regardless of the plan you choose, you get 24/7/365 live chat support to help you if anything goes wrong, you need help choosing a plan, or you’re confused about anything as you get started. In our experience, the support team is friendly, speedy, and extremely knowledgeable. 

Hostinger’s our top recommendation because it offers affordable long-term pricing, scalable website performance, high server uptimes, and around-the-clock support. 

Get four years of hosting for just $47.52 today!

#2 – DreamHost — The Cheapest Month-to-Month Web Hosting

If you don’t want to commit to several years in advance, DreamHost offers the cheapest month-to-month pricing on the market at $4.95 per month.

There are no long-term contracts, no commitments, and no other unexpected fees. 

But don’t let its cheap monthly price tag fool you—you don’t have to sacrifice features, functionality, or website performance for affordable month-to-month pricing.

DreamHost’s Shared Starter plan comes with everything you need, including one website, 50 GB of SSD storage space, and unmetered bandwidth. 

The Starter plan also includes:

• WordPress pre-installed, so you don’t have to worry about installing it
• Free WordPress migrations if you’re switching from a different host
• Free domain name privacy (most charge extra for this)
• A drag-and-drop WordPress website builder
• Live chat, ticket, and phone support
• A free SSL certificate
• 100% uptime guarantee

However, as with all great things, there are a few limitations. 

DreamHost’s introductory month-to-month plan doesn’t come with a free domain name or any email accounts. Other providers listed here do include these, so it’s an important consideration to think about. 

A domain name will cost you $6.99 if you buy through DreamHost. 

You can also opt for a one-year or three-year plan (they come with a free domain) or buy one through one of our top domain registrar recommendations. 

You can add an email account for $1.67 per account per month, making your total cost $6.26 per month. 

Alternatively, you can upgrade to DreamHost’s Shared Unlimited plan at $8.95 per month, which includes unlimited email accounts and unlimited site storage. 

The best part about DreamHost is that you can stick with month-to-month pricing as long as you’d like and switch to a one or three-year agreement to lower your monthly hosting costs whenever you’re ready to commit. 

One-year plans start at $3.95 per month, and three-year plans start at $2.59 per month for the Shared Starter package. Sign up for DreamHost’s no-contract hosting for $4.95 per month today!

#3 – Bluehost — Best Cheap Web Hosting for WordPress

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) globally, powering over a third of the entire internet. 

So, choosing to use WordPress is a smart choice—it’s also what we use here at Crazy Egg. 

WordPress itself has three recommended hosting platforms, with Bluehost being the most popular. It offers a great starting point for beginners, but it also has advanced, fully-managed WordPress hosting plans when you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level. 

As such, it checks all our boxes for website performance and scalability. However, Bluehost’s WordPress Basic plan is our top cheap WordPress hosting recommendation. 

It starts at $2.95 per month (with a three-year contract) and includes:

• One website
• 50 GB of SSD storage space
• A free domain for the first year—most charge extra for this!
• A free content delivery network (CDN)
• Free SSL certificate

On top of that, you also get automatic WordPress installation, so you don’t have to worry about the technical side of installing it yourself. And you can rest easy knowing you’re getting the most up-to-date version, regardless of when you sign up. 

All Bluehost plans come with automatic core and plugin updates, resulting in a more secure website with fewer vulnerabilities. 

But the best part is that you don’t have to spend time checking for updates, installing them, or maintaining your account. Bluehost takes care of everything WordPress-related for you so you can focus on launching, creating content, and running your website. 

If you’ve never used WordPress before, it can be a bit of an uphill climb to learn. 

However, Bluehost helps ease the learning curve by delivering 24/7/365 WordPress expert support for getting started, designing your website, and other questions you may have along the way. 

Bluehost promotional pricing starts at $2.95 per month. However, you have to sign up for three years in advance to unlock this price. 

And after your initial contract term, the price increases to $8.99 per month. 

Whether you want to start a blog, an ecommerce store, a business website, or anything in between, WordPress powered by Bluehost has you covered. Get started with Bluehost for $2.95 per month today!

#4 – GreenGeeks — The Best Cheap Web Hosting for Image and Video-Heavy Websites

GreenGeeks is a cheap web hosting provider you may not have heard of. But with over 40,000 happy customers around the world, they’re not new—nor unproven—by any means. 

We love GreenGeeks because it’s the only provider that provides unlimited storage space, even on the cheapest introductory plan. 

As such, it’s an excellent choice for content, image, and video-heavy websites. 

Whether you run a blog, create hundreds of video product reviews, or want to display your high-resolution photographs in all their glory, you don’t have to worry about hitting storage limits with large files. 

With that said, GreenGeeks does have an excessive resource user policy that states every website on its shared hosting plans may not use more disk space or bandwidth than is required for the regular operation of a website. 

They don’t explicitly state what that “limit” is, but most users shouldn’t have issues with this, as long as you’re not using storage space for the sole purpose of archiving or storing large files. 

Besides unlimited storage space, it’s also one of the most feature-rich entry-level plans we’ve seen on the market. For just $2.49 per month, you get:

• A free domain name
• Unlimited email accounts
• Nightly backups
• A complimentary SSL certificate
• A free content delivery network (CDN)
• Zero-day vulnerability fixes
• One-click WordPress installation
• 24/7/365 live chat, phone, and ticket support

But keep in mind that you have to sign up for three years in advance to get the best prices. After your promotional period, your monthly rate jumps up to $10.95 per month. 

On top of those features, GreekGeeks is the only cheap hosting provider with a 300% green energy matching program, making your website 3x greener than those hosted on other platforms. In case you’re wondering why green hosting is a thing…

Data centers (the things that power the internet) account for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions, equal to that of the aircraft industry. 

And that number is expected to grow to 14% by 2040. 

In response to this, GreenGeeks offsets carbon emissions put off by their services by 300%. So they’re leaving the world 3x better than they found it. Get started with GreenGeeks for $2.49 per month today!

#5 – SiteGround — The Best for Users Who Need Extra Support

If you’ve never built a website before or aren’t comfortable navigating the technical side of building a website, SiteGround is your best bet. 

When you sign up, you get all the essential features you need to launch your new website, plus an entire team of dedicated experts ready to help you along the way.

SiteGround’s support team is top-rated, and the company’s known for having the happiest customers in the industry. The hosting provider’s most recent annual customer survey found that to be true, as SiteGround received a 97.7% customer satisfaction rate.

So, you can rest easy knowing you’re in good hands if you need help, run into an issue, accidentally break your website, or are unsure of anything throughout the process.

In our experience, they’re very fast, friendly, knowledgeable, and dedicated to helping you get your website launched with as little frustration as possible. SiteGround offers customers a free site migration via its WP Migrator and also provides a professional migration service for $30 per site if you need to move several sites.

But SiteGround is also there to help once your website is up and running, as well. 

Want to change something but not sure how to do it? No problem. 

You can easily browse the SiteGround knowledgebase full of tutorials and how-to guides, hop on the phone, start a live chat, or create a helpdesk ticket. 

With a 15-minute average response time and 90% issue resolution on the first contact, you can resolve issues in record time and get back to running your business. 

Aside from support, you also get a ton of benefits and features on the cheapest plan, including:

• 10 GB of storage space (plenty for new websites)
• Daily backups in case something happens to your site
• Unlimited email accounts
• A free content delivery network (CDN)
• Automatic core and plugin WordPress updates
• A complimentary SSL certificate
• 100% renewable energy match

The introductory plan starts at $6.99 per month with a one-year contract. After that, your plan renews at $14.99 per month, making it the most expensive shared hosting plan on our list. But it’s well worth the added cost if you need additional support and would rather consult the professionals than spend time troubleshooting issues on your own. 

If you’re looking for a feature-rich hosting plan, extra peace of mind, and a reliable customer support team you can get in touch with at any time, SiteGround has you covered. Get started with SiteGround for $6.99 per month today!

#6 – A2 Hosting — The Fastest Cheap Web Hosting Provider

47% of web users expect your website to load in less than two seconds. And 40% of people will hit the back button if it takes longer than three seconds to load. 

Improving your site speed is essential, and your hosting provider plays a role in how fast your site loads. As such, if you’re looking for the fastest cheap web hosting service, A2 Hosting is our top recommendation. 

You can get started on their most affordable plan for $2.99 per month—as long as you sign up for three years in advance. After that, your plan renews at $8.99 per month. It comes with:

• Unlimited email accounts
• Phone, live chat, and email support
• A free SSL certificate
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• A built-in website builder

However, one of A2’s standout introductory features is a whopping 100 GB of SSD storage.

Most new websites will only use a small percentage of that, meaning you get faster load times since you’re not using up a lot of space. Just like with your computer or phone, the closer you get to maxing out your allotted storage space, the worse your device performs. 

This is true for your website as well. 

And the solid-state drive provides an additional speed boost compared to traditional hard drives since they can access stored memory (almost) instantaneously. 

The cheapest plan also comes with a free Cloudflare content delivery network (CDN). It helps improve site speeds and performance by caching the content on your site. Essentially, the CDN stores and displays a snapshot of your website, rather than loading it from scratch.

You can further improve site performance by upgrading to the Drive plan at $4.99 per month. It includes unlimited storage space and twice as many server resources at your disposal.

However, the most significant speed boost happens on A2 Hosting’s Turbo Boost plan, which starts at $9.99 per month. With it, you get an advanced version of a solid-state drive for storage, a turbo boost server that’s up to 20x faster, and a slew of other speed-boosting features. 

Regardless of the plan you choose, A2 offers an anytime money-back guarantee if you’re unhappy with your site’s performance for any reason. Get started for $2.99 per month today!

#7 – HostGator — The Best Cheap Cloud & VPS Web Hosting

If you’re on the hunt for cheap hosting that delivers better performance than shared hosting, HostGator’s cloud and VPS hosting plans are our top recommendations. 

Most users won’t need this level of hosting when they’re just getting started. So, if your website is brand new or you’ve never created a website before, we recommend going with one of the other options on this list. 

Note: VPS and cloud hosting require more technical knowledge since set up, configuration, customization, and server maintenance are all in your hands. 

Cloud hosting is different from shared hosting because you get your own allocated resources (you don’t have to share) split between numerous servers. As a result, you get better performance, flexible resources, enhanced scalability, and more uptime. 

So, if you’re currently frustrated with your shared hosting plan and frequently experience traffic spikes or plan to grow quickly, this is an excellent way to get an affordable upgrade. 

To put HostGator’s cloud plans in perspective, Google charges $40 to $50 per month and Liquid Web charges $19 per month. However, HostGator’s introductory cloud hosting plan starts at just $4.95 per month. 

With it, you get:

• 2 GB of RAM (plenty for small sites)
• 2 CPU cores (with shared hosting, you typically get one)
• Unmetered storage space
• A free domain name for the first year
• A complimentary SSL certificate
• Automated server switches if something goes wrong
• Custom-built caching configurations

If you’re not sure what all that means, don’t worry. It all equates to improved website performance with your own resources at a fraction of the cost of other cloud hosting providers. 

VPS hosting, on the other hand, is slightly different from cloud hosting. You still get your own resources, but you’re limited to one physical server. This type of hosting is best for hosting one website that’s outgrown shared hosting but doesn’t need the scalability and dynamic demand that cloud hosting provides. 

Bluehost VPS hosting starts at $29.99 per month, and A2 VPS hosting starts at $39.99 per month. So, it can be quite the spike from shared hosting. 

However, HostGator’s introductory VPS hosting plan starts at $19.95 per month, and you get the same number of resources as its entry-level cloud hosting plan. 

The most significant differences are that there’s a storage space limit of 120 GB, and you don’t get automatic server switches since you’re limited to one server. 

From a pricing, features, and usability standpoint, we highly recommend cloud hosting for most users. Get better performance by signing up with HostGator today!

Methodology For Choosing The Best Cheap Web Hosting

Now you know our top cheap web hosting recommendations. 

Next, let’s talk about the criteria we considered and how we chose these specific providers (aside from our own experiences using them). 

When it comes to cheap web hosting, it’s typically understood that lower costs come with a lower ceiling for performance and fewer features. So, the methodology we outline below will help you decide which “type” of cheap is the best fit for your new website. 

Promotional Pricing vs. Long-Term Costs

Every option on this list has a monthly promo fee of less than $7 per month and they all renew at less than $15 per month after your initial contract term.

Compared to dedicated or managed hosting, this is a steal (even at the renewal rate). However, you need to decide which type of “cheap” you’re looking for. 

Do you want to pay as little as possible today, or do you want the best long-term pricing?

If you’re looking for the lowest out-of-pocket costs today, Dreamhost is the cheapest. You can get started for $4.95. And that’s it.

The other good news is that you don’t have to worry about promotional pricing. That’s the price you’ll pay forever. 

However, the cheapest long-term web hosting service is Hostinger at $0.99/month with a two-year contract. You’ll pay $47.52 today for four full years of hosting. Then, the price goes up to $2.99 per month.

It’s cheaper in terms of long-term costs, but it’s more out-of-pocket today.

Another thing to consider is the cost of add-ons and other features you may need but aren’t included in your cheap hosting plan. This includes things like domain name privacy and protection, email accounts, a domain name, and extra security. 

Many “cheap” plans don’t include some or all of these things to keep costs low. 

So, while something may SEEM to be the cheapest option out there, don’t forget to factor in these extra expenses when comparing prices for different providers. 

For example, both Hostinger and Dreamhost don’t include a free domain name with their introductory plans. So, that’s an added expense you need to consider. Furthermore, Hostinger comes with one email account, whereas Dreamhost doesn’t include any. 

As such, you’ll have to pay extra for email accounts if you need them, whereas the other options on our list include an unlimited number of email accounts for free. 

Website Performance

If you’re interested in optimizing for search engines or improving the overall user experience, site speed makes a difference. 

Want people to stick around? Load faster than three seconds. Want to sell more products or generate more affiliate revenue? Don’t make visitors wait. 

Most cheap hosting plans offer similar site speed performance. The real difference comes when you upgrade to a managed plan or dedicated server. However, A2 Hosting boasts the fastest cheap web hosting in the industry.

With that said, factors like storage space, bandwidth, and a content delivery network (CDN) play a role in how fast your site loads. 

While every provider listed here (aside from Hostinger) offers unmetered bandwidth on their cheap introductory plan, that doesn’t mean it’s unlimited. 

Once you reach a certain threshold, your site’s performance will start to suffer and you’ll need to upgrade to a better plan as your website gets more traffic and you use up your available storage space. 

In terms of website performance, Hostinger is the most limiting with 10 GB of storage space and 100 GB of bandwidth on the entry-level plan. 

Which… makes sense because it’s the cheapest option on your list. 

These limitations won’t affect you when you’re just getting started. But, as your website grows, you’ll start to feel the degradation in performance until you upgrade to a more expensive plan. 

On the other hand, GreenGeeks offers the most room for growth with unlimited storage space and unmetered bandwidth. However, it’s more out-of-pocket today and the renewal rate is on the more expensive side. 

Going back to what we talked about earlier, you have to decide which type of “cheap” is the best fit for your situation. 

High Server Uptimes

Every provider on this list has an uptime guarantee between 99.9% and 99.99%. However, this doesn’t mean you’ll never experience downtime. 

In most cases, that guarantee doesn’t include scheduled downtime or situations outside of the provider’s control. Which… covers nearly every situation in which your site would be down. Check out this example from A2 Hosting. 

If your site does go down for more than 0.1% of the month, you get 5% of that month’s fees back for every hour of downtime. 

But they list numerous events that don’t qualify for their 99.9% guarantee, including scheduled maintenance and network outages. It leaves us to wonder what actually IS covered under their promise. 

With that said, unexpected downtime could mean lost revenue or missed opportunities. 

So, that 0.01% of downtime—or more—isn’t something to take lightly (regardless of what your provider promises). 

And although it may not happen often, your site WILL go down at some point. When it happens, you need top-notch customer service that’s on top of resolving the issue as fast as possible. 

24/7/365 Support

Whether you’ve never set up a website before, have set up hundreds of websites, or are migrating from a host you’re unhappy with, 24/7/365 support is crucial. 

Aside from unexpected downtime, quick access to an experienced customer service rep should play a role in your decision. This is true even if you don’t expect to contact them for anything because you never know what’s going to happen. 

Some provider’s on our list outsource customer support, meaning their representatives aren’t a part of their in-house team. 

This can lead to extremely frustrating service experiences, particularly because they may not know enough about the technical side of your hosting plan to actually do anything and help you resolve the issue. 

Another thing to consider is where the support team is located. Are they strictly US-based? 

While that’s excellent for US customers, it’s not so great for international customers in different time zones. You may have to wait an entire day to get a response due to time differences. 

Furthermore, you may not be able to call the support team at all if they don’t provide international phone numbers. 

The best way to test response times and overall support quality is to take advantage of money-back guarantees. Sign up for an account, pay the initial fees, and get to know their customer support team. 

Try every support channel they offer and take note of your experience. 

If they’re unhelpful or you don’t get the help you need in a timely manner, cancel and move on to a host better suited to help you. 

Just remember to cancel and request a refund before your refund period is up. 

Most providers give you at least 30 days to try out their services. However, DreamHost gives you 97 days, and A2 Hosting offers an anytime money-back guarantee. With that said, SiteGround is known for its exceptional customer service. So it’s a fantastic choice if this is your first time buying hosting, or you’d like additional guidance along the way. However, it does come in as one of the most expensive “cheap” hosting options on our list.

Summary

Choosing the right cheap web hosting provider isn’t always easy, but it’s an essential consideration for your website’s future. 

So, sit down and take the time to list out your requirements. 

Then make an educated decision based on your priorities and specific needs. 

If you’re still stuck, Hostinger and Dreamhost are our top cheap web hosting recommendations. They’re usually a safe bet. But if they do not check all your boxes, you can use this post as a guide while you go through the process of making your final decision.