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 very well-rounded hosting provider, offers a blend of superlative support, security, and reliability at a easy-to-stomach price point.
Great security: Bluehost has some of the best website security measures on the market to give you peace of mind. All plans come with resource protection, and CodeGuard Backup Basic can be added for an additional $3.99 per month fee. CodeGuard will help you with daily backups and monitoring while notifying you of any changes. On higher-priced plans, you can also unlock automatic backups, advanced malware scanning, and 24/7 network monitoring.
Fast support: We love Bluehost’s extensive and swift customer support portal. Quality support is paramount for any web hosting service to have, but finding a service that has fast and efficient support can be tougher than you might think. Most users rave that Bluehost’s customer support is very helpful when you need immediate resolution of issues.
Live chat support is available to you 24/7, and Bluehost also offers phone and email support. On top of that, you always have the option to browse the extensive knowledge base and forum for getting answers to FAQs and finding videos, in-depth articles, and resources on everything related to web hosting.
Easy to setup: Not only is Bluehost one of the most popular web hosting services on the market, it’s also incredibly easy to get the hang of managing. Bluehost has an easy onboarding process that takes just a few minutes to complete and an intuitive interface.
If you utilize its WordPress builder in addition to the web hosting service, Bluehost’s current WonderSuite-style setup wizard will ask you to fill out a form that includes your website goals, what you want to add to your site, and what you want the name and tagline of your site to be. After answering these questions, you get to choose a theme of your choice from the Bluehost Marketplace, and then it automatically installs WordPress for you. All you have to worry about is customization, while Bluehost takes care of the backend and the technical nitty-gritty.
High-performing servers: With Bluehost, you’re getting access to high-performance servers on the Pro plan and higher. These plans now run on modern NVMe storage with AMD EPYC processors and DDR5 RAM, so you get swift loading speeds without having to manage the hardware yourself. This is an excellent option for larger, more media-heavy websites because Bluehost makes sure there are fewer users per server—with an individual file count of 300,000—so there are no slowdowns for anyone hosting their sites on them.
Reasonable pricing: The monthly price for most Bluehost plans is relatively low compared to their peers. You also receive a free domain name for the first year if you are a new customer, as well as a 30-day money back guarantee so you don’t have to worry about the risk if Bluehost doesn’t meet your needs right away.
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 after you select a web hosting package from Bluehost. It takes just a few extra seconds, and you’ll have everything you need to proceed and go live. If you haven’t decided on a domain name yet, that’s ok. Bluehost still lets you sign up for a hosting plan, and you can always claim your free domain later.
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 now lets most WordPress users move their sites in with a free WordPress migration plugin, 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 $149.99 per website for its professional website transfer service, which is a steep add-on when many other web hosting services will transfer your website for free. This service still doesn’t cover VPS or dedicated environments, so you’ll need to handle those yourself or bring in a developer.
Limited uptime SLA detail: Bluehost now advertises 99.99% uptime on its shared plans and a 100% network uptime commitment on its managed WordPress cloud, but it still doesn’t publish the kind of explicit, credit-backed SLA that higher-end hosts offer. If you absolutely need clearly defined compensation for downtime, you may want to read the fine print or look elsewhere.
Constant upsells: Once you select a pricing plan from Bluehost, you’ll get constant reminders of other features that you can buy during the checkout process. And it doesn’t end there, with popups and other marketing communications that try to convince you to subscribe to a more expensive package. It’s a bit annoying, but these pitches ultimately don’t affect the quality of hosting and service you get in other facets.
Managed WordPress is tied to specific plans: Bluehost has been recommended by WordPress since 2005, and they offer WordPress hosting plans. Today they also sell fully managed WordPress through their cloud platform—automatic daily backups, performance enhancements, and 100% network uptime all included. But those managed features live on the newer cloud offering, not the entry-level shared WordPress plans, so you’ll need to pay more if you want the “we’ll manage it for you” experience.
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.
Every plan includes a free domain name for the first year, a free SSL certificate, a free CDN, malware scanning, and 24/7 support. On higher tiers, you’ll also get daily website backups, free domain privacy, staging tools, and phone support.
Bluehost offers the lowest per-month price when you sign up for a year. However, it’s still cheaper in the long run to go with a three-year contract if you can.
Bluehost’s shared hosting plans currently line up like this:
- Starter: $1.99 per month for 12 or 36 months
- Business: $3.99 per month for 12 or 36 months
- Pro: $6.99 per month for 12 or 36 months
Bluehost Online Store
Bluehost offers two ecommerce plans. The difference between them is storage space and the ability to manage inventory across multiple channels, like your online store, Etsy, Amazon, and eBay.
Both come with a free store theme, ecommerce analytics, gift cards, unlimited product listings, shipping labels, appointment booking, a boatload of unique WordPress plugins, free daily website backups for a year, and a whole lot more.
The cheapest plan is $6.99 per month for one year or three years.
Bluehost’s full ecommerce premium plan starts at $9.99 per month for one year and renews at the higher rates published on Bluehost’s pricing page.
Bluehost WordPress Cloud Hosting
Bluehost’s newest offering is cloud hosting specifically for WordPress sites that need more resources, power, and performance. These plans include a 100% uptime guarantee, automatic daily backups, and are fully managed by Bluehost.
As such, you won’t have to worry about managing or maintaining the 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 plans.
You’ll also enjoy full DoS protection, a free SSL certificate, and 2FA to keep your sites secure.
There are four plans 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 perfect for high-performance websites or developers and designers who want to manage multiple sites under a single plan. These virtual private servers also come with root access, so devs can make changes at the server level without limitations.
The best part about Bluehost’s VPS is that it offers tons of flexibility and customization options without the enterprise-level price tag.
You can use it to host unlimited domains and websites while dividing your server resources and environment in any way that you see fit.
There are three different VPS plans to choose from:
- Standard VPS: $46.99 per month for 36 months
- Enhanced VPS: $65.99 per month for 36 months
- Ultimate VPS: $94.99 per month for 36 months
Just be aware that like most of Bluehost’s hosting products, the renewal rates are steeper—renewing at $53.99, $83.99, and $128.99 per month, respectively, on 36-month terms.
All plans come with cPanel and a single dashboard to manage all of your tools in one place. You’ll also benefit from unlimited bandwidth with no restrictions on traffic.
Bluehost Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is an excellent package for large businesses that need a massive increase in storage, power, and control from their hosting plan.
A dedicated hosting server provides the highest level of protection, security, and control to its users. These servers are separate from one another, so each user gets full access to the server without being affected or affecting another user’s experience.
With Bluehost dedicated hosting, it guarantees every user stable and predictable website performance, with full control and privacy.
This package is best for users that have high traffic websites, as you will need the full spectrum of RAM and CPU to run your website efficiently—which is exactly what dedicated hosting does.
Some additional features and benefits you get on dedicated hosting include:
- Extreme speed
- Fast provisioning
- RAID storage
- Root access
- Dedicated support
- Storage upgrades
- Free domain for one year
This package is on the high-end side of web hosting, so it focuses on performance and security while coming at a steeper price than the previous options:
- Standard: $141.19 per month with 1 TB storage, 32 GB RAM, and 8 core CPUs
- Enhanced: $217.19 per month with 2 TB storage, 64 GB RAM, and 16 core CPUs
- Premium: $312.19 per month with 3 TB storage, 128 GB RAM, and 32 core CPUs
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.
