Cheap web hosting is the perfect match for anyone starting a new website. If you find yourself a part of this group, keep in mind there’s no need to spend a fortune on a web host. Instead, you can find a superior price-value ratio to get quality features on a budget.

However, the thing with cheap web hosting services is that there are a ton of terrible options. So, it takes “a good eye” to separate good deals that deliver good service from scams.

Fortunately, our experts have taken over to facilitate your job. They have performed an independent study including dozens of cheap web hosting plans to separate the reputable companies worthy of your time and effort, further backed up by first-hand user reviews from all around the globe.

Short on Time? Check Our Best Cheap Hosting Providers

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What Is Cheap Web Hosting and What to Expect from It?

As the name implies, cheap web hosting refers to web hosting services that are more affordable than the other hosting plans on the market. This term usually refers to shared hosting plans as the cheapest web hosting type. However, you can also find cheap VPS, WordPress, dedicated hosting, and more.

Now, you must be wondering, how do cheap web hosting companies manage to keep prices down?

• Shared hosting: You are getting a small portion of a server and its resources with shared hosting. There are other neighboring sites in the same shared hosting environment, meaning you get limited CPU, RAM, bandwidth, storage, and so on. Furthermore, other websites can harm your website performance, speed or security, and SEO. With VPS and dedicated servers, you can usually expect better reliability, pushing the price up.
• Essential features included: Adding more features to your subscription, such as increasing your storage, setting automated backups, staging sites, etc., significantly increases the plan’s price. In turn, cheap web hosting plans keep things simple. If you find the included features sufficient, you will get the most value for money.
• Better discounts on longer-term plans: This is a well-known practice among reputable web hosting companies. Usually, the provider will reward you for your loyalty – if you commit long term, you will get a better deal, thus paying a lower monthly fee.
• Initial discounts: Web hosting companies frequently increase their renewal rates. While you might get an excellent deal on your initial purchase, the price is very likely to increase on renewal.

Ranking comparison between the Top Providers

We take a lot of time and invest many resources to decide which cheap web hosting provider makes the cut. Our team of professionals engages in independent and exhaustive testing procedures to evaluate every host and pick the best of the best. HostAdvice experts open an account with each web host, click, chat, call, and work through all steps you would perform as a customer. 

More importantly, we test specifically for each category. Our experts have established the most important categories that make the ideal cheap web host. Once we rate the provider in each category, we weigh the ratings into a single score based on their assigned importance for cheap web hosting.

Obviously, we factored in pricing heavily since we tested cheap web hosting. But that’s not where it ends. User reviews also back up our independent studies. We assign this category a significant weight because it’s based on real-life experiences of people with different knowledge, experience, skill and from different parts of the world.

Here are the rating categories and the weights our AI technology uses to rank the best cheap web hosting services:

• Pricing (30%): The price is the most important criterion when looking for a cheap web hosting provider. Since you are paying monthly, each dollar can make a difference. However, a rock-bottom price can also mean a rock-bottom experience. So, the key to success is finding the proper balance between the two. We’ve selected super-affordable yet quality plans with transparent pricing. If you were to choose for yourself, it would be best to pay attention to initial prices vs. renewal rates. Here, it would help if you considered upfront costs and the costs of additional features. Contract terms are also essential. Is the web host locking you to grant you the best price? If you pay for the longer-term on your initial purchase, you’ll enjoy the first-time discount longer. However, at the same time, you’ll incur higher expenditures (you must pay up-front and in-full). So, you’re facing many trade-offs that you should assess and weigh properly.
• Ease Of Setup, Use, and Customer Support (10%): The best cheap website hosting companies target first-time users, startups, and SMBs. These entities have limited knowledge in the industry; they don’t usually have in-house development teams or any experience in this regard. So, the plan must feature incredible ease of use. You should be able to set it up quickly; get a beginner-friendly control panel, such as the industry gold cPanel, 1-click installs, proper guidance, and 24/7 customer support. The support team should be available to guide you through all tasks and issues you might encounter (via live chat, email, or phone). Availability of tutorials and a knowledge base is also a plus.
• Overall Reliability and Performance (15%): Selecting a web host based solely on price is the number one mistake you can make. Uptime, speed, and security are KEY for any web hosting service you might ever buy. Even the cheapest web hosting providers must be able to keep your site up and running at all times – downtime translates to a loss of website visitors. Slow loading speeds mean the same. It would be best to look for an uptime guarantee of 99.95% and above, fast loading speeds to improve your customers’ experience, a well-dispersed server network globally, and robust security at a minimum.
• Feature Set (15%): Speaking of a price to value ratio, you must consider what you will get for free in your cheap web hosting plan. What are the domain, traffic, storage, bandwidth, or RAM limits? Do you get free transfers, SSLs, backups, email accounts? Can you expect other tools, such as website builders or ad credits? If not, you much will you have to pay for these extras? The best web hosting services grant you all needed resources from the sole beginning so that you can get online immediately, without overspending on add-ons.
• User Reviews (30%): We especially value honest, transparent, and first-hand insights from customers worldwide. We take the time to separate false or bought reviews to present an objective picture of the situation. And it would help if you did the same – never rely on what the web host has to say, but prioritize third-party opinions instead. Consider the brand’s reputation, past incidents and downtime concerns, awards, and recognitions.

What Features Should I Expect to Get in A Cheap Web Hosting Service?

Let’s get into more details. Now that you know how it works on the provider’s side let’s see what you can expect in return. While the cheap web hosting provider pushes costs down, the question is, what features can you expect in your package?

First things first, different cheap web hosting plans prioritize different features. You cannot expect the same from the best cheap dedicated servers and cheap shared hosting. So, the offer primarily depends on the type of hosting you choose – shared, VPS, dedicated servers, WordPress, cloud hosting, and so on.

Still, what you’ll come to realize is that most cheap hosting plans emphasize things like the number of websites, traffic, storage, email accounts, or domains included. In general, you can expect to get one website, a domain name, subdomains, unlimited bandwidth, lots of storage, backups, SSL certificate, email accounts, a beginner-friendly control panel, 1-click installs, many app integrations, a website builder, and other extras.

At last, you should expect to find many affordable subscriptions and pricing terms, including monthly, annual, biennial, or triennial. Typically, paying an upfront fee and committing to the long term will grant you a better deal.

Cheap Web Hosting – For Whom Is It Suitable?

The cheapest web hosting plans might be sufficient for anyone willing to make the trade-off for price savings. You’ll probably have to give up some advanced features with these solutions. Still, the plan might be sufficient for your needs. For instance, if you are just starting your blog, have a WordPress site, or the provider has an extraordinary deal with many features, cheap web hosting will indeed “cut it.”

When you are first venturing into web hosting, the key to success is keeping your costs low. At this point, it’s best to start with cheap shared hosting – you’ll get all necessary resources to get your site online, in-depth guidance, 24/7 customer support, and a beginner-friendly control panel, such as the cPanel, with 1-click installs. Does it get easier than that? 

Then, of course, if you outgrow cheap web hosting services, you can always upgrade to a premium hosting solution or a managed hosting plan. Once you start getting more traffic, you can start worrying about the fancier add-ons. 

Free Vs. Cheap Web Hosting

If you are browsing for the best cheap hosting, you might think to yourself: “Why wouldn’t I go for free web hosting instead?” Well, if I were you, I would avoid free web hosting services at all costs. See, while you think they are one and the same, there are significant differences between the two.

Free web hosting plans allow you to create and get your site online entirely free of charge. Unfortunately, these solutions come with several attached disadvantages.

First, your website’s URL will most likely contain the hosting provider’s name. Furthermore, the free web hosting company might display its brand on your site or run ads. While all of this might not sound too “endangering” to you, it significantly harms your SEO and website security. Other websites on the same network, or the provider itself, might hurt your privacy and the safety of your visitors.

Next, even the cheapest web hosting plans offer far more features than free hosting. With the latter, you’ll get minimal resources, such as storage or bandwidth, which will most probably be insufficient for running your site.

Customer support is yet another negative factor – you cannot expect technical assistance if you are not paying for it. The best cheap web hosting plans, on the other hand, have a support team available on-demand, 24/7/365. If you encounter any issue, they will be available to guide you through the process or resolve it entirely.

To sum up, there’s nothing wrong with getting a free web hosting plan if you want to give hosting services a try. However, I wouldn’t suggest it for websites with existing visitors or a customer base. If you want your site to look professional and function properly, you’ll want to stay away from this offer. Instead, you can select the best cheap website hosting, combining the best of both worlds.

What Makes A Good Cheap Web Host?

Here’s a checklist of all factors you need to look for in the best cheap web hosting plans:

• A variety of plans and subscription terms: cheap shared, VPS, dedicated hosting, WordPress, cloud hosting plans; availability of monthly, annual, 2-year, 3-year pricing terms, etc.
• Excellent introductory rates and transparent pricing: you should get a discount on your initial purchase, but know what renewal rates to expect in the future
• An uptime guarantee of at least 99.95% or above: the cheap web host should keep your site online and compensate you for any losses
• Speed-optimization: worldwide server network, SSD drives, fast servers, caching, Cloudflare CDN
• Security features, such as firewalls, SSL certificates, or backups
• The essentials: free website, domain name registration, sufficient hardware and software features, email, and so on.
• Enough storage and bandwidth: even cheap shared hosting should be able to support your website requirements, thus providing enough CPU, RAM, storage, bandwidth, and other hardware components.
• Only a few constraints: sure, a cheap web hosting plan will come with certain limitations regarding operating system, programming language compatibility, plugins, and so on—still, the less, the better.
• Scaling potential: if you exceed the limits of your cheap web hosting plan, you should be able to upgrade to another plan of the same company or a new provider altogether.
• Customer support: technical assistance is a must. The best cheap web hosting plans offer round-the-clock support via live chat, phone, email, or a ticketing system.
• A money-back guarantee: if the plan is not up to your standards, the provider should return your money in a prespecified refund period. 

Cheap Web Hosting: Final Recommendations

Getting your site online doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Still, you must be careful to choose the best cheap web hosting for your needs from a reputable company with a history of dependable service. If not, your cheap web hosting plan can cost you a lot more than you initially thought.

As mentioned, the cheapest web hosting usually refers to shared hosting plans. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. As you can spot, the market has evolved to the degree that providers offer cheap VPS, WordPress, email hosting, dedicated servers, and more!

So, what’s the best place to start? It’s by evaluating what you need and determining your budget. Only then will you be able to match your resources to your requirements. Remember to compare different providers at the same level – if two companies don’t offer the same benefits, comparing their prices isn’t worth your time. You want to get the best value for your money! 

At the same time, remember to check the brand reputation. While everything might look good “on paper,” the reality can be a whole lot different. So, it would be best to read user reviews from customers who have purchased cheap web hosting services from the company or experts with years of experience who have the needed skill to rate the provider. Either way, don’t rely on empty promises, but real-time performance instead!