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Goal: Find good, affordable web hosting for one website

When you’re looking to host your first website, price is generally a big consideration. For many people, they just want to easily get their website online for cheap. You might not be so concerned about page speed load times, SSL certificates, and many of the other features that come with web hosting… and that’s just fine.

For this article, I researched the most affordable web hosting plans for several popular web hosting companies – Bluehost, SiteGround, Hostinger, and WordPress.com (all of whom I regularly developed websites on for my web design clients). I compiled comparison data for promotional and renewal pricing plus 15 web hosting features in the chart below. I also added the website builder SquareSpace to give you an idea of where they fit into the mix.

In the chart, you’ll find comparisons on:

  • their promotional and renewal prices, plus the cost for three and five years of service
  • web hosting features
  • additional costs that you might incur for features not included in their plans

Hosting Plans: Similarities & Differences

Here are some similarities and differences that I found between the web hosting plans:

All of them offered:

  • Free Domain for the first year (All offer this, but you’ll need to take advantage of this within a certain amount of time. Bluehost gives you 90 days to register your domain after purchasing web hosting. Hostinger and SquareSpace give you a year.) SiteGround seems to want you to register your domain when purchasing hosting or enter your existing domain name.
  • Free SSL certificates (that puts the “s” in https and provides an encrypted connection)
  • WordPress Website Migration (all web hosts, but not SquareSpace as they don’t support WordPress)
  • AI Website Creation Tools (All have some sort of AI website builder, but watch out for proprietary AI builders that cannot migrate to other web hosts. More on this in the near future.)
  • CDN (content delivery network – speeds up website; host might recommend the Jetpack plugin)
  • Web Application Firewall (All of these plans have this for a more secure website)

Key Differences:

These will affect your monthly cost and might help you determine who you choose as your web host:

  • Email Hosting – not all web hosting plans offer email hosting. They can increase your monthly hosting price, if you’re trying to keep things cheap. See chart below for costs and details.
  • Backups (with one-click restore) – Of the web hosting and web builders I reviewed:
    • only SiteGround includes daily backups with a one-click restore button for your website.
    • Bluehost and Hostinger include weekly backups, which might be good enough for you.
    • WordPress.com didn’t offer a backup service at all. You can use the free plugin, UpdraftPlus, but restoring to a backup is a bit more complicated.
    • SquareSpace doesn’t offer a backup service at all, not even a manual process, and that’s quite concerning. At a minimum, keep a copy of your text and images, screenshots could help a lot as well. (If you don’t and things go bad, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine might become your best friend if they captured archived pages of your website.
  • Domain Privacy & Protection – This hides your personal details (email address, address) from the world, otherwise you might get a lot of spam. No extra charge from Hostinger, WordPress.com, and SquareSpace. Bluehost charges $11.88 the first year and $15/year afterwards. SiteGround charge about $12 for the first year and $24/year thereafter.
  • Video Hosting and Storage – It’s important to note that you cannot upload video files to WordPress.com (YouTube embeds are fine) and SquareSpace limits you to 30 minutes of video that you can upload.
  • Free Malware Scanning – Bluehost, Hostinger, WordPress.com all have free malware scanning. SiteGround offers two paid plans with their Site Scanner (I couldn’t find it on their website, but did in my SiteGround Dashboard account). You can use the Wordfence plugin to scan malware for free.

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Length of Web Hosting Term

Generally speaking if you sign up for a certain length monthly term with a web host, your renewal term will be that same length of time. i.e. Bluehost has a 36 month plan. It renews for 36 months. These terms are paid in full for the entire term, not paid monthly.

  • With my special Bluehost promotional term of $1.99 per month for 36 months, for a total payment of $71.64 plus tax to start.
  • The renewal rate is $9.99 per month for 36 months, for a renewal payment of $359.64 plus tax, to be paid in full.
    • If you wanted to pay that renewal monthly, it would be at a higher monthly rate.
  • Keep an eye out because not all web hosts require the same renewal term. Example, Hostinger starts with a 48 month term and renews for 12 months.

Web Hosting Comparison Chart

Affordable Web Hosting for One Website

For this comparison chart, I’m rounding up – i.e. $1.99 = $2. Tax is not included in these prices.

Disclaimer: I’m doing my best to research these web hosting plans. I did a lot of searching and chatted with support to try and get the correct answers. Do your own research before you purchase. Users are responsible for how they choose to use the information provided. Verify important information before acting on it.

Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. That means if you purchase through one of my affiliate links, I might earn a commission for the sale. This helps me keep creating quality free content for you. Thanks for your support.

Web Host Bluehost web hosting SiteGround web hosting Hostinger web hosting WordPress.com SquareSpace
Plan Name One Site Startup Premium Personal Plan Basic
# of Websites 1 website 1 website 3 websites 1 website 1 website
Promo Rate $2/mo (w/ my promo link)
Charged $72 for 36 month
One Site Plan for 50% less than the Starter Plan with this link.		 $3/mo
Charged $36 for 12 months		 $3/mo
Charged $144 for 48 months		 $2.75/mo (w/ my promo link)
Initial payment of
$99 for 36 months(Free Plan available.
No custom domain)		 $19/mo (annually)

 

Initial payment of $228

($25 monthly)
No promo rate
Renewal Rate $9/mo
Charged $324 for 36 months		 $18/mo
Charge of $216 for 12 months		 $11/mo
Charged $132 for 12 months		 $4/mo
Charged $144 for 36 months(I’m getting differing renewal rates $4, $5, $7, $8. I’m waiting for an email back.)		 $19/mo (annually)
Charged $228 for 12 months($25 monthly)
3 & 5 Year Costs
Web hosting, domain reg,
domain privacy, email hosting
(1 email address)		 3 years = $267
($7.42/mo)

 

5 years = $633
($10.55/mo)

 3 years = $574 ($15.94/mo)

 

5 years = $1,100 ($18.33/mo)

 3 years = $162.16
($4.50/mo)5 years = $384.32
($6.41/mo)		 3 years = $221 ($6.15/mo)

 

5 years = $413 ($6.89/mo)

 3 years = $976 ($27.11/mo)

 

5 years = $1,640 ($27.33/mo)
Included Features:          
Free Domain (first year)
(Register  within)		 Yes
(90 days)		 Yes Yes
(1 year)		 Yes Yes, if paid annually
(1 year)
Domain Renewal
(for .com)		 $24 $23 $20 $13 $20
Domain Privacy & Protection No
(Paid available:
$11.88 first year;
$15 afterwards)		 No
(1st yr: Promo discount of $12;
thereafter is $24/yr)		 Yes
(No extra cost for
supported domain
extensions)		 Yes
(All domains registered
at WordPress.com)		 Yes
(Most domains registered
with SquareSpace)
Free SSL Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Email hosting No
(1 month free trial
$3/mo thereafter
for 1 email address)		 Yes
Unlimited
Email Addresses		 No
(Promo: 1 free year
2 emails per website
renews at $0.59/per month
12 month term / $7.08 per year)		 No
(Pro Email (3mos free; $35/yr)
or Google Workspace $80 1st yr;
$84 additional yr. Email requires
a domain name that’s registered
or connected to WordPress.com		 No
(Google Workspace w/ custom domain email: $7/mo per user = $84/yr)
Backups Weekly backups
w/ one-click restore
(Daily backups for
$49/annually)		 Daily w/ one-click restore
(30 days of backup history)		 Weekly
w/ one-click restore
(Paid Daily backup available –
$3/mo w/ the 48-month term;
Confirm with support)		 None
(You can install UpdraftPlus
for free backup. Manual restore
process in a few clicks.)		 NO
(Manually copy your text, save your images, screenshot for layout, rebuild website elsewhere.)
Staging Area Yes No No No No
WordPress Website Migration Yes Yes Yes Yes No (it’s a manual process)
CDN Yes Yes No
(Not available for this plan.
Use Jetpack plugin for free)		 Yes, with Jetpack CDN. (It’s
created by Automattic,
the same company that
created WordPress.com)		 Yes
Video Hosting and Storage Yes Yes Yes No video upload;
Can embed from YouTube		 Yes
(30 mins of video)
AI Website Creation Tools Yes (AI Site Creation Tool) Yes (Coderick AI) Yes (AI Builder – 5 credits – enough to build a simple business web page) Yes (AI website builder) Yes. 10 Credits
Free Malware Scanning Yes No
(Site Scanner additional cost –
After promo – Basic: $5/mo;
Premium: $10/mo. Wordfence
plugin scan  malware for free.)		 Yes Yes  
Malware Detection & Removal Yes No
(With Site Scanner Premium –
$5 promo, then $10/mo w/
12 month term)		 No Yes  
Web Application Firewall Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
DDoS Protection Included Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
           
           
ADDITIONAL COSTS:          
Email hosting 1 month free trial
$3/mo thereafter
For 1 email address		 Unlimited Free
Email Addresses		 1 free year
(2 emails per website);
renews at $0.59/per month
(12 month term / $7.08 per year)		 Pro Email (3 mos free; $35/yr)
or Google Workspace $80 1st yr;
$84 additional yr  Email requires
a domain name that’s registered
or connected to WordPress.com		 Google Workspace w/ custom domain email: $7/mo per user = $84/yr
Domain Privacy & Protection When registering a
Domain:
$11.88 first year;
$15 afterwards		 $12/yr
(I believe)		 Yes
(No extra cost for
supported domain
extensions)		 Yes
(All domains registered
at WordPress.com)		 Yes
(Most domains registered
with SquareSpace)
Daily backups          
Malware Scanning and Removal   Site Scanner additional
cost – Basic (scans & more):
$2.50 promo, then $5/mo
at 12 month term.Premium
(scans, quarantine,
cleanups): $5 promo, then
$10/mo at 12 month
term.Wordfence plugin 
scans malware for free.)		      

Glossary of Web Hosting Terms

Below are some terms to help you understand web hosting plans.

A CDN will save your content in its memory and serve it up to users via a geographically closer server and speeds up your page load time. Nice to have with a web host, but this can be achieved for free with other plugins like Jetpack.

Website caching is a temporary storage location that will help speed up your web pages load time. Sometimes when you make changes to your website, you may need to clear your cache to view the changes on your website.

It stands for distributed denial-of-service. It’s an attack on a web server. Web hosts provide protection for this.

A domain is the user friendly way to get to a website instead of using numbers in an IP address. The domain name for my website is LearnWPFast.com You have to pay an annual fee in order to continue to use your domain name. Many web hosts offer one free year of domain hosting if you sign up for their web hosting.

Note: You can have your domain registered with one company and have your web hosting with another company. You just need to update your DNS (domain name servers) to point to your web hosting and the web hosting needs to have settings to receive your domain.

Keep your personal details out of the WHOIS database. This will keep some spam out of your email address and your physical mailing address. Some domain registrars include this for free. Others charge about $12 per year.

Large language models are artificial intelligence (AI) agents like OpenAI, Claude, ChatGPT. Most web hosts allow you to incorporate them into your website creation process.

Removes Malware (malicious software) from your website.

Unfortunately there are some people in the world that want to harm your website and its users. Malware, or malicious software, can be placed on a website that is not secure. There is software available that will scan your website for Malware and alert you to it. Other software can remove it for you.

The WordPress core software needs to be kept up to date. Web hosting can manage this for you. They usually send you an email telling you that your website is going to be updated to the latest version of WordPress. You’ll want to check your website after it updates to make sure that nothing gets broken. If you have up-to-date themes and plugins, you generally should be fine.

There are best practices that you can use to help you rank well in search engines like Google. Yoast SEO is a popular free WordPress plugin that helps you add the text that you see in search engine results page. Some web hosts guide you in other ways with on-page SEO scoring as you write. I wouldn’t worry about this part. You want to write naturally on your topic for a person. I wouldn’t recommend trying to just satisfy an SEO score while writing.)

Adds the “s” in https. Encrypts internet traffic. It’s easiest if your web host offers this for free. Otherwise it can be expensive and difficult to implement. Most do include it.

If you have a live site and you want to redesign it or make a lot of changes to it without anyone seeing, you could duplicate your live site to a staging area (i.e. a development area), make all your change there, then push the staging area to the live site so that everything goes live at once. Very nice to have if you want to do this, but not necessary for everyone.

When people visit your website, they will be downloading web pages including any images or media that you display on that page. Each of these files have a file size to them. Depending on how much you optimize your file sizes, like images, an image might be 80K (if you optimized it – resized it to something like 800 x 600 pixels) or that same image could be 1MB or more if you uploaded the original file from your camera. This affects how much bandwidth your visitors are using, or how much data is being transferred between your website and your visitors. You’ll either see unlimited bandwidth or a number in gigabits (GB). Normally 10GB would be plenty for your new website.

Tells you how many people visited your website. Web hosts may have this option for you. Google Analytics is another option for seeing how many people visited your website. Oftentimes there are discrepancies in how many visitors each of these logs. The Google Analytics code is generally added to the bottom of your page. If a person, or bot, doesn’t let the entire page load, GA will not track that as a visit.

A security measure to mitigate website attacks. Learn more via CloudFlare, if you wish.

Ideally your web hosting would come with free daily backups with an option for a one-click restore to previous daily backup. You can create backups for free with the UpdraftPlus plugin, but it doesn’t have a one-click restore. It’s a bit more complicated of a process.

Easy way to migrate your WordPress site from one web host to another without the messy copying of all of your WordPress PHP files on the File Manager and exporting / importing the mysql database content from one web server to another.

Thanks for visiting!

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Meet the author: Lisa Kuhn

Hi, I’m Lisa Kuhn, a web designer with over 15 years of freelancing experience. I’ve helped roughly 150 clients create a web presence, maintain their website, fix what was broken on their site, and teach them how to update their website themselves.

Now I look forward to helping you create your own home on the internet with my streamlined, no nonsense e-courses through my venture LearnWPFast.com.

Lisa Kuhn

Lisa Kuhn
Web Designer & Educator

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