Web hosting costs can vary significantly. Finding the right web host can seem frustrating, mind boggling and expensive! Why do some hosts charge five times as much as others? Do you need everything on offer, the CPUs, backend access, daily backups, firewalls, protection and more? How much storage does your site really require?
If you’re just about to launch your website, you’ll not yet have all the answers you need to choose a package that’s perfect for you. You can only estimate at the amount of traffic you’ll receive while growth may happen a lot faster than you thought possible.
Depending on the size of your site at launch, it’s usually best to start with a starter package and then work your way up as your business grows. How much should you pay for web hosting though? Ten pounds a month, twenty, thirty, two hundred?
Here’s a quick breakdown of the differences between the price gaps allowing you to make your own decisions on hosting that’s right for you and your budget.
Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Servers
Shared hosting can cost as little as 80p per month. This is where you share your hosting with another website, or three, all fitting onto the same server. You don’t have to find people to share hosting with, your provider will do that for you, and you’ll all receive the right amount of bandwidth for your website. It’s a great incentive for those who have yet to make a profit or those trying out new websites, landing pages or A/B testing. It’s also ideal for physical businesses that simply need an online website for information purposes but when you start taking payments (see our other blog here) or creating customer accounts you may need a dedicated server all to yourself.
Dedicated servers range from £60 per month to over £500. You rent the entire server and share with no one else. This gives you complete control over permissions, access and allows you to grow without running out of space. It’s the most secure form of web hosting and the most preferred for some but it’s also the most expensive.
What You Need to Know About Sign Up Initiatives
As a new customer to hosting providers you will undoubtedly be offered a sign-up deal of up to 80% off hosting for the first year. This can make hosting a lot more affordable, but that year does come around quickly. Try to make sure you factor in the increase in price once the year ends and check out the terms and conditions to see if you can swap providers at the end of this term. Some providers may charge an exit fee or a transfer fee, while that initial low price may be dependent on you being a customer for at least two years.
Monthly or Yearly Subscription?
Many of these starter discounts are dependent on you signing up for a year, so while the cost may be as little as £5 per month, you will be expected to pay £60 up front. There is usually a premium for paying month by month. It’s not a lot but it all adds up. It’s worth making sure you have at least two hundred pounds set aside for your first year’s hosting.
What Are the Different Types of Hosting?
We’ve already explored shared hosting and dedicated hosting but there are other types of hosting available dependant on what you need your hosting provider to do. These include:
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is usually the cheapest option due to sharing the server with other websites with a similar need. The cost is generally between £2 and £12 per month. The cheapest we’ve found is Hostinger’s monthly plan for shared hosting in this category. You can see our reviews of Hostinger here.
Bear in mind that shared hosting is only ideal for those with smaller websites that have very little traffic.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is a little like shared hosting except your site is not on one server shared by others, it’s spread across multiple servers shared by others. ON paper this does sound a little insane, but it works incredibly. It can be accessed through a virtual server and multiple servers means the performance is superior and the reliability is excellent.
Not all hosting providers offer cloud hosting but those that do charge between £9 and £50 per month. HostGator seems to be the cheapest at £7.99 per month.
WordPress Hosting
So many sites are built with WordPress that it makes sense for there to be a WordPress hosting service. WordPress manages everything so you don’t have to and makes sure you have all you need for your WordPress site. The prices are cheap with Hostinger promoting a WordPress server plan for just £1.49 per month
Virtual Private Server Hosting
This starts from £3 per month and can go up to £50. It’s easy to get this confused with dedicated hosting (see below) as some will market it as that. However, your website is stored on a virtual server along with many other websites. It does have its positives though. It has plenty of space for websites with higher traffic and also delivers more resources for you, allowing you to grow naturally.
At the moment, Bluehost is the cheapest for VPS hosting.
Dedicated Server Hosting
This form of hosting dedicates an entire server to your website, hence the name, meaning you have full control, the ability to grow and the capacity to start big. You’ll have all the space you need for media, video, customer accounts, interactive elements and much more, along with the speed to handle oodles of traffic.
You’d be expected to pay from £60 per month for dedicated server hosting and some plans go up to over £400 per month. You need to make sure your server is well looked after, secure and impenetrable, while it’s also a good idea to learn a little about the backend of hosting so you have some control.
Bluehost, again, is the more affordable option right now but HostGator offers a good introductory deal for £100 a month.
How Much Does Website Hosting Cost Summary
In summary the question of how much web hosting costs isn’t an easy one to answer. Every website has different needs and requirements, every business is unique. That’s why there are multiple options to suit your website at every stage of its journey. Bear in mind that you can upgrade if you need to, during contract, if you stick with the same provider. It’s usually best to start small with a reputable company that has great reviews from others.
Most hosts will tie you into a full year’s contract, with good reason. It takes effort to host a new website, time and a work and it would be fruitless to do this on a month-by-month basis. Regardless of tis they will let you pay by month but may have a better money saving deal if you pay for the full year in advance.
In answer to the question, website hosting can cost anywhere between £5 and £500 per month.
