Want to jump straight to the answer? The best shared hosting company for most people is Hostinger or DreamHost.
Shared web hosting is the perfect solution for new websites. As an entry-level service, it’s also ideal for simple websites or anyone with a tight budget.
The best hosts don’t feel like they’re shared. That means uptime, speed, and support are so good you won’t even notice you’re sharing a server with other sites.
Compare the Top 9 Best Shared Hosting Companies
- Hostinger — Best web hosting for tight budgets
- DreamHost — Best shared hosting that leaves room to grow
- Bluehost — Best for creating your first website
- A2 Hosting — Best shared host for sites with a need for speed
- InMotion — Best for 24/7/365 support
- HostGator — Best for building your first ecommerce store
- SiteGround — Best shared host for when your audience gets big
- iPage — Most affordable shared hosting for a customizable online store
- GoDaddy — Best shared hosting for bundling domain and email
![How to choose the best shared hosting plans. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing shared hosting plans.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Best-Shared-Hosting-Plans-Methodology-1-1024x683-1.png)
Good shared hosting is about more than just getting a good deal. You want to make sure you have room to grow and the tools you need to build your site.
Read on for in-depth reviews of the best shared web hosts on the market today. I’ll tell you in plain language what you need to know about each one.
After the reviews, I also include a framework to help you assess which one is best for your needs. Whether you’re launching a new site from scratch or looking to change hosting providers, there’s a solution for you here.
And if you’re not sure exactly what shared hosting is, I’ve included a brief explanation, too.
Hostinger – Best Web Hosting for Tight Budgets
- Starts at $1.99/month
- Month-to-month pricing
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Hostinger offers one of the most affordable hosting services I’ve seen.
In fact, its plans start at $1.99 per month for its Single Shared Hosting plan. Its most expensive plan is the Business Shared Hosting Plan that’s just $3.99 per month.
Yes, you read that right. That’s rock-bottom pricing.
The catch? These are promotional rates. When you renew, the price jumps up—but it’s still just $3.99 each month for the single shared hosting.
![Image of Hostinger pricing comparison table.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/hostinger-premium-web-hosting-package.png)
To lock in the lowest price, you have to sign up for 48 months, which stretches out your discount as long as possible. And when you renew, it’s still going to cost less than most other shared hosting providers.
Alongside that unbeatable pricing, Hostinger promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee and their site speed is more than serviceable.
Here’s a peek at Hostinger’s plans, with pricing for a four-year upfront commitment:
Single Shared Hosting – $1.99 per month
- 1 website
- 30 GB SSD storage
- ~10,000 monthly visits
- 1 email account
- 2 Databases
- 100 GB bandwidth
Premium Shared Hosting – $2.99 per month
- 100 websites
- 100 GB SSD Storage
- ~25,000 monthly visits
- Unlimited databases
- Free domain
- Free email
- Google Ads credit
- Unlimited bandwidth
Business Shared Hosting – $4.99 per month
- 100 websites
- 200 GB SSD storage
- ~1,000,000 monthly visits
- Unlimited databases
- Free domain
- Free email
- Google Ads credit
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Daily backups
All plans come with managed WordPress, which is an excellent inclusion if you want to use WordPress as your CMS. That means even with these low, low prices, you get one-click WordPress installation, the WP Starter site building wizard, auto-updates, and a lot more.
If you’re looking for a decent shared web host on a tight budget, Hostinger is a fantastic option.
DreamHost – Best Shared Hosting That Leaves Room to Grow
- Normally $2.95/month
- Month-to-month pricing at $4.95
- Recommended by WordPress
- 4.6/5 rating from Trustpilot
DreamHost offers cost-effective shared hosting without sacrificing performance.
There are actually three big reasons why DreamHost stands out to us:
- Reasonable monthly rates. You can get a good price for shared hosting without signing a contract. With a monthly rate that starts at $4.95 per month, DreamHost is much less expensive than other providers that only give you a good deal with a long-term commitment.
- Unlimited traffic. The platform gives you the option to take on more traffic without charging you more for bandwidth. That means if you have an article go viral and a ton of traffic floods into your site, you won’t get punished for it on your next bill. That can be great if you’re planning to be the next Tim Ferriss or James Altucher.
- Plenty of plans. They offer a ton of different plans beyond their shared hosting. That means if you ever get to a point where you’re ready to upgrade, it offers VPS hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, managed WordPress, and more. It just depends on what you want.
![Dreamhost home page.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/dreamhost-2-1024x394-1.png)
DreamHost’s interface is user-friendly and its plans are quite affordable, coming in two flavors:
Shared Starter – Starting at $2.95 per month (annual contract)
- Hosting for 1 website
- 5 subdomains
- Email starting at $1.67 per month
- 50 GB of site storage
Shared Unlimited – Starting at $3.95 per month (annual contract)
- Hosting for unlimited websites
- Unlimited subdomains
- Email included
- Unlimited site storage
The Shared Starter plan is the best option for brand-new websites. You get plenty of site storage and five subdomains. The biggest downside is that email accounts from your domain aren’t included, but you can add that option in checkout.
Personally, I recommend the Shared Unlimited plan. It comes with added benefits I like, such as email accounts bound to your domain, unlimited subdomains, and unlimited SSD storage.
Both plans come with WordPress pre-installed, a WP site builder, and a free SSL certificate.
DreamHost guarantees a 100% uptime rate. If it fails to meet that promise, you’ll receive compensation for every hour of downtime, which is up to 10% of your next pre-paid renewal fee.
It also offers a 97-day money-back guarantee. In my experience, 30 days seems to be the industry standard, so DreamHost really stands behind its product by tripling that period.
For those of you who already have a WordPress site, the DreamHost experts will migrate the site to your new account for a $99 fee. If you fall into this category, I strongly recommend taking advantage of this service.
No matter what, go with DreamHost if you’ve got lofty goals for your site’s future.
Bluehost – Best for Creating Your First Website
- Starts at $2.95/month
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- Recommended by WordPress
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Bluehost is a favorite of ours at Quick Sprout, ranking high on our lists for best web host, best VPS host, and best dedicated host.
While there are many reasons we like it, the reason we most often recommend it is that it’s the perfect option for beginners. With one-click WordPress installation, an intuitive dashboard, and award-winning 24/7 customer support, Bluehost will hold your hand through the entire setup process.
That means zero development or web design knowledge is needed. Just sign up and go. You’ll have a website up in less than 20 minutes. That’s why we highly recommend them if you’re creating your very first website. And if you need more help, be sure to check out our article all on how to create a website.
![Bluehost get started page with man wearing an apron and putting toppings on a hamburger.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/bluehost-new-website-building.png)
Bluehost offers four different plans:
Basic – Starts at $2.95 per month
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 10 GB of SSD storage
- 1 domain included
- 25 subdomains
Choice Plus – Starts at $5.45 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 40 GB SSD storage
- Unlimited domains
- Spam experts
- Free Yoast SEO
Online Store – Starts at $9.95 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 100 GB SSD storage
- Unlimited domains
- Store analytics
- Domain privacy
- Ecommerce plugins
Pro – Starts at $13.95 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 100 GB SSD storage
- Unlimited domains
- 2 spam experts
- Domain privacy
- Site backup
- Dedicated IP
My pick for most folks is the Choice Plus plan. It’s a little bit more than the Basic plan, but the increased SSD storage and unlimited websites is more than worth it.
If you’re running an ecommerce business, then definitely go with the Online Store option. You get $450 worth of plugins included in the monthly price. This means you can hit the ground running and start selling right away.
Bluehost is also highly scalable. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to switch plans easily.
So, if your site is brand new and you’re not planning to prioritize traffic for a couple of years, then you can definitely get away with the Basic plan for the time being.
Bluehost’s pricing plans are straightforward, but they will charge you for add-ons.
To get the best possible rate, you need to lock in your plan for 12 months. But, like all other hosting providers, you’ll see a jump at renewal time. So, if you know you’re in it for the long haul with Bluehost, you may want to opt for a 36-month commitment instead. Yes, you’ll pay a bit more per month that way, but you’ll avoid the renewal price increase for three years rather than one.
Try Bluehost on for size today with its 30-day money-back guarantee.
A2 Hosting – Best Shared Host for Sites With a Need for Speed
- Normally $7.99/month
- Month-to-month pricing at $9.99
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- 30-day money-back guarantee
A2 Hosting is one of the fastest shared hosting services available on the market today.
That’s all due to its powerful servers that offer the best loading speeds and uptime rates. If you’re looking to deliver content swiftly to your audience, this is the hosting plan for you.
![A2 Hosting home and offer page.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/a2-hosting-splash-page-1024x426-1.png)
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of their four shared hosting plans:
Startup – $2.99 per month
- 1 website
- 100 GB SSD storage
- Free site migration
Drive – $5.99 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited SSD Storage
- Free site migration
- Free automatic backups
Turbo Boost – $6.99 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited NVMe Storage
- Free site migration
- Free automatic backups
Turbo Max – $12.99 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited NVMe Storage
- Free site migration
- Free automatic backups
For those of you who have a need for speed, the Turbo plan will be best for you. It’s probably the fastest shared hosting plan offered by any provider on our list. A2 is already known for its speed, and Turbo is its top-of-the-line shared plan.
While it ends up being $20.99 per month when you renew, it’s still cheaper than some of the other high-end plans we’ve looked at. Overall, A2 Hosting is priced in the middle range compared to the competition.
You can also check out my full A2 Hosting review for more on their other features and plans.
Furthermore, A2 Hosting offers free site migrations on all shared plans. Other providers charge an added fee for this service.
![Background of computer parts with text about free migration.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/a2-web-hosting-free-site-migrations.png)
It also has excellent customer support and a money-back guarantee, which are helpful bonuses.
Tap into A2 Hosting’s turbo-charged shared servers today to feel the thrill of speedy loading times.
InMotion – Best Shared Hosting for 24/7/365 Customer Support
- Normally $7.99/month
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- Free and unlimited email
- 90-day money-back guarantee
InMotion Hosting is a fantastic option for anyone who loves—or knows they’ll rely heavily on—quality customer support.
Seriously. Take a look at any reviews for this company. Nine times out of ten they’re going to mention the support—and for good reason.
InMotion boasts an incredibly responsive customer support team that’s available at all hours of the day. You can reach them via chat, phone, email, or through your customer portal.
These reps can help you in case your site experiences any issues like cyberattacks or if it crashes. They’ll even help you migrate your site if you need it.
InMotion also has a fantastic knowledge base in case you want to take care of things yourself. You’ll be able to learn about anything from transferring a current domain to setting up Mac Mail, Outlook, or email on your phone.
InMotion has four shared hosting plans for you to choose from, and the company recently adjusted the services included within each plan.
Core – $2.99 per month (all prices require committing to a 2-year plan)
- 2 websites
- 100 GB SSD storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 10 email addresses
- Free SSL
Launch – $5.99 per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited email addresses
- Free domain and SSL
Power – $5.99 per month (yes, the same as Launch due to a specific discount offer)
- Same as the Launch plan, plus advanced caching, double the UltraStack speed and performance, and availability of Google Workspace.
Pro – $13.99 per month
- Everything in the Launch plan, plus more than three times the UltraStack speed and performance, a dedicated IP, availability of Google Workspace, and pro support SLA.
Unlike other plans we’ve seen, InMotion’s entry-level plan offers hosting for more than one website, unlimited disk space, and unlimited email. This is a great value for the price.
The Launch plan is the best option for beginners. Power is made for small business websites, and the Pro plan is made for developers and growing businesses.
Like we said before, though, compared to some of the other providers on our list, InMotion really stands out when it comes to their customer support. This is definitely something to keep in mind as a new website owner.
For those of you who decide to go with the Pro plan, you’ll get a 99.9% uptime guarantee. If InMotion fails to deliver on that promise, you’ll get credits toward free hosting.
Speaking of credits, InMotion’s Launch Plan—and all the other plans higher than it—come with $150 in free advertising credits, which can be very useful for a new website. It’s a great way to gain some exposure through popular search engines
Go into your web hosting knowing that you have a helping hand all the way by choosing InMotion.
HostGator – Best Shared Hosting for Building Your First Ecommerce Store
- Normally $6.95/month
- Month-to-month at $10.95
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- 45-day money-back guarantee
If you’re looking to create a website that features an online store, then look no further than HostGator. This shared hosting plan gives you all you need to create an online store quickly and easily and start selling products ASAP. HostGator’s ecommerce site builder is simple and user-friendly, and becomes even more friendly when you learn about the included $150 Google Ads credit that will help you get your marketing off the ground.
If you’re looking for more customization, HostGator provides you with cPanel access, which isn’t something that you’ll get with some other shared hosting providers. With this cPanel access, you have the power to customize your online store to be exactly what you want by installing a variety of different plugins and tweaking settings until they’re just right.
![HostGator home page.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/hostgator-shared-splash-1024x387-1.png)
HostGator’s plans are as follows:
Hatchling Plan – $2.75 per month
- Single domain
- One click WordPress installs
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
- Chat support
- Free email address
Baby Plan – $3.50 per month
- Up to 5 websites
- WordPress installs
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
- Phone and chat support
- $500 Google ad spend match
- $100 Microsoft ad credit
Ecommerce Plan – $5.25 per month
- Free upgrade to positive SSL
- Free dedicated IP
- Free SEO tools
- Unlimited domains
- WordPress installs
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
- $500 Google ad spend match
- $100 Microsoft ad credit
- Free email address
Note: HostGator often offers flash sales—so the price might actually be even lower when you visit their page than what we have here.
![Cartoon alligator holding computer with summary of different hosting plans explained below.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/hostgator-hosting-plans.png)
Both the Hatchling and Ecommerce plans include some great marketing benefits, including credits for Google and Microsoft ads. And if you go with the Ecommerce plan, you also get professional migration service included.
I love the value this company offers. The new customer rates are definitely on the lower end of the spectrum, and the renewal rates aren’t too expensive either. Plus, you can lock in the introductory rate for three years.
If you’re considering HostGator, I’d recommend the Ecommerce Plan. Yes, even for beginners.
It’s not often that I pick the top-tier pricing as the go-to plan for everyone. But, with HostGator, I think that the value for that plan is the best. The add-ons that come with the Ecommerce Plan are worth the higher pricing. Ultimately, it’s still less than $17 per month, even after you renew.
In addition to 24/7 server monitoring and 24/7 live chat and phone support, HostGator also has more than 500 video tutorials and nearly 700 help articles if you want to learn how to do things on your own. It also offers pretty solid cloud hosting.
Get your web store started on the right foot by choosing HostGator for your hosting.
SiteGround – Best Host for When Your Audience Grows Big
- Starts at $1.99/month
- Free SSL, email, CDN, & backups
- Recommended by WordPress
- 30-day money-back guarantee
SiteGround is a great choice for growing websites because each plan gives you different options depending on your monthly visitor load.
It also offers unmetered traffic with every single plan. That means you don’t have to worry about how big your audience gets or how many people you have coming to your website. You can get a spike in traffic and not see your resources throttled or your price jump at your next bill.
![SiteGround hosting options](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/qs-siteground-hosting-plans-2.png)
Beyond that, SiteGround makes it easy to scale up to a bigger, better plan if your site’s newly massive audience becomes the new normal.
Here’s a brief overview of SiteGround’s three shared hosting plans:
StartUp – $1.99 per month
- 1 website
- 10 GB of web space
- ~10,000 monthly visitors
- Unmetered traffic
- Free SSL
- Daily backup
- Free CDN
- Free email
- Managed WordPress
- Unlimited Databases
GrowBig – $3.99 per month
- Unlimited websites
- 20 GB of web space
- ~100,000 monthly visitors
- Unmetered traffic
- Free SSL
- Daily backup
- Free CDN
- Free email
- Managed WordPress
- Unlimited Databases
- On-demand backup copies
GoGeek – $5.99 per month
- Unlimited websites
- 40 GB of web space
- ~400,000 monthly visitors
- Unmetered traffic
- Free SSL
- Daily backup
- Free CDN
- Free email
- Managed WordPress
- Unlimited Databases
- On-demand backup copies
- Priority support
If your website is brand new, you probably won’t be getting 10,000 monthly visitors for quite some time. But with that said, I’d still recommend the GrowBig plan over the StartUp option.
The GrowBig plan comes with on-demand backups and a free site transfer. That’s an important feature for those of you who are switching to SiteGround from another hosting provider.
The StartUp plan is for small, simple websites that are not expecting tons of website site traffic. I’m sure the majority of you won’t fall into this category, but if your needs are super simple, it’s still a solid offering from SiteGround.
GoGeek comes with three levels of super-caching, advanced priority support, white-label and client management services, and pre-installed Git. All three plans come with a 100% renewable energy match, too!
There’s a plan for everyone in SiteGround’s shared hosting, and for a limited time, they’re offering free site migration with all plans. Get started today to be ready for when your site blows up in popularity.
iPage – Most Affordable Shared Hosting for a Customizable Online Store
- Normally $7.99/month
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- FREE drag and drop site builder
- 30-day money-back guarantee
iPage offers a very straightforward pricing plan with just one plan for shared web hosting.
For real, it’s dead simple: The plan costs $1.99 per month when you sign up and $7.99 per month when you renew. Overall, this definitely puts them in the running for the best cheap web hosting.
But iPage’s standout feature is a highly intuitive ecommerce store builder that comes with $200 worth of ad credits to use on Google or Bing. That’s more than even HostGator gives you.
![iPage home and offer page.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ipage-main-splash-1024x546-1.png)
It also offers a ton of unlimited features like disk space, bandwidth, and domains. It’s easily the best deal when it comes to creating an online store.
Even though the prices are low, iPage has great features like:
- Unlimited disk space
- Scalable bandwidth
- Unlimited domains
- Free SSL certificate
- Free domain for one year
- Free ecommerce integration
- 24/7 phone and live chat support
That’s a lot of “frees” and “unlimiteds” for such a low-cost plan.
Overall, iPage is best for smaller websites and stores. Think stores where you’re only selling 1-5 products.
Be aware, it does charge extras for things like site transfers, but that’s expected for a low-cost web host.
Get with iPage to host your ecommerce store on the cheap.
GoDaddy – Best Shared Hosting for Bundling Domain and Email
- Normally $8.99/month
- 24/7/365 U.S. based support
- Free domain and 1 year of email
- Guaranteed 99.9% uptime
GoDaddy is a popular and well-known brand in the hosting industry. It’s an excellent option if you’re looking to bundle a great email service and domain with your hosting. In fact, that’s why we included it in our best domain registrars, too.
Its email service is especially great if you already use Microsoft as your email provider. It’s worth noting that Microsoft 365 is only offered for free in the first year—though you can cancel your automatic renewal at any time.
![GoDaddy home page.](http://bulkcpa.com/post/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/godaddy-hosting-splash-new-1024x522-1.png)
GoDaddy offers four shared hosting plans. Each one is made for different types of websites.
Economy – $5.99 per month
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 25 GB storage
- 2 free Microsoft 365 email boxes in your first year
- Free domain with annual plan
Deluxe – $7.99 per month
- 10 websites
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 50 GB storage
- 3 free Microsoft 365 email boxes in your first year
- Free domain with annual plan
Ultimate – $12.99 per month
- 25 websites
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 75 GB storage
- 5 Microsoft 365 email boxes in your first year
- Free domain with annual plan
- 2x processing power and memory
- Free unlimited SSL certificates for all your websites
Maximum – $17.99 per month
- 50 websites
- 100 GB storage
- 100 databases
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 5 free Microsoft 365 mailboxes for first year
- Free domain
- Free, unlimited SSL for all your websites
As you can see, all of the GoDaddy plans are affordable. There’s something for everyone on this list, and it’s very straightforward.
If you’re starting a simple blog from scratch, you can get away with the Economy plan.
You always have the option to level up if you need more resources. GoDaddy will actually send you an alert if you’re getting close to exceeding things like your memory or CPU. That way you can stay on top of things. Read my full Godaddy hosting review here to get a deeper view into what makes them work.
For those of you who have a small business and expect heavy site traffic, you’ll be better off with the Ultimate plan. It’ll give your site the processing power you need to succeed.
Knock out hosting, a domain, and email service in one fell swoop by going with GoDaddy.
What Is Shared Web Hosting?
If you’re just starting out in the world of running a website, you might be wondering what shared hosting is and how it works. A web host carves out a spot for your website in the massive world of the internet. It’s what publishes your site, allowing other people to access it. So every website needs a host.
There are several types of hosting plans, but shared hosting plans have been around for a while and are often the most affordable web hosting choices. As the name suggests, a shared hosting plan means your website will be hosted on the same server as other websites.
Essentially, shared hosting is like renting a bedroom in a house with other roommates. You have your own room, but you’re sharing supplies and resources with everyone else who lives in the house. If one of your roommates has a bunch of friends over and they eat all of the food or use all of the soap, there won’t be anything left for you.
This is the major downside of shared hosting. If another site on the same server has tons of traffic, it can slow down the loading speed of your website. This is why shared hosting is so cost-effective compared to VPS hosting or dedicated hosting plans.
Shared hosting is an entry-level service offered by most web hosting providers.
How to Find the Best Shared Hosting for You
Pricing and promos aside, most web hosting providers offer similar shared hosting services. So how can you find the best plan and provider for your unique needs?
Use the following considerations as a buying guide as you’re shopping around and comparing providers. It’s the same criteria we used to create this guide, and you can use it for your own research to help influence your decision:
Reliable Uptime Rates and Fast Loading Speeds
Uptime and loading speed will always be the two most important factors for any type of hosting.
- Uptime: How often your website actually stays up and doesn’t go down for unplanned reasons.
- Loading Speed: How quickly your site loads its pages.
If your site goes down unexpectedly, you can’t make any money or reach your audience. It’s also a poor reflection of your brand if people try to reach your site but can’t connect due to an outage.
Many web hosting providers offer an uptime guarantee—something along the lines of a 99.999% uptime promise. But make sure you read the fine print to see if the provider is actually being held accountable to keep this promise. I’d much rather have high uptime rates than a small refund or credit for the site going down.
Loading speed is important because it has a direct impact on the user experience.
We’ve all been there. Think about how often you’ve gotten frustrated or left a site because it was taking just a little too long to load. Fractions of a second make a huge difference here.
Fortunately, all of the web hosting providers on our list have solid uptime rates. But some are definitely faster than others. If speed is your top priority, you can’t go wrong with A2 Hosting.
Set-It-and-Forget-It Web Hosting
If it’s your first time building a website, it’s easy to be intimidated and frustrated by the process.
That’s why you want to find a provider that makes web hosting a breeze for you. In fact, it should be something you don’t really have to think about at all once you set it up.
That’s why we love options like Bluehost so much. It’s incredibly easy for beginners to create a website, especially with features like one-click WordPress installation.
InMotion’s Launch plan is also another beginner-friendly hosting solution that we highly recommend. It’ll walk you through the entire setup process and, by the end of it, you’ll feel like a pro with your very own website.
If you do want to get more hands-on with your host a bit more, you’ll want to find a host that gives you an easy-to-use and easy-to-navigate platform. This is another area where Bluehost shines.
High-Traffic Hosting Capacity
In the ideal world, you’ll get a ton of traffic to your website right off the bat—but the reality is it likely will take you a while to get there.
When you do arrive, though, you’ll want to make sure that your web host can manage your heightened traffic load.
Luckily, all of the shared hosting providers on this list can manage a decent amount of traffic— but some of them do so better than others.
For example, web hosts like Bluehost and HostGator give you unmetered bandwidth. That means you won’t get penalized (in terms of a poor visitor experience or additional fees) when you have a flood of traffic coming to your site all at once.
As we mentioned before, though, shared hosting is a fairly entry-level hosting solution. If you see your website easily attracting at least 200,000 monthly visitors, you’ll want to upgrade to VPS, cloud hosting, or a dedicated server to handle this routine strain on resources.
This is also an area where you’ll want to take a look at the uptime assurances of each web host. Most of them will offer you uptime in the neighborhood of 99.99%.
Some, such as Hostinger, will refund you for any time your website goes down due to a spike in traffic. Though you want your website up as much as possible, it’s good to see a web host put some skin in the game in order to assure you that it’ll work to keep your site up and running—and compensate you generously if it can’t.
Customer Service at a Moment’s Notice
Customer support is something that is sneakily important when it comes to web hosting.
After all, you don’t ever want to need it. But, when you do, you’ll want it to be the most helpful and comprehensive support you can get—especially if your website is making money for you.
When researching your shared web hosts, take a look at what each host offers for customer support.
Some questions to consider:
- Can you reach their reps via phone? What are their hours of operation?
- Are they available 24/7/365?
- Can you call them even if you don’t live in the United States?
- Do they offer live chat, email, phone, and ticketing options?
Customer support isn’t just about calling someone up when something goes wrong, either. It can also come in the form of tutorials, guides, or user forums to help answer any questions you have.
It could also be the tools available to build and support your website. For example, iPage offers an easy-to-set-up ecommerce integration that works great if you’re creating an online store.
Plans for When You’re Ready to Upgrade Your Website
Shared hosting is often seen as the entry point for a lot of websites. It’s an easy way to get a site live even if you have no experience with building a site or using a web host.
If you have bigger goals for your website, like becoming a wildly popular destination, creating an ecommerce store, attaining boatloads of leads, or a combination of all these things, you’re going to eventually want to upgrade your host.
VPS hosting is a common step up from shared hosting, as it provides servers with more resources to work with.
If you eventually get to the point where you’re drawing in millions of readers each month, you might want to consider getting a dedicated host.
Virtually all of the hosts on this list offer an easy way to take the next step up from shared hosting.
For example, Bluehost offers both VPS and dedicated hosting for when you’re ready to really level up your website. DreamHost offers cloud hosting, as well as managed WordPress hosting.
Each one of these hosts has a dedicated customer support team that’ll help you easily upgrade your hosting service—and, often, you don’t have to worry about a lengthy and painful migration process because it’s still from the same company. Double win!
What Type of Website Do You Want to Build?
The right web host for you also largely depends on what you’ll actually be using the website for.
If you just want to build a single website for a portfolio or information about your business, each of the hosts on this list can easily handle that for you.
But if you want to, say, open an online store, we highly recommend you use a host such as iPage. They give you a free online store, PayPal integration, and tons of other ecommerce features.
GoDaddy also offers an online store builder along with hosting and domain plans. You’ll be able to easily create a great-looking store on their site with just a few clicks.
If you want to get into blogging, DreamHost and Bluehost are great solutions. They offer great WordPress integrations to help get your blog up and running and attract tons of new readers.
Consider what you want to do with your website and see what each host has to offer for your goals.
The Top Shared Hosting Plans in Summary
All shared web hosting services are not created equal. Some providers offer better plans than others. When comparing packages side-by-side, you should consider speed, power, performance, support, and scalability.
The best shared hosting plans typically offer great deals for new websites. Just make sure you choose a plan that can accommodate your traffic. You’ll likely need to upgrade your web hosting down the road, but you can put that off for a while if you choose the right starter plan today.