Bluehostis a web hosting company founded by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Provo, Utah. They have a staff of 750 people working around the clock. Being a recommended web hos by Wordpress.org, they feature 1-Click installations in all their plans.
Bluehost ranks highly in our research for value for money, with a score of 4.6/5. The best part? All Bluehost plans come with a 30-day money back guarantee.
Shared hosting is Bluehost’s cheapest plan, at $2.95/month for the first year and $7.99/month after that. Dedicated hosting is the most expensive plan, starting at $79.99/month.
Bluehost Starting Prices:
Shared hosting: $2.95 per month, renews at $7.99 per month
Shared WordPress hosting: $2.95 per month, renews at $7.99 per month
WooCommerce hosting: $6.95 per month, renews at $13.99 per month
VPS hosting: $18.99 per month, renews at $29.99 per month
Managed WordPress hosting: $19.95 per month, renews at $29.99 per month
Dedicated hosting: $79.99 per month, renews at $119.99 per month
Which Plan Is the Best Value for Money?
If you’re new to web hosting or your site isn’t massive, then we recommend starting with Bluehost’s Shared or Shared WordPress plans.
They’re the cheapest, and still offer a decent variety of features. When your site outgrows these shared plans, you can always upgrade to the pricier but better-equipped options.
Bluehost Additional Costs
Unfortunately, most hosting providers will fill your virtual basket with add-on items during checkout. These odds and ends will hike up the price of your plan, but you can always uncheck them before making your purchase.
However, some of these additional items will be worth the money, depending on the type of website you’re looking to get off the ground.
Canceling Your Bluehost Plan
Bluehost’s 30-day money back guarantee means that you get some time to test out the platform and see if it’s for you. But it’s important to make this decision within the first 30 days, because afterwards, Bluehost doesn’t offer any refunds or cancellations.
PLAN FEATURES: What You Can Expect
#1 IT’S Dirt Cheap
Let’s just get this out of the way right now… Bluehost is cheap. Like dirt-freaking-cheap. With plans starting as low as $2.95/month, Bluehost allows you to host small websites (that get fewer than 20,000 visitors/month) for – quite literally – the same price as a Venti Iced Coffee from Starbucks.
#2 Plenty of Plans to Choose From
No matter what you or your business need, Bluehost has got you covered. You can choose from shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud servers, and WordPress hosting to meet whatever demands you have to face.
Whether you want to grow the next 8-figure eCommerce store with thousands of products, share your thoughts on gender politics and Jordan Peterson, or run a giant corporate website that generates millions of views a month, Bluehost has at least one plan that will get you exactly what you need.
#3 Unlimited BANDWIDTH & 100 EMAIL Accounts
Yup. Unlimited bandwidth. No more worrying about your website crashing in the wake of that viral article your recently published. You’ll be good to go for pretty much forever.
With regards to email, Bluehost’s starter plans include a whopping 100 accounts (which should suffice for everyone save large corporations) and you can upgrade to an unlimited number of accounts with the Plus or Business Pro plan.
In contrast, most other cheap hosts offer somewhere in the range of zero to three free email accounts.
#4 Great Uptime and Load Speeds
Although Bluehost isn’t necessarily the fastest or most reliable hosting service on the market (though, it depends on who you ask), it’s right up there with the top dogs.
And for the price you pay, you’ll be hard pressed to find any hosting service that can beat these numbers.
#5 Bluehost’s Marketing “Bonuses”
Look, 99.99% of the “Free Bonuses” that you get with anything that you purchase on the internet is all but guaranteed to be a marketing gimmick designed to push you over the edge so that you’ll buy the main product.
But, I’ve gotta say, the $200 in free ad credits (for Google, Bing, and Twitter) offered by Bluehost is nothing to scoff at. If you’re a savvy marketer, this is enough of a starting budget to make a quick profit and reinvest it back into growing your audience.
#6 Great cPanel
According to our team of experienced web hosting know-it-alls, precisely 99.87% of the cPanels implemented by your average hosting company are exactly the same.
But Bluehost has made a few nifty little tweaks and upgrades to make their version even simpler for the website newbie to use.
And that’s the real selling point of Bluehost. They allow complete novices to quickly and effectively build real websites (that can generate real profits) for pennies on the dollar.
Time To Breakdown Bluehost’s Pricing and Plans
Before I continue with this review, it’s important that you understand which hosting service is right for you.
You don’t want to spend money on services you won’t use, but you also don’t want to go through the hassle of migrating and upgrading your service if you find out there’s a critical feature (or 10) that your current level of hosting doesn’t offer.
SHARED HOSTING (Probably Right for You)
Think of shared hosting like renting out a sweet new pad with a few friends. Except, in this case, you’re renting out server space alongside dozens (maybe even hundreds) of strangers on the internet.
But don’t let this scare you… In the same way that you likely rented out an apartment with a roommate to help save money, shared hosting allows Bluehost to keep the cost of your hosting incredibly low.
This style of resource sharing is perfect for individuals who are just getting started out in the world of website ownership and is the ideal place to start if you’re looking to launch a small business, blog, or eCommerce store.
The downside of this hosting plan is that a traffic spike from ANY of the hosted websites can make it difficult to access the other sites on the server.
Just like you’d have a hard time elbowing your way through the kitchen if your roommate invited over 50 of his best friends, you’ll have a hard time accessing your site if any of the other sites on your server experience unexpected jumps in their site traffic.
Bluehost offers these three different plans under the shared hosting umbrella:
Starter: $7.99/month
Plus: $10.49/month (Starter + unlimited space and bandwidth)
Business Pro: $23.99/month (Starter + unlimited space and bandwidth + advanced security features)
We tested all three tiers before writing this review, and they all perform about on par with each other. If you don’t expect your website to be placed under any sort of serious strain in the near future, this is definitely the hosting package for you.
VPS HOSTING
If shared hosting is like renting a place with a few friends, quality VPS hosting is like upgrading to your own apartment.
This style of web hosting, although still located on the same physical server, partitions the server space between customers to ensure that you no longer have to worry about your pesky “roommates” stealing all of your glorious bandwidth.
The prices for this service vary from $30-$120/month depending on the amount of processing speed and storage you need.
If your website is starting to grow and you’re writing the occasional viral article (or song), then this will be the service that is right for you.
DEDICATED HOSTING
If you’ve successfully graduated from the Little Leagues and are now playing in the frigging MLB, then dedicated hosting is what you’ll need.
Using a dedicated host is like buying your own house. You will have your own physically separate server that will be used by you and only you. This is only necessary if you have an extremely high amount of traffic each month (like 100,000+ visitors) or a myriad of features and advanced website wizardry that goes beyond what a VPS service can handle.
Starting at $149.99/month Bluehost’s dedicating hosting is definitely the priciest option on the table… But it’s still cheaper than buying a dedicated hosting service through their competitors.
WORDPRESS HOSTING
Alas, Bluehost’s reign as the most affordable high quality hosting service has come to an end…
While all of the aforementioned services on the list are, by far, the best bang for your buck, Bluehost has seriously dropped the ball with regards to their WordPress hosting.
At an egregious $25/month, Bluehost is more than 2x as expensive as their closest competitor, SiteGround (who only charges $10/month for comparable WordPress hosting).
If you only want WordPress hosting, then you’ll definitely want to pick a provider other than Bluehost.
Final Thoughts
All in all, Bluehost is the perfect web hosting service for anyone starting their first website or blog.
They’re a great “starter” company for those of you without the budget to invest with a more expensive service like SiteGround and they offer great value for the price you’re paying.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a morebeginner friendly, reliable, and effective web host on the market for the price they charge and Bluehost has definitely won our seal of approval.
Watch this video for more details about pricing plans and on going deals.
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