To find the best cheapest web hosting sites, we started from scratch, built brand new websites for each provider we reviewed below, spent weeks testing performance, contacting customer support, and comparing cost versus value. We found Hostinger is the best cheapest web hosting sites for most people. It’s beginner-friendly, reliable, has great customer support, and starts at only $3.49 per month for one year of shared hosting.
Best Cheapest Web Hosting Sites For Most
Want decent performance and tons of features with a shoestring budget? Get everything you need for your new website as well as solid site speeds and an easy onboarding process for the lowest rates available. There’s no better way to stretch your dollar than hosting your site with Hostinger.
You’re looking for the easiest way to start a website, right? Hostinger crushes the competition. It’s clear that when you start with Hostinger, you’re using a host that pays attention to value without charging a pocket-draining price. Here’s what we mean.
Despite its incredibly low pricing, it doesn’t sacrifice any essential features. Hostinger’s entry-level plan includes everything you need to start your first (or next) website. At $1.99/month, you get more features than you would with other, pricier hosting service providers. It’s our top pick for a reason—it offers the best combo of value, ease of use, and performance, hands down.
Best Cheapest Web Hosting Sites to Consider
- Hostinger – Best cheapest web hosting for most
- DreamHost – Cheapest month to month web hosting
- HostGator – The best for getting paid to promote your new site
- GreenGeeks – The fastest web hosting service
- Bluehost – Best and cheapest hosting wordpress
When It Makes Sense to Go With Cheapest Web Hosting Sites
Web hosting is the foundation for your online presence.
If you’re looking to build a new blog, website, or ecommerce store, you need a place for it to call home.
There are dozens upon dozens of hosting options out there. They range from dirt cheap to hundreds of dollars per month.
Thankfully, shared hosting tends to be on the cheap side and is the perfect place for new websites to start.
Keeping your costs low is key when you’re first venturing into web hosting website.
You can worry about fancier, more powerful options later, once your site starts getting traction and attracting a ton of visitors.
You need to get your feet wet without breaking the bank. Fortunately, you may be surprised at how well some of these cheap web hosting options perform, meaning you can keep saving without having to upgrade as soon as your site gets popular.
1. Hostinger
Best Cheapest Web Hosting Sites For Most
Forbes Take —
If you’re looking for cheap hosting server that’s reliable, fast, and easy to use, Hostinger is the way to go. Not only do you get a ton of value for every dollar spent, but it’s also a cheapest web hosts that doesn’t feel cheap. It offers the best ratio of affordability and performance on the market, making it our top pick.
On the entry-level plan, you get:
- One website
- One email address
- Free SSL certificate
- One-click WordPress installation
- 24/7 customer support
If you’re not comfortable paying for a year in advance, you can opt for a monthly plan instead.
Heads up, though, if you’re thinking about monthly billing—Hostinger charges a one-time setup fee of $4.99 on month-to-month plans. The monthly rate also jumps way up to $9.49. It could make sense to do that for short-term projects. But it’s much more affordable to pay for at least a year in advance.
Hostinger provides top benefits for a fraction of the price of most popular web hosts and they keep actual costs transparent. That clear predictability is great for you and your budget when you’re just getting started.
Renewal Rates – Another amazing quality about Hostinger is they offer the cheapest renewal pricing out of all the hosts we tested—you’ll pay just $5.99 per month after your first year (with 12 months due in advance).
That means your second year of hosting is just $71.88. That’s better than the upfront cost of some of the other providers on this list, making it an absolute steal.
Though it’s double the price of Hostinger promo rates, the low initial costs allow them to offer you the best price both in the short and long term.
If you’re looking for hosting that won’t put you out of business with astronomical renewal rates, Hostinger is the way to go. You can count on reliable and affordable pricing for the lifetime of your account.
Onboarding Process – When we set up our website on Hostinger, the checkout and onboarding process was beginner-friendly with step-by-step instructions throughout the entire process. You’re never left guessing what to do next—even if you’ve never built a site before.
It’s refreshingly simple in the traditionally over-complicated space of web hosting server. After you select your plan, review your choices, and finalize your services, you’re greeted with a welcome message.
Once you click “Start Now”, you’ll choose a theme and start a guided website setup process. There are several high-quality options to choose from—but don’t spend too much time here. You can always change your theme later.
Also keep in mind that functionality and overall layout matter more than colors, look, and feel.
Just like everything else with Hostinger, getting started is nice and easy so far.
After that, you’re taken to your personal hosting dashboard, where you can view your plugins, manage your email, and even add or remove additional domain names.
In just a few short minutes, you have WordPress installed, a theme set up, and basic configurations complete.
Hostinger makes sure you get a site that is complete and functional when you’re done. They hold your hand through the process, and it’s virtually impossible to not have a website when you’re done. It’s really as simple as following these three steps, making it not only easy but wicked fast to go from nothing to a ready-to-go website.
They lost a point because of the unexpected setup fee for monthly plans. But the overall onboarding process is pleasantly straightforward.
Now, you might be wondering, “What about site speed? Is Hostinger fast?”
Rather than relying on third-party data, we ran a one-month site speed test of our own. We set up a demo site with a fresh WordPress install and monitored server response time at one-minute intervals for 30 days
Over those 30 days, our site was pinged over 43,000 times to check the server’s response time.
Here’s what we found:
Customer Support – To get a first-hand look at customer support, we reached out to Hostinger’s support team on three different occasions.
We used their live chat and asked questions about how to improve security, how to set up an email address for the domain, and how to improve speed. Each time we sat around for 30 minutes before getting any response at all.
Sure, we received good responses—but most providers respond in about five minutes.
Hostinger still scores highest overall for cheapest web hosting sites, because they give you incredible pricing, website speed that keeps your visitors from bouncing from your page (as long as you’re not experiencing server downtime), and website setup that makes getting up and running easy.
Above all else, Hostinger starts cheaper in year one than any other cheapest shared hosting and stays the cheapest with the most affordable renewal rate.
2. Dreamhost
Cheapest Month To Month Web Hosting
Forbes Take —
Worried about making a long-term commitment? DreamHost has your back with the most cheapest month to month hosting payment options on the market. Paid plans start at $4.95 per month for one website with unlimited traffic and no contract. All plans come with a free SSL certificate and WordPress pre-installed.
DreamHost’s monthly, no-contract plans are the cheapest such options we found. You get the best pricing without the risk of a long-term subscription.
If you don’t want to commit to a year or more in advance, DreamHost is perfect for you.
Upfront Costs – If you want huge discounts with no commitment, no long-term contracts, and no other unexpected fees, Dreamhost is picture-perfect for you.
They offer two introductory plans.
The month-to-month plan starts at $4.95 for one month of hosting and $7.99/year for a domain, running you a total of $12.94 for the first month. Then, it’s just $4.95 for the next two months. The price goes up to $7.99 per month after that (more on this below).
The monthly plan has no contract and is the absolute cheapest risk-free way to get started with web hosting.
The second option is to pay for a full year at a total cost of $35.40—that’s only $2.95 per month. That includes a domain name and the ability to protect your private information online with free domain protection.
Both plans include:
- WordPress pre-installed, so you don’t have to worry about installing it
- Free WordPress migrations if you’re switching from a different host
- Free domain name privacy (most charge extra for this)
- A drag-and-drop WordPress website builder
- Live chat, ticket, and phone support
- A free SSL certificate
Renewal Rates – It’s commonplace for your web host’s renewal rate to be two or three times higher than the original promotional pricing. That’s because providers know how much of a hassle it is to switch from one to another, especially after you’ve had your site hosted on one for a significant period of time.
Hosting service providers bank on this and really raise their rates on renewal, knowing that most folks will stomach the higher prices to avoid having to change hosts.
When you renew on the monthly plan, Dreamhost makes it just as affordable as when you started. The month-to-month plan is $4.95/month for the first three months.
Then, once your fourth month begins, your price increases to $7.99/month—a 61.4% increase, but still the second-lowest increase for renewal pricing on this list. That keeps DreamHost as one of the affordable website host out there.
The upsells they include:
- DreamShield Protection for $3/month. This scans your site regularly to monitor its reputation and identify malicious code, out of date software, and more.
- DreamHost email for $1.67/month per mailbox.
Other than that, though, the checkout process was smooth.
After completing checkout, we got an email with four different logins
Here’s what you can expect:
- 1st email – Account approval notification. This includes usernames and passwords for your file transfer protocol (FTP) account.
- 2nd email – DreamHost secured file transfer protocol (SFTP) username and password (with no explanation why you need this)
- 3rd email – Successful WordPress installation on your site. The email has eight different hyperlinks, including a login link for your site, another for instructions on creating your website with wp site builder, a link for DreamHost Academy, and another for support.
If price is your primary focus, DreamHost is all you need. It is cheap and offers great value for the price you pay from month to month.
Customer Support – Our first interactions with DreamHost reps, We were immediately connected to a representative. They checked our website speed after greeting us and said it was okay.
They asked if we had any specific questions. We told them we were just getting started and we’re hoping for more general advice on how to optimize before getting started
They directed us to a support article that covers WordPress optimization and invited us to reach out again if we had any specific questions or experienced slow loading speeds going forward.
Server Uptime – DreamHost has a winning combination of 100% uptime and the cheapest month to month web hosting on the list. Many providers will claim 99.99% and fall short with the numbers. But DreamHost delivered far beyond expectations in our research.
This data clearly confirms that even on DreamHost’s best inexpensive web hosting, it’s never been easier to offer your visitors uninterrupted access to your website.
3. Hostgator
The Best for Getting Paid To Promote Your New Site
Forbes Take —
Not only does HostGator offer bargain pricing for shared web hosting with above-average site speed and uptime performance, but you also get $250 in Google and Microsoft ad credits to start driving traffic. At the end of the day, HostGator actually pays you to launch and market your new site!
HostGator has an incredible promotion for all newcomers building a site on their hosting platform. You receive free credits for Google Ads spending at $500 and Microsoft Advertising credits at $100.
And it doesn’t matter what plan you start with. You’re getting paid to advertise your own website.
HostGator is the third cheapest option for upfront costs, meaning you have the opportunity to receive incredible value at a relative bargain.
Upfront Cost – HostGator’s upfront cost can be a bit of an investment for some. The best part about this company? All their plans are upfront and transparent, meaning no extra charges on top of what you’ve already paid.
Your initial out-of-pocket expense is $2.75/month for 12 months, equaling $47.40 for the first year of hosting. This includes a free domain name. Domain protection is $14.95/year if you need it. We recommend always getting this benefit, as it protects your private information from spammers and hackers online.
That brings your first-year upfront price tag to $62.35.
But, when you factor in the free ad credits they are actually paying you $500.65—which is a steal.
You can start your brand-new website at a profit.
Even as a beginner, you can find new customers or visitors with minimal expense and test your hand at ads without risk.
When you select the Starter plan, you receive:
- Free one year of domain registration
- One-click WordPress installs
- Free HostGator website builder
- 45-day money-back guarantee
- Free email
- Free positive SSL upgrade
Renewal Rates – Current research shows HostGator renewal pricing is the cheapest on our list. So if you’re looking for low-risk high reward web hosting, HostGator torches the competition.
Your renewal consists of $8.95/month for 12 months, which comes to $107.40 for your second year.
So, even though most web hosts more than double the price per month on renewals, HostGator manages to still keep the price down and affordable, remaining one of the cheap website providers.
The company’s low pricing and generous money-back guarantee make them an excellent choice for anyone looking to find hosting service providers that don’t feel like they’re taking advantage of you.
Onboarding Process – The initial checkout process was littered with upsells that were pre-checked to make you feel like you definitely need to have them (which isn’t the case).
See the image below. There are five upsells in total. Two were pre-checked. You don’t need any of these, so uncheck them all.
As we went through the setup, we felt the UI was clean and modern with a straightforward checkout process.
We liked that directly after checking out, you automatically go into a setup wizard. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process—you don’t have to wonder what to do next.
There’s also a helpful WordPress tutorial that walks through the ins and outs of how to use the WordPress dashboard.
Website Speed – HostGator has invested in its own data centers and network infrastructure to ensure that your site loads quickly for visitors, no matter where they are located.
You can use Cloudflare for a CDN (content delivery network) on any Hostgator plan, which helps the data from your website to always be available to your visitors around the world.
HostGator also has its own global CDN which has been proven time and again as one of the fastest networks in the industry. It’s up to you which one you use. We did not test speeds on which one works best.
Customer Support – HostGator scored right in the middle of the group for customer support. We were connected with a rep immediately.
Support was super fast and helpful. We asked, ”Can you walk me through how to set up an email account for my domain?”
They offered step-by-step instructions on where to go and what to click—it was an excellent interaction.
Server Uptime – Hostgator really does offer 99.99% uptime as advertised.
Take a look below:
In HostGator, you get incredible availability and a reliable provider for your website at a fraction of the price of many other providers.
4. Greengeeks
Fastest Web Hosting Provider
Forbes Take —
Get blazing fast site speed (the fastest out of all of the hosts we tested), reliable uptime, and great customer support at an affordable monthly rate. Get the most bang for your buck and the fastest loading speeds while giving back to the environment today with GreenGeeks!
If you want raw speed at a low price, go with GreenGeeks.
When we did our 30-day test, we were floored by how GreenGeeks blew away the competition in many categories.
And the truth is, they don’t boast about site speed like other providers. That makes GreenGeeks even more enticing as a cheap web hosting yearly because they do so many other things well along with being blazing fast out of the gate.
Upfront Cost – GreenGeeks’ upfront pricing is right in the middle of the pack. So, it’s not the cheapest by any means.
To get started, you pay $2.95 per month for 12 months, which comes to $35.40 per year.
This includes a free domain name.
GreenGeeks falls in the middle of the pack for pricing. But, as we said, this gives you one of the fastest web hosts on the market.
With GreenGeeks, you can beat competitors for rankings on Google and provide a better website experience than most that use a standard cheap web hosting options.
The standard plan includes:
- A free domain name
- Unlimited email accounts
- Nightly backups
- A complimentary SSL certificate
- A free content delivery network (CDN)
- Zero-day vulnerability fixes
- One-click WordPress installation
- 24/7/365 live chat, phone, and ticket support
Renewal Rates – The rate for renewals is $10.95/month for 12 months, which totals $131.40 for your second year of hosting. This is a 121% increase in price after promo pricing goes away.
For renewal rates, it’s the fourth-most expensive option.
Most hosts only increase the total price by about 90 to 120% on renewal. Though some on this list are much higher. So keep that in mind.
Onboarding Process – The checkout UI feels dated, but it’s simple and straightforward.
After we got logged in, the initial process was pretty straightforward and beginner-friendly.
We also liked that you can choose which plugins you want pre-installed, rather than having to manually delete the ones you don’t want. GreenGeeks’ setup wizard definitely streamlined the process.
Website Speed – The average response time over 30 days was the fastest out of all seven hosting providers.
Take a look at the screenshot below:
This tells you it takes just under half a second for your website to respond to your visitor’s requests on average. This is twice as fast as some of the other hosts we tested.
And top tier performance for a cheap hosting for website. That’s because you’re sharing a server with who knows how many other websites. And usually means very slow responses and a more expensive plan to get this kind of speed.
But GreenGeeks gives you excellent speed even on their worst day they are faster than others on their best days.
This is fantastic because you don’t have to add any plugins to boost speed. That means you can easily provide excellent website experiences for your visitors with no additional effort.
Customer Support – This is another area where GreenGeeks singles itself out for praise.
We received above-average customer support from reps who provided more info than just sending us to a support article.
They walked us through everything and were very patient. They were also one of only two hosting providers that didn’t try to upsell us paid security features when we asked how to keep our site secure. So, that was really pleasant.
Server Uptime – Our uptime test for GreenGeeks revealed nearly 100% availability for websites hosted on their servers.
The longest duration of downtime was only 1 minute 38 seconds, which is exceptional.
GreenGeeks really shines in this category, adding more ingredients to their formula of success.
They’re not only the fastest web hosting provider on this list, but you also get uninterrupted availability that keeps your website’s reputation for stability unblemished. GreenGeeks more than justifies their upfront and renewal costs this way.
5. Bluehost
Best Cheap Web Hosting for WordPress
Forbes Take —
Bluehost is one of only three hosting providers recommended by WordPress. Every plan comes with 24/7 customer support, one-click WordPress installation, automatic WordPress updates, hands-off plugin updates, a custom-designed control panel, a free CDN, and a free domain for the first year.
Upfront Cost – Bluehost is the second least expensive option on our list, making it one of the cheapest options if you’re on a tight budget.
The upfront costs are $4.95/month for 12 months, which equals $65.40 for the year.
This includes a free domain name, saving you between $17.99 and $29.99 per year. Then there’s domain privacy protection to safeguard your personal data from the internet. You can include this for $11.88/year, bringing your one-year total to $71.28.
The starter plan includes:
- One website
- 50 GB of SSD storage space
- A free domain
- A free content delivery network (CDN)
- Free SSL certificate
Bluehost is one of the best beginner web hosting. They provide several helpful features, such as a website builder, one-click installs for plugins, and 24/7 support. All these benefits make Bluehost a solid choice when using WordPress for your site.
But, because it’s not the cheapest, it scores a three out of five on our pricing scale.
Renewal Rates – Bluehost’s renewal rates fall squarely in the middle of the pack.
When it’s time to renew, you’ll pay $9.99/month for 12 months, which equals $119.88 for your second year of hosting.
That’s a 102% increase from the original promotional pricing. Even with this increase, you’re still getting features and benefits you won’t find anywhere else for this price, such as automatic WordPress software updates.
Onboarding Process – Bluehost’s checkout process is simple enough and easy to follow.
From there, though, the process was straightforward and easy to follow.
You get a step-by-step walkthrough of what to do to get your site set up from start to finish. It was very beginner-friendly, with the option to skip the wizard if you’re more experienced.
Website Speed – Site speed is a huge determining factor in search engine ranking and visitor experience.
you get automatic WordPress installation and automatic core updates, so your site is always running the most optimized version of WordPress.
These automatic updates are a crucial piece of keeping your site secure—even if you’re not around to update it manually. Which allows you to squeeze every ounce of speed out of your website that you can.
Bluehost may still be a good choice for you, depending on your use case.
Customer Support – Our experience showed that Bluehost’s support was very fast and we were always immediately connected with a rep.
Bluehost claims 99.9% uptime and they do deliver on that. overall, you’re getting good reliability and average pricing and support from Bluehost.
What Should You Look For in Cheapest Web Hosting Sites?
It’s essential to not compromise on some aspects like security and page load speed while looking for a cheap hosting for website.
Essentially, you want to give a safe, secure, reliable, user-friendly experience to your customers.
Let’s talk about some essential features to look for in a cheapest shared hosting:
– Automatic Backups – Regular data backups of your website will help you restore the previous version without any hassle. This feature comes in handy in case of a data loss or any other technical glitch. Thus, make sure to find out how frequently your hosting service takes the backup and how long it can store it in their servers.
– Website Monitoring – Proactive website monitoring by the hosting service will help you avoid malware issues. It also allows you to preemptively fix security vulnerabilities before they become a headache for your business.
– Top-Notch Hardware – Today, hosting service providers use SSDs’ to deliver extra speed. Apart from that, make sure that they offer guaranteed resources if you want to scale up your website at any point in time.
– Content Delivery Network (CDN) – CDN reduces the latency and helps in ensuring faster page load. If you have a global target audience, then it’s a great idea to go with a service that offers CDN.
– Extensive Integrations – Your cheap web hosting service must support integration with leading platforms like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, and others. Plus, you might want to look for a 1-click installation to save time and resources.
– Easy-to-use cPanel – Make sure that you get a user-friendly and efficient cPanel for tasks like backup, server management, scaling up, and more.
Summary
Finding a cheapest web hosting sites that performs well enough for your needs can be hard. We hope our post takes some of the mystery and misery out of finding the best choice.
Our advice is always to sit down and take the time to list out your requirements. Then, make an educated decision based on your priorities and specific needs.
If you’re still stuck, Hostinger and DreamHost are our top web hosting services. They’re both safe bets that let you get started for next to nothing. But if they don’t check all your boxes, you can use this post as a guide while you go through the process of making your final decision.
What cheapest web hosting sites are you planning to use? Let me know in the comments below.
