A lot of people wonder if cheap web hosting services are any good and if you can really trust them with your website.
The short answer is Yes.
The web hosting industry has made huge improvements over the years, and the prices of quality hosting setups have dropped significantly.
Still, not all hosting companies are created equal, and you still have to be very careful about which specific company and which of their hosting plans you choose. This is where the following comparison comes into play.
We researched, bought, and tested over 40 different web hosting services to find the top cheapest hosting offerings out there. The final list features 10 great alternatives.
In this review, you’ll learn what “cheap” hosting really is, what you’ll have to pay on average, what to expect from cheap hosting, and what are the best cheap web hosting service providers in 2021.
What Is Considered “Cheap” Hosting? $0.99 to $4
Not many people realize this, but there are thousands of web hosting services out there. However, they don’t all offer the same product nor cater to the same type of customer.
With all this abundance, we have to draw the line somewhere and separate the cheap offerings from everything else.
During our research, we’ve concluded that the cheapest plans fall somewhere between $0.99 and $4 per month – these are often “shared hosting providers”. Out of around 40 hosting offers that matched these criteria, we’ve narrowed the list down to just 10 top companies that are cheap, yet still, give you all the features you might need.
Here’s what we’ve found:
Pricing Breakdown (Sort by Subscription Length)
Last updated in January 2021.
| Web Host | Monthly | 1 year | 2 years | 3 years | 4 years | 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger | $9.99 | $35.88 | $38.16 | $72.36 | $47.52 | $73.32 |
| Dreamhost | $4.95 | $47.40 | $106.80 | $93.24 | $152.64 | $155.40 |
| Domain.com | — | $45.00 | $90.00 | $135.00 | $194.00 | $254.76 |
| iPage | — | $35.88 | $59.76 | $71.64 | $167.52 | $263.40 |
| HostGator | $10.95 | $47.40 | $82.80 | $99.00 | $182.40 | $265.63 |
| InMotion | — | $59.88 | $95.76 | $89.64 | $179.52 | $269.40 |
| One.com | — | $29.88 | $86.76 | $146.64 | $209.52 | $269.40 |
| Bluehost | — | $59.40 | $94.80 | $99.00 | $194.88 | $290.76 |
| GoDaddy | $10.99 | $12.00 | $82.80 | $155.52 | $263.40 | $299.52 |
| InterServer | $5.00 | $54.00 | $102.00 | $144.00 | $228.00 | $312.00 |
- You will always get the lowest prices if you opt for a long-term, three- or even five-year-long contract. The differences can be big vs the prices you’d pay on a monthly renewable contract.
- Beware of the “entry-level” prices. In other words, these are the prices that a new customer pays when signing up. The length of that initial period is specified by the contract – monthly, yearly, or longer. However, once it is up, your plan will be renewed at a (usually) higher price.
- Top three cheapest providers were: Hostinger, Dreamhost and Bluehost.
1. Hostinger – Cheapest “Overall”
The main thing that Hostinger has going for it is the super-low $0.99/mo intro price.
The downside is that you have to commit to a four-year-long contract upfront – and pay for that entire period on day one as well.
One thing we have to give to Hostinger is that they’re very transparent when it comes to renewal prices. Right below the plan selection box, you’ll see the renewal prices for each of the contract lengths.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 4-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| $7.99/mo (renews: same) |
$35.88 (renews: $3.25/mo) |
$38.16 (renews: $2.85/mo) |
$47.52 (renews: $2.15/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- 1 email account
- SSL (https:)
This does not include:
- Domain name ($10.99/year)
- Daily backups ($11.40/year)
- CDN ($9.95/year)
Our Experience+ Performance Data
We have been monitoring Hostinger since September 2017 and they have continually improved their service through the years.
Hostinger’s latest user panel is an easy-to-grasp solution that highlights all of the most important sections, gets you to where you need to go, and does it quickly.
As you sign up, you also get access to a website builder and easy setup tools for WordPress. This means that you can launch your site in a matter of minutes.
Hostinger is somewhere in the middle on this list. The average load time is 457 ms, with the maximum and minimum values being close to each other. This gives you consistent performance for the last three months. The uptime would also be very good if it weren’t for their 14-hour outage in September. Without that outage, their average would be at 99.96%, which is a solid result.
Overall, Hostinger has a great offer for those who want to host a website long-term for the lowest price available.
2. DreamHost – Cheapest “Month-to-Month” Hosting
The cheapest plan at DreamHost starts at $2.59/mo and requires you to sign up for three years upfront. Overall, this rate fits nicely in the realm of cheap web hosting, but there are also some upgrades/upsells to be aware of.
Feature-wise, everything is there. The disk space is going to be enough for most websites, and the bandwidth is unmetered, so you don’t have to worry about it.
If you’re planning to use WordPress, DreamHost will also pre-install the software for you along with a handy site builder feature.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|
| $4.95/mo (renews: same) |
$47.40 (renews: $3.95/mo) |
$93.24 (renews: $2.59/mo) |
There’s a 97-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth and disk space
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $15.99/year)
- SSL (https:)
- Daily backups
This does not include:
- Email account ($19.99/year per mailbox)
- DreamShield Protection ($36.00/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
DreamHost gives you a nice clean dashboard through which you can perform standard server management tasks like configuring your site, managing files, setting up databases, creating user profiles, and so on. While everything is there, a beginner will still need a moment to figure out what to do first.
In the last three months, our test website on DreamHost has been loading in 1220 ms on average, which makes them also the slowest host on this list. DreamHost doesn’t exactly impress when it comes to uptime also, but it still fits into industry-standard. Their average is 99.93%, which translates into more than an hour of downtime.
Overall, DreamHost is a good option for users who just want to host a WordPress website cheaply and don’t care much for email hosting. DreamHost is an officially recommended host by the WordPress team.
3. Bluehost – Best Cheap “Feature-Rich” Hosting
Bluehost offers three main price points, depending on the contract length that you choose. The cheapest one at $2.75/mo is a good offer if you’re planning to keep your site up for at least three years.
Feature-wise, there’s everything that you might need to get started with one website. You get 50 GB of disk space, which is more than enough, and the bandwidth is unmetered, which means that as long as you’re not getting huge traffic spikes, your site will continue to work.
On top of that, you also get a free domain name for the first year.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not available | $59.40 (renews: $7.99/mo) |
$94.80 (renews: $7.99/mo) |
$99.00 (renews: $7.99/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 5 email accounts
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $12.99/year)
- SSL (https:)
This does not include:
- Domain Privacy ($11.88/year)
- CodeGuard Basic ($35.88/year)
- Bluehost SEO tools ($23.88/year)
- SiteLock security ($35.88/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
At the time of writing this review, Bluehost has one of the easiest to use dashboards of all web hosts. Everything is simple to find, and each site you own has a separate section with all the options shown neatly in the panel.
There’s no website builder in Bluehost per se, but the host has excellent onboarding for WordPress websites and a handful of integrated solutions that can be installed on your site out the gate.
Bluehost has the best loading time on this list. Their average speed is 238 ms, which is excellent compared to other offerings on the market. The metric where they also excel at is uptime, coming in with an average of >99.99%.
Overall, we have to give credit where credit’s due. They host more than two million websites, so they certainly have experience. They are one of the most popular providers on the market, and there’s a good reason why – Bluehost delivers all the features you might need and at an affordable price.
4. iPage – $1.99 per month
iPage has one of the cheapest offerings on the market if you’re willing to sign up for three years upfront, at which point the bill comes down to $1.99/month.
The standout feature in iPage’s offering is the fact that you can host unlimited websites on this cheap plan.
Apart from that, you also get unlimited emails, a free domain name for the first year, and both disk space and bandwidth are unmetered. This makes it a great plan for small niche websites.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not available | $35.88 (renews: $9.99/mo) |
$59.76 (renews: $8.99/mo) |
$71.64 (renews: $7.99/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- Unlimited websites
- Unmetered bandwidth & storage
- Unlimited email accounts
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $9.99/year)
- SSL certificate
This does not include:
- Upgrade to managed WordPress hosting ($36.00/year)
- SiteLock security ($23.88/year)
- Daily backups ($11.88/year)
- WordPress optimization bundle ($36.00/year)
- Domain privacy protection ($9.99/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
The user panel at iPage is not as easy to navigate as some of its competitors’. While you can perform basic tasks on your setup, the options seem limited.
That said, iPage lets you bypass the panel when they’re onboarding you for the first time. You get access to their website builder tool, which allows you to launch a site quickly.
iPage isn’t the most reliable cheap host on this list, but 99.92% average uptime isn’t also anything to complain about. iPage’s speed, however, isn’t great – currently at an average of 1030 ms.
Overall, iPage is an awesome option for users on a budget looking for the cheapest long-term contracts, and it’s an absolute win for anyone who wants to host unlimited sites (regardless of the contract length).
5. HostGator – $2.75 per month
HostGator remains to be one of the most popular web hosting firms, and their affordable prices have something to do with that. Their three-year plan sits at $2.75/mo, which is in the middle of the pack for cheap hosts.
HostGator is set on giving you all the tools required to launch a single website. With the disk space and bandwidth being unmetered, you don’t have to worry about going over the limit.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10.95 (renews: $10.95/mo) |
$47.40 (renews: $8.95/mo) |
$82.80 (renews: $7.95/mo) |
$99 (renews: $6.95/mo) |
There’s a 45-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth & storage
- 1 email account
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $17.99/year)
- SSL
This does not include:
- Domain privacy protection ($14.95/year)
- Premium SSL ($39.99/year)
- SiteLock security ($23.88/year)
- Professional email with Microsoft 365 ($72.00/year)
- Daily backups ($23.95/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
They give you access to two main panels on the back end. First, there’s the main profile where you can tweak your setup, add new email accounts, etc. Apart from that, you can enter cPanel for more advanced settings.
HostGator also invites you to use their website builder tool, which is meant for beginners and is quite approachable.
HostGator has shown some excellent results both in speed and uptime. Their average loading time is second fastest on this list, coming at 261 ms on average and uptime is even better – 100%. This means that during the past three months, HostGator managed to keep up our test site without any outages and downtime.
Overall, HostGator can be a good starting point for you if you want to launch a new site quickly. Having the free domain there, unmetered disk space, and bandwidth means that you don’t have to stress about anything tech-related. Plus, there’s the website builder that speeds the launch process even more.
6. One.com – $2.49 per month
One.com has a simple pricing structure, but also quite surprising in a couple of areas. First, the most unexpected thing is that you cannot buy just the hosting plan without buying a domain name from them as well. In other words, if you already have a domain name, you can’t use it with One.com.
While One.com does appear to have all the core features a website owner might need, some things are missing as well.
Particularly, there are no one-click installers for website scripts like WordPress, and their website builder only allows creating up to five pages.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan |
|---|---|
| Not available | $29.88 (renews: $4.99/mo) |
There’s a 15-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 100 email accounts
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $19.99/year)
- SSL
- Daily backups
This does not include:
- One-click WordPress install (need to upgrade to ‘Explorer’ plan)
- Premium WordPress tools (need to upgrade to ‘Expert’ plan)
- Advanced security (need to upgrade to ‘Expert’ plan)
Our Experience + Performance Data
The main dashboard at One.com is nicely made, highlighting all the most important options and settings. You can access your email account config easily; the same for the website builder, backups, and other features.
The website builder in particular is very helpful, guiding you step by step all the way from blank to a working site.
One.com has delivered an average loading time – 505 ms. Not the fastest results on this list, but still good enough. Regarding uptime, this is something they are amazing, currently being >99.99% with only four minutes of downtime in three months.
Overall, One.com can still be a good solution to serve as a host for a small website, but the cost can increase rapidly from year two, which most users won’t appreciate.
7. Domain.com – $3.75 per month
The good thing about Domain.com pricing is that it is straightforward – it’s the same price, no matter the contract length.
The downside is that the price is a bit higher than the other cheap web hosting options on this list – $3.75/mo. The renewal price is $4.99/mo.
Similarly to One.com, you cannot buy just the hosting plan without buying a domain name from them as well (a .com is $9.99/year).
The basic features are there, and there’s also an industry-standard control panel (cPanel) where you can manage everything.
Even though it doesn’t say so on the sales page, you can create email accounts on this setup as well.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not available | $45.00 (renews: $4.99/mo) |
$90.00 (renews: $4.99/mo) |
$135.00 (renews: $4.99/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth & storage
- 1 email account
- SSL (https:)
This does not include:
- Domain name (9.99/year)
- Domain privacy protection ($8.99/year)
- Website builder (from $23.88/year)
- Premium Comodo SSL (from $39.99/year)
- SiteLock security (from $23.88/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
Domain.com wants to make the process easier by installing WordPress for you, which is the most popular website engine on the market.
Then, you get access to a control panel that’s relatively easy to navigate and to use. There’s also the website builder available, but you have to pay extra for that one.
Domain.com is one of the slowest hosts on our list. It took them 1160 ms on average to load our test site. Their uptime, however, is an industry-standard 99.94%.
Overall, Domain.com can be a good choice for hosting, but only as long as you’ve been planning to get your domain name from them anyway.
8. InMotion Hosting – $2.49 per month
InMotion offers a balanced pricing structure, with the cheapest plan available at $2.49/mo on a three-year contract (payment options include credit card, PayPal, and others). You can also sign up for one and two years, but the price per month will be slightly higher. There are no month-to-month plans available.
InMotion also offers free website transfers with zero downtime (in case you’re coming in with an existing site that you’ve been hosting with a different host).
Overall, they include a lot of features even in its cheapest plan, and they seem to be set mainly on letting you launch your site as quickly as possible.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not available | $59.88 (renews: $8.99/mo) |
$95.79 (renews: $7.99/mo) |
$89.64 (renews: $7.49/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 1 email account
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $15.99/year)
- SSL (https:)
This does not include:
- Domain privacy ($12.99/year)
- Backup manager with automated daily backups ($24.00/year)
- Dedicated IP address ($72.00/year)
- “QuickStarter” – a one-page website created by InMotion’s team for your small business – ($99.00 one time)
Our Experience + Performance Data
InMotion has a lot of features to offer. However, discovering them in the control panel is mostly on you. All the options are there, but there are no helper tools that would tell you where to go first.
That said after you get used to the panel, interacting with it gets straightforward.
InMotion Hosting has delivered solid results for both load time and uptime. Being able to have your site loaded in 394 ms is rather fast and uptime of 99.94% is also not bad at all.
Overall, InMotion can be a great solution to get a website online quickly – even if you’re coming from another host. The price is okay if you go for the three-year contract.
9. GoDaddy – $5.99 per month
GoDaddy has the cheapest one-year plan ($1/month) while also being the most expensive company to host long-term with. On the three-year contract, you still have to pay $5.99/month on average.
On the plus side, you do get a free domain name on all annual plans. Plus, there’s a free Office 365 email for the first year. As far as we can tell, there’s no other option to set up your email inboxes on GoDaddy’s hosting.
GoDaddy checks off on all the must-have factors when it comes to web hosting. You get a lot of disk space, and the bandwidth is unmetered, so you don’t have to worry about running out of juice.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan | 5-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10.99 (renews: $10.99/mo) |
$12.00 (renews: $5.99/mo) |
$82.80 (renews: $5.99/mo) |
$155.52 (renews: $5.99/mo) |
$299.52 (renews: $5.99/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 1 email account (for 1 year, renews at $6.99)
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $17.99/year
This does not include:
- Domain privacy ($9.99/year)
- Daily backups ($35.88/year)
- SSL certificate ($79.99/year)
- Improved website security ($66.99/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
GoDaddy has done a lot to make their user panel more friendly over the years. In its current state, it shows all the options in a clear way and is actually quite easy to navigate. Getting to key features like site backups and restoration is simple as well.
GoDaddy has good integrations with WordPress (themes, plugins), which makes getting your site built using the platform easier.
GoDaddy offers a middle-of-the-line load time (530 ms), which is still very good objectively looking. Their uptime, however, is nothing to brag about. During the past three months, GoDaddy delivered an average uptime of 99.87% which is one of the worst on this list.
Overall, GoDaddy is a good option if you value ease of use and want to get started with a nice-looking website quickly. However, we have to also consider the downsides, such as the lack of a free SSL certificate and the highest price in this segment.
10. InterServer – $4.00 per month
InterServer is on the expensive end of the cheap website hosting spectrum. However, they do manage to keep the price tag similar across their entire scope of contract lengths and options. InterServer also has an intro month-to-month plan at just $5, which is one of the lower price tags for this kind of service on the market.
The cheap hosting plans at InterServer offer everything you might need to get a new site off the ground. There are unmetered disk space and bandwidth, plus unlimited email accounts.
current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Month $5.00 (renews: $7.00/mo) |
$54.00 (renews: $7.00/mo) |
$102.00 (renews: $7.00/mo) |
$144.00 (renews: $7.00/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth & storage
- 1 email account
- Weekly backups
- Pre-install WordPress option
This does not include:
- Domain name ($11.00/year)
- Domain privacy ($5.00/year)
- Website Builder ($48.00/year)
Our Experience + Performance Data
InterServer offers a generic user panel, and it’s not immediately clear where to go first upon logging in. You can perform basic account operations there, and then switch over to cPanel (industry standard) for more advanced server management tasks.
InterServer has good average load times at 490 ms. The uptime is also solid, with the current value being 99.95% (59 minutes of downtime per three months).
Overall, InterServer is a good cheap web hosting for a single website. Everything is unlimited, and you get the price lock-in, so you don’t have to worry about renewal prices skyrocketing.
RafaelV
Based on what I’m reading DreamHost has the same price even after Renews, is this correct or was a typo?
WebsiteSetup Editorial
That’s correct – they don’t raise prices on renewal, which is pretty rare in the industry.
Vance F
I find most of these companies are deceptive in their offerings. A2 even admitted in a chat session that that deceive potential customers on their pricing on purpose to get them signed up. Is there any honest web hosts who offer a fair program that stays the same after the first or second year?
Rick
Hi, What is the difference between “Cloud Hosting” and “Shared Hosting”?
Thanks
WebsiteSetup Editorial
See this: https://websitesetup.org/different-types-of-web-hosting/
Celso Bressan
I am really fed up with GoDaddy due to their aggressive prices and upsells, let alone the terrible load times. I am looking at greener pastures and one particular statistic called my attention: the very high number of last and gained websites GoDaddy and all other providers presented in 2018, in the magnitude of the hundreds of thousands!
The only explanation is that people select the introductory prices and then move to another place once the renewal time takes over. Is that plausible?
WebsiteSetup Editorial
Some may do so, some will stick with the higher renewal prices. Hosting industry standard seems to be higher renewal prices and lower intro prices.
Oliver Dev
Shared hosting is cheap for sure, but not safe and definitely doesn’t have good performance. A better alternative is to use vps that are affordable. You get better performance and dedicated server. If you don’t know how to setup a vps, then you can use PHP hosting platform, like Cloudways, that automatically setups a server of your choice with OS, stack and PHP already installed on it.
Harleen khaira
Can someone share what is the cheapest in the long -run? All of these just have a offer that will last max 3 years and then after that the price spike is 80% on all of them. I don’t think ( nor do I know) if you can jump from host site to host site taking advantage of their sign up offers of $3 a month but it looks like there is no way to avoid paying $9 a month for the lifetime of my website!
WebsiteSetup Editorial
Cheapest in long run is probably Hostinger (See if their discount is still valid).
Taylor Bracken
Great list! I have always found Hostgator to be a great hosting company and at that $2.99 offer that’s a pretty good deal. Bluehost I’ve had billing issues with and iPAGE is not great on performance like you show in your report.Hostinger I haven’t heard of before but based on your review I might try them out as a cheaper alternative for some of my basic sites.Thanks for the information!