It is a commonly held misconception that managed hosting services are expensive. This article is here to debunk this myth by sharing with you our top 5 cheapest WordPress hosting providers that simultaneously offer high-quality services.
When it comes to hosting services, people usually automatically choose shared hosting because they believe that it’s the cheapest and only WordPress hosting option when in fact this couldn’t be further from the truth. The world of website hosting is vast and full of competition as well as continuous innovation.
If you are interested in a high-quality hosting service, but don’t have the necessary budget, then pay close attention, because we are here to show you the wide range of alternatives to shared hosting the market offers.
2022 Marks the End of Shared Hosting
To make sure that we’re all on the same page, let’s first recap why shared hosting is something that belongs to the past before delving into the modern era of website hosting.
Shared hosting means that your provider uses one server for the hosting services provided to numerous website owners. In terms of the resources provided to you by your shared hosting provider this means that you have to share everything.
So as you can see the reason why shared hosting providers offer such low prices is because they don’t offer their services individually.
Now there’s no doubt that a low price is a huge plus. There’s no business or individual user that doesn’t try to manage their expenditures in such a way that is cost-effective.
But:
We advise you to look for the cheapest WordPress hosting options while still keeping your standards high. Ultimately, no matter what you choose, quality should never suffer. Especially considering that your website will directly reflect on your brand’s image.
Not Suitable for High Traffic
When it comes to shared hosting it’s a well known fact that it’s not designed to accommodate high traffic. Granted, this in itself might not even be a problem for some users, because they don’t expect high traffic to begin with. But what if I told you that you don’t need to be having a high traffic inflow in order to experience considerable impairment in your website’s performance?
See, the very essence of shared hosting is that it’s shared. Meaning that you share the good as well as the bad. Put differently, you will always have the risk of bad neighborhood effects.
Not Suitable for Your Security Needs
Most alarming is that these bad neighborhood effects not only manifest themselves in longer loading periods due to other users’ high traffic. No, these effects extend themselves further and can affect the security of your website. A hacker attack on one user can spill over to other users, who don’t have anything to do with the incident.
And as if all of this isn’t bad enough, once you find yourself in a situation where you experience those negative effects, you won’t have anyone to lend you a helping hand.
Not Suitable for Your Accessibility Needs
For our technologically savvy readers, the lack of customer support may not pose a problem because they have the necessary skills to take on their technical issues by themselves. Sounds plausible, right? Not really. Because in shared hosting, one server is divided between several users, the access of an individual user to the server is significantly limited.
By the same token, should you think about using the services of another cyber security provider than the one sponsored by your hosting provider then you might be facing a big disappointment.
The “sharing is caring” mantra of shared hosting services leaves little or no room for individuality.
So what’s the qualitatively better yet still cheapest WordPress hosting alternative for you?
Modern Website Hosting: Managed WordPress Hosting
Our message is simple, our message is clear: Managed WordPress Hosting. Let’s look into the reasons why.
The first thing that needs to be clarified is why we recommend the content management system (CSM) WordPress and not others.
For one, to this day, WordPress leads the market of CMSs with a 62.7 percent share. Joomla is second in line with 4.4 percent followed by Drupal who makes up 3.7 percent of the market.
Of course, there are other reasons for putting our focus on WordPress hosting. To name a few, WordPress is known for its
- user, SEO and mobile friendliness,
- expansive range of themes and plugins, and
- qualified customer service.
Now let’s shift our attention to managed WordPress hosting. As the name already indicates, in managed WP hosting the hosting services and products are tailored to suit WordPress’ system to ensure a smooth running of your website.
1. Scalability
So what exactly are the differences from shared hosting? For starters, your resources are yours to use and are not affected by the activities of other users.
And even if your website traffic increases unexpectedly, with managed hosting you have great scalability that allows your resource capacities to increase and decrease according to your needs.
When it comes to security issues, most if not all managed hosting providers will offer a 24/7 customer service. But most of the time, they will protect you against malware without you even being aware of it. This will ensure that your site’s speed will never be compromised because of a sudden system overload.
2. Page Speed
This brings us to another very crucial benefit, that cannot be stressed enough is page speed. For one, it will enable you to achieve a high position of Google’s search engine results page (SERP). On the other hand, it will prevent you from losing website visitors who are in a rush and don’t have time to wait until your website’s content loads fully.
There are different ways, besides scalability, in which a high level of website speed is provided.
- Some managed hosting services are powered by Google Cloud, which is known for its extensive network of data centers that in turn allow Google to provide low-cost content delivery networks (CDN) to its users. For those of you wondering, CDNs are proxy servers that are distributed worldwide to increase the speed of data delivery.
- Caching is also a must, that we recommend to make sure is included in your managed hosting plan. But what does it do? Page caching basically means that the HTML code of a webpage is stored on your server. This way the content of your page won’t have to be generated by WordPress every single time a user pays a visit to your website. Instead it’s stored and ready to be accessed at any time by any subsequent visitor. This is a very effective way to save time and by default increase your page speed.
- A third factor that you should take into account is the fact that, if not used correctly, images and videos can take a long time to load. To avoid this we recommend you find a hosting provider that offers image optimization services. Admittedly, this might be easier said than done. According to our current knowledge of market offerings, 10Web is the only provider that includes this type of service into its product catalog. This way we ensure that your website’s visual elements have the optimal size as well as a high quality.
Of course all of these services would mean nothing, if the users would have to implement them manually. That’s why managed hosting providers offer flexible automation through artificial intelligence technology.
3. Data Backups
To further enable consistency, automated backups are offered. Even though hosting services try to ensure the constant functionality of their services by providing security and customer support, systemic failure can still occur, due to for example human error or hardware failure.
To prepare for such instances, website owners are urged to set up automatic backups for their files as well as their database. This way they can ensure that even if their site is compromised the data and consequently the website can be restored in no time.
4. Free SSL Certificate
On top of this users get a SSL certificate for free as part of the hosting package. This will add a much-needed protection layer to your website, by encrypting your data exchange and consequently preventing unauthorized third-party access.
With shared hosting, this service isn’t included in the hosting plan, so make sure to include the following, additional expenditures in your calculations: approximately a yearly cost of $36.75 for a Basic SSL certificate.
5. Staging Environment
Finally, with managed hosting plans you have the option of staging your environment. What this means is that everytime you want to make some changes to your website, you can make them in a staged environment first, see if everything is according to your liking and then decide whether you want to go live with it or not.
This way you can test out different options for changes before deciding which one you prefer and at the same time minimize the risk of having errors on your site.
Having compared shared hosting services with the allegedly more expensive option, managed hosting, we will now recommend you the best and at the same time cheapest WordPress hosting providers. Here are our top 5:
So let’s dive right in!
10Web
The first one on our list of cheapest WordPress hosting providers is yours truly.
10Web is an AI Website Builder that simplifies and accelerates website hosting and building by channeling the power of automation. From automated 1-click migrations and automated 90+ PageSpeed optimization to automated AI-assisted website building and automated WordPress hosting and management. 10Web takes annoying manual tasks and lets machines do the heavy lifting instead of its customers.
In that sense, 10Web’s Automated Hosting is considered to be a more advanced version of managed hosting.
As for the price range for this unrivaled platform, we at 10Web provide you with four different packages, the cheapest of which is the Personal Package for $10, followed by our Premium offer for $24, then the Agency plan for $60 and lastly the Custom package for $66 per month.
Our all-in-one deal includes services such as
- daily backups,
- high-class security,
- a free SSL certificate,
- a staging environment,
- caching, as well as
- image and speed optimization.
Beyond that, it should be mentioned that 10Web’s automated WordPress hosting is powered by Google Cloud. This ensures a high level of speed by, among other things, giving you the opportunity to choose between 8 different data centers around the globe, which will enable your website’s data center to be close to your visitors.
And, it goes without saying that in addition to this, we, like our fellow hosting providers, offer 24/7 customer support.
Essentially, 10Web’s hosting plan mainly targets freelancers, agencies, in-house teams and, generally speaking, those who are or plan on running a high-traffic website.
With its Custom plan, 10Web is dedicated to accommodate the demands of users who are in charge of multiple sites. To this end, the hosting provider allows users to tailor their package according to the number of sites they own.
On top of this, you’ll have a maximum level of flexibility when it comes to the design of your website. 10Web offers a wide range of website templates as well as more than 50 premium plugins which allow you to add unique features to your site.
Not to forget that, 10Web is very aware of environmental aspects and offers a 100% renewable energy match.
Add to this the provided SEO and Analytics tools, that will allow you to optimize your site in such a way as to increase your SERP visibility, and you get an unbeatable offer.
Still not sure whether this is the right plan for you? No problem. You can start a free and non-binding trial today – no credit card required!
See How 10Web Can Benefit You
Visit our homepage to learn more about the ultimate AI-powered website builder.
SiteGround
For those of you who aren’t yet acquainted with this provider, let us introduce to you SiteGround – coming to you with an official recommendation from WordPress, no less. As of yet, SiteGround offers the cheapest WordPress hosting services on the market.
But what do their prices look like and which services do they include?
The plans start at a monthly price of $3.95, $5.95, and $11.95, respectively. But, beware: These prices only apply for the first 12 to 36 months of your contract. Once this period ends, the monthly costs for your hosting package will increase to $11.95, $19.95, and $34.95. Basically, the plan will cost triple of what it used to cost after a certain period.
However, the hosting provider is sure of the quality of its services and offers its customers a 30-day money back guarantee. This gives you the chance of purchasing their hosting plan, testing it for 30 days. And should you be unhappy with their services, then you can jump ship without losing anything.
This concludes our snapshot of the cost overview. Let’s now take a look at the services you will receive for the price you pay.
Since it is our goal to present you with the cheapest WordPress hosting options, we’ll concise our comments to the most basic plan, namely the so-called StartUp plan with a monthly price of $3.95.
With the StartUp plan you’ll own one website with a 10 GB Web Space, a free WordPress installation – autoupdates included. Other services, such as a free SSL certification, daily backups, a free CDN, a free email, WordPress CLI and SSH as well as unlimited data access are also part of the package. As regards the amount of traffic inflow you may receive the number lies at 10k visitors per month.
But even more importantly, if you happen to be as concerned with environmental friendliness as we are, then you’ll be happy to know that SiteGround, just like 10Web offers a 100% renewable energy match. This is possible due to the collaboration with Google Cloud as their primary data center provider who is set out to maintain carbon neutrality.
inMotion
Now, to spice things up, let’s jump from one hosting provider that is specifically customized for WordPress to one that isn’t. But make no mistake, while it is true that inMotion is not a WordPress-tailored hosting provider, they nonetheless promise that their WordPress hosting is 10 times faster than that of competitors.
In addition to this, for the customers who expect a WordPress hosting service, they offer special plans that are designed specifically for WordPress.
But at which level is their compensation set? The provider offers three different packages that respectively target small blogs, small businesses as well as developers and growing businesses. The smallest of all packages starts at a monthly price of $9.99. This is followed by the $14.99 plan. The ultimate package can be purchased for $19.99 per month.
Should you already know for sure that you want to rely on this provider for several years, then you have the option of purchasing a 2 or 3-year plan. inMotion rewards this decision with a discount as well as with a change in regular pricing.
The cheapest WordPress hosting option will provide you with the following benefits: 1 website, a free domain and a 40 GB SSD storage. In terms of traffic volume, the provider guarantees that your website will be suitable for 20k visitors per month, which is the double of what the previous candidate offers.
Another, very important feature that SiteGround did not put in its starter package but inMotion offers in its small plan is the possibility of staging environment. For those of you who forgot or skipped through that part: a staging environment allows you to make changes to your website, check those changes in a test run before deciding whether you want to go live with the new version of your site or not.
At first glance, the differences between the three plans aren’t that significant. They mostly refer to the number of websites needed, storage space, and the number of monthly visitors expected. Besides that, the hosting provider also includes features such as migration and backup services, unlimited bandwidth as well as a larger SSD that make the two pricier packages stand out.
GoDaddy
The next on our list of cheapest WordPress hosting providers is GoDaddy. Does this name ring a bell with you? If yes, then it might be because of the fact that GoDaddy not only has one of the biggest market shares, but is also, to date, the market leader in the world of website hosting.
However is this leading role also justified? Let’s take a look.
Contrary to the previous two providers, GoDaddy offers four different WordPress hosting packages. The first one is called Base and has a monthly price of $6.99, followed by the Suite plan for $9.99, the Optimal plan for $12.99 and the Electronic Commerce plan for $15.99.
For the sake of full disclosure, those aren’t the original prices of the plans since they include discounts. For instance, the Base plan would cost you $12.99 if you only purchase it for one month. For 12 months, the price goes down to $7.99, for 24 months it’ll be at $7.49 and, lastly, for 36 months you’ll pay only $6.99.
For those of you not sure whether and for how long they want to commit to a hosting provider or to their own website for that matter, this might, understandably, be too much of a gamble.
However, frankly speaking, our experience so far tells us that most website owners are in it for the long haul and not just for a couple of months. So, looking at it from this angle, we think that DoDaddy’s discount model offers a pretty fair and low-cost option.
Upon renewal of your plan, the price will slightly increase. The cheapest WordPress hosting option will then have a monthly cost of $9.99 while the “most expensive” one will increase to $24.99. GoDaddy advises its customers who have or need five websites or higher to go for the $24.99 option.
In a nutshell, what you would be spending your money on are the following features that are included in all the plans:
- a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, a money back guarantee,
- an Email which for the first year is free of charge,
- a wide spectrum of themes as well as plugins.
In terms of traffic inflow capacity, the Base plan can handle up to 25k visitors per month. A daily malware scan, a free domain as well as automated website data backups are also part of the starter package deal. Needless to say, GoDaddy also offers no more than 1 website in its starter deal, which, as you may have already noticed, is a general standard for all hosting providers.
DreamHost
Admittedly, the fifth one on our list of cheapest WordPress hosting providers is a pricier option. But before you jump to conclusions, here us out:
The reason why we included DreamHost in our list of cheapest WordPress hosting services is because they more or less count as veterans in the field of website hosting. They have been in this business for over 2 decades. That’s got to count for something, right?
The reason the American provider made it so far is because it’s known and valued for its reliability and trustworthiness as a hosting provider. So we would be remiss if we failed to mention them.
To avoid any confusion as regards the name of the hosting provider, let’s first clarify that DreamHost has given their managed WordPress hosting arm the designation DreamPress. So if you haven’t heard of the former maybe you’re acquainted with the latter.
DreamPress offers three different packages, the first of which is simply called DreamPress, the second one DreamPress Plus and the third DreamPress Pro. Pretty standard thus far.
Let’s dive into the price structure. The starter plan costs $19.95 per month, the second $29.95 followed by a much costlier third option which would cost you a whopping $79.95 per month.
We know, it’s not the cheapest WordPress hosting option out there, but, once again, bear with us. Once we tell you about all the services the basic plan includes, you’ll understand why we saw fit to include it in our list.
First of all, with the starter package, your website will be able to handle 100.000 visitors without any problems. An added bonus is that should you exceed this visitor limit, DreamPress won’t shut down your site. They simply provide you the resources needed or upgrade your plan to avoid any kind of malfunction.
Besides that you have services such as
- data backups,
- a WordPress website builder that will facilitate the management of your site,
- a SSL certificate,
- 24/7 customer support, and
- 1-Click Staging.
In a nutshell, things that are in most cases not included in the starter pack of other providers.
Plus, DreamPress just like its aforementioned competitors rewards commitment. For instance, if you sign up for a three year contract you can save up to 16% of the monthly fees.
Which Hosting Provider For You?
We, on our part, have presented you our top 5 of cheapest WordPress hosting providers that are eligible for a variety of hosting needs.
By showing you that, when it comes to website hosting, it’s very possible to have high quality for a low price, we hope we could convince you that you can do much better than shared hosting.
So, now that you have a good overview of the range of the cheapest WordPress hosting plans, do you care to share with us which hosting provider you prefer and why? Perhaps you already have made some experience with our mentioned packages and want to pass on some of your knowledge to us?
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Well explained by the author
Thanks, dear Anita! 🙂
Beautifully explained.