Does Price Make a Difference with Web Hosting?

Some of the most common questions asked by those looking to buy web hosting for the first time involve pricing. Can you get good hosting when paying a lower price? Or, will spending more money mean that you will naturally get better service? Well, I’ll start off by saying, yes—you can get quality web hosting for a cheaper price. You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money to get great hosting for your website.

However, although you can save a little money on your initial term, keep in mind that overall in the long run, all good website hosting will cost you about the same amount—give or take a few dollars. There are a lot of sales on web hosting for your initial sign up period—actually some really good deals. Just keep in mind that your renewal rates will be somewhat higher. When you also factor in the different features and extra services that each hosting plan offers you, I think you’ll find that prices are basically the same. So, when you think about saving money on web hosting, you’re really paying less only for your initial sign up term.

Let’s take a couple of specific examples from two great web hosting companies that I both use. iPage offers a great introductory deal where you get your first 3 months of hosting for $1.99 mo., and the rest of your two or three year plan for $2.95 mo. After that, you can renew for another year at $8.99 mo. Meanwhile at Web Hosting Hub, you can sign up for a three year plan at $4.95 mo. So, for the initial three year term, you’d save about $75 going with iPage—not bad at all. However, the renewal rate at Web Hosting Hub for your next year would be $8.95. So going forward after your initial savings, you’d be paying roughly the same amount.

What does this all mean? Though you can consider price when shopping for website hosting, be sure to consider other factors like the features the hosting plan offers you and what kind of track record that company has. You can get quality hosting for your site and save some money at the beginning, but keep renewal rates in mind–as well as whether that hosting plan will be able to suit your online needs as your web presence grows.