Introduction
A quality shared hosting service should not cost an arm and a leg. However, with so many cheap hosting providers out there each claiming to be the best, if often becomes difficult to pick the right one. We have already covered things to consider when buying a shared hosting plan and key differences between different types of hosting services in a separate post. This post covers some of the most popular and affordable shared hosting services for individuals and small businesses.
Why Shared Hosting?
Shared hosting is the cheapest way to get started on your website and allows individuals and startups to showcase themselves without spending a lot of money. Although free hosting services are also available from different hosts, we strongly recommend against using free services even for personal blogs. Although shared hosting services might not be as good as managed or dedicated hosting services, they are a good starting point and ideal for users who expect around 10k unique visitors.
It’s worth mentioning that most shared subscription hosting providers offers discounted prices for new customers, which do not represent the pricing in the long term. That’s the reason why many users keep switching providers so they can get discounted pricing with the start of each subscription. However, this strategy does not work well in the long run, especially for established businesses and online stores.
Top 10 Shared Hosting Services
1. Hostinger
With monthly subscriptions starting from $0.8, Hostinger is one of the most affordable hosting providers and offers up to 100 GB bandwidth for a single website. One email account is also part of the cheapest plan, while users who want something more like free SSL certificate and daily backups can opt for the $3.45/month plan. However, like most other providers, these plans are also for new customers who have to pay more when they renew their subscription.
The Premium shared hosting plan costs $2.15/month and includes unlimited websites and email accounts, a free domain and weekly backups. The Business Plan includes daily backups and costs $3.45/month. All plans mentioned here are introductory/starting prices and do not indicate the prices users will pay after the initial promotional period.
Shared hosting isn’t the only service Hostinger offers as it also offers a wide range of other services, including VPS server hosting, Cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, Email hosting and Minecraft hosting. Availability of these services means users can upgrade their plans easily without having to switch between different providers.
Key features (Premium Plan)
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Free SSL and domain with Premium and Business plans
- Website builder
- Optimized for WordPress
- Unlimited websites and email accounts
- Unlimited bandwidth
- LSCWP WordPress Acceleration
- Nameservers protected by Cloudfare
- Github Integration
- 24/7/365 support
- Unlimited MySQL Databases and FTP accounts
- Weekly backups
- SSH access and Access Manager
- 100 subdomains
2. GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is an affordable as well as eco-friendly hosting provider with subscriptions starting from $2.29/month. It offers different hosting solutions including WordPress hosting, VPS hosting and reseller hosting. The Lite plan is priced at $2.95 per month and includes one website, unlimited web space and data transfer, free Wildcard SSL and a free domain name for the first year.
GreenGeeks claims that the websites hosted on their servers are carbon-reducing as the provider replaces three times the energy it uses in form of renewable energy-credits. All shared hosting plans are not only affordable, but also come with a wide range of features, including SSD storage, unlimited data transfer, free website transfer as well as a 30-day money back guarantee.
Key features
- Industry’s best green hosting
- Excellent speed test results (Rated A)
- Free site migration and domain for the first year
- 1-click app installer
- Unlimited web space and data transfer
- SSD storage
- Free website builder (drag-and-drop)
- cPanel and Softaculous. Learn more about the pros when you let expert professionals managed cpanel server.
- Free CDN integration
- Free Wildcard SSL
- Shopping card installation included
3. A2Hosting
A2Hosting is known for being one of the fasted shared hosting providers and has received perfect scores in recent years. However, such speed and reliability come at a premium, which costs more than the cheapest plan A2Hosting offers for $3.92 per month. The Turbo plan costs $9.31/month and is recommended for businesses and bloggers who are willing to spend a little extra and don’t want to compromise on speed and user experience.
The Swift plan offers a great balance between price and features and includes unlimited websites, unlimited SSD storage, unlimited email accounts and automatic backups for $4.90/month. Their cheapest plan also features SSD storage, but only allows one website per account.
Key features (Swift)
- Unlimited websites, transfer and SSD storage
- Unlimited databases
- Free site migration
- cPanel
- Free SSL certificate
- Automatic backups
- Site builder and themes
- Optimized WP setup
- CloudFlare Free CDN
- Site staging
- 24/7/365 support
- 2-factor authentication
- 99.9% uptime commitment
4. Hostgator
One of the most popular hosting providers with a proven track record of over 15 years of service, Hostgator is one of the most affordable providers. However, it’s not the best when it comes to speed and responsiveness. Affordability and an impressive uptime of 99.99% is among its key strengths.
The cheapest plan costs $2.75/month and includes a single domain, unmetered bandwidth and a free domain if you opt for 12/24/36 month subscription. The Baby plan costs $3.95/month and in addition to the cheapest plan features includes unlimited domains. The Business plan does not cost significantly more and makes more financial sense as it includes a dedicated IP as well as free SEO tools.
Key features
- Unlimited domains
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free domain (with long term commitment)
- Website transfer
- SSL certificate
- 1-click WordPress install
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Website builder
- 24/7/365 support
- Unlimited email accounts
5. DreamHost
DreamHost’s sharing hosting plans come with a money back guarantee of 97 days, which reflects the confidence the provider has in its services (the industry standard is 30 days). WHOIS privacy and email hosting is included for free with the Unlimited plan. The Starter plan costs $2.59/month and includes 1 site, free domain, unlimited traffic and bandwidth, SSD storage, SSL certificate and pre-installed WordPress.
Key features (Unlimited)
- Unlimited traffic, bandwidth and websites
- Free domain
- Pre-installed WordPress
- WP website builder
- SSD storage
- SSL certificate
- Unlimited email
- 97-day money back guarantee
6. iPage
With an average uptime of 99.97%, iPage is considered one of the most reliable shared hosting providers. The pricing starts at $1.99/month with a 36-month commitment after which it jumps to $7.99/month (same is the case with almost all other providers). Unlimited storage, free SSL and unlimited bandwidth makes iPage an option worth considering on a tight budget.
Key features
- Free domain and email address
- Drag-and-drop site builder
- SSL certificate
- Unlimited diskspace
- Unlimited domain names
- Scalable bandwidth
- PayPal integration
- 24/7 support
7. BlueHost
Being one of the most popular shared hosting providers, it’s no surprise that BlueHost scores well when it comes to uptime and speed. 24/7/365 support via live chat, free domain name and reliable performance makes BlueHost easy to recommend for bloggers and small businesses. The major downside to their services is that you have to commit for 36 months to enjoy the lowest price of $2.75/month.
Key features
- WordPress recommended host
- SSL certificate
- Domain name (for the first year)
- 24/7 support
- Fully managed solution
- Email address
- Concierge migration service
8. Inmotion Hosting
Although more expensive than other options, inmotion offers free domain, two websites, unlimited bandwidth, disk space and email, SSL, marketing tools and a security suite for $6.39/month (Launch plan). Its shared hosting plans also come with data backups, SSH access and Google Apps integration.
Key features (Launch)
- Two websites
- Free domain
- Unlimited disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited email
- SSL
- Security suite
- Marketing tools
9. InterServer
For $4/month (3-year renewal), InterServer’s Standard hosting plan includes unlimited SSD storage and email accounts, website builder, global content caching and 1-click installs of over 450 cloud apps. InterServer also offers price-lock guarantee, which means that the price of a subscription will not change throughout the life span of an account.
Key features
- No price increase after the first term
- Unlimited domains
- In-house technical support
- Unlimited email accounts
- SSD storage
- Website builder
- Global content caching
- Weekly backups
- Raid-10 storage
- Cloudfare CDN
10. FastWebHost
Pricing for Linux-based web hosting starts from $2.97/month (Value plan), which includes a free domain and unlimited bandwidth. The hosting plans feature DDoS protection and four geo locations i.e. USA, Germany, Netherlands and India. This gives users more choice to better serve their target audience (closest to the physical servers).
Key features (Value)
- 20 GB disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited email accounts
- Free domain name
- 1 domain
- Multiple geo locations
- Website builder
- 24/7 support