I have been looking for a good WordPress web hosting company that offers cheap but reliable WordPress web hosting solution for quite a while. The keywords here are cheap and reliable and for some reason these two words do not want to go together very well 🙂
If you are willing to pay big money then you have nothing to worry about… your options are endless. My focus is finding that sweet spot where reliability meets affordability. I update this page with my findings on affordable WordPress web hosting solutions. Hopefully this information will be of some help to someone looking for a good WordPress web hosting company.
If you don’t feel like reading the full story and just want to get to my WordPress hosting recommendation then click here. You get a good discount if you end up taking the recommendation.
Little Background
I am very strict when it comes to the reliability of the web hosting company. Server uptime and the server response time is very important for anyone who has a website doing whatever business that they are doing. If your site is down when a visitor or customer goes to your site then you are losing traffic and business. In addition to losing temporary customers, if your site goes down frequently then there is a good chance that your customers will get annoyed and will try to avoid coming to your site in the future.
Most web hosting companies guarantee 99.9% Server uptime but in reality a lot of them do not deliver 99.9% server uptime that they guarantee. Most of the time you won’t even know that your site was down and you lost customers. None of your visitors complained doesn’t really mean that your site was up 100% that month.
I am particularly interested in a reseller account. A reseller account that allows you to create multiple cPanel based websites. The ability to create multiple cPanel based website is really useful as each website has individual cPanel control panel for administration purpose. Not many of the cheap web hosting companies offer reseller account with the ability to create multiple cPanel based websites.
When I First Started
I was with Surpass Hosting and even though they have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, recently my site has been going down frequently. When you complain to them they reply to you with the result of the UNIX ‘uptime’ command which shows the length of time the system has been up, saying our servers were up all month! The system was up all month doesn’t necessarily mean that your site wasn’t down (The CPU load could have been at 100% so it wasn’t processing any other requests and hence your site was not accessible).
I have decided to change my web hosting provider and after doing some research I found that Web Hosting Buzz offers the cheapest reseller hosting solutions and looks reliable (from their server uptime data). So I decided to give web hosting buzz a try but it didn’t work out very well (read below for details).
Update (3 Months Later) – Migration to WebHostingBuzz
WebHostingBuzz offers Reseller accounts from $5 per month with some great features. They have 99.9% server uptime gurantee. You can check their server uptime history from WebHostingBuz Server Uptime figures. WebHostingBuzz website has Google page rank of 7/10 (Page Rank reflects Google’s view of the importance of the web page). I tend to use the website’s page ranking as a trust factor. A website with high Google page rank is less likely to be a fraud.
Web hosting buzz offers pretty cheap reseller account but is it reliable? It looks reliable from the Server uptime data but I will have to see how I go with them to be sure.
Update (6 Months Later)
The reseller account wasn’t doing it for me so I decided to give WebHostingBuzz.com’s Virtual Private Server (VPS) a try as my traffic has gone up heaps since I first signed up with them. The VPS upgrade was a disaster… they probably put me on an overpopulated sever so my site response time was horrible. After having a chat with their support team they made it seem like it was my fault for using WordPress. Over time my site is going to grow so it is important that the hosting solution is scalable and Web Hosting Buzz’s VPS was just a mess not to mention that they were charging $8 per month extra for using cPanel! I knew it was time for me to look for another hosting solution.
Update (7 Months Later) – Migration to InMotionHosting
I started looking and InMotionHosting seemed to be a good hosting provider so I signed up with them and now I am really happy with my site response time and InMotionHosting charges less than WebHostingBuzz for the same plan. I later upgraded my hosting plan to a dedicated server.
Update (1 Year Later)
I am still with InMotionHosting and everything is going well. I have also signed up with MediaTemple to host some of my other sites and they seem to be really good too.
Update (2 Years Later)
I needed another hosting account for one of my new sites so this time I signed up with West Host after taking Yoast’s advice and West Host seem to be good too.
Update (3 Years Later)
My hosting needs continue to grow. This time I wanted to try the new cloud hosting solution mainly because it can be scaled very easily. Cloud hosting’s scaling and self healing abilities make it a very compelling solution for my needs. One thing to keep in mind is that the cloud hosting may not be suitable for people who are not familiar with UNIX systems (unless you go with a managed option which can become very expensive).
Update (4 Years Later)
I have signed up for an account from WPEngine. It is not working out very well at the moment based on how much I have to pay and what I get. I might cancel this account.
Update (5 Years Later)
I have singed up with Hostgator and Bluehost this year.
Update (5 Years 6 Months Later)
I had to get rid of my hosting account with West Host. They were having a lot of outages on my server which brought the site up-time data below 97% and it went on for a few months. So I decided to move away from them.
Update (6 Years 4 Months Later)
GoDaddy recently acquired MediaTemple hosting. I have a thing about Godaddy doing webhosting (I don’t like their hosting) so I switched my site that was on MediaTemple to DreamHost.
Update (7 Years Later)
I have created a test account with A2 Hosting. Their WordPress hosting looks pretty good. I particularly like how their SSD (Solid State Drive) hosting option looks reasonable.
Update (7 Years 6 Months Later)
I purchased hosting from A2 Hosting for one of my small sites. However, I am not very satisfied with their server performance. So, even though I am using it for one of my small sites, I wouldn’t recommend users to buy hosting from them.
It looks like A2 Hosting has picked up their game. I ordered a new “Turbo” WordPress hosting plan from them (for a new site) and it has been working really good so far. The server’s performance is very good. Ordering and installing SSL certificate was a breeze. The SSL certificate pricing is very affordable.
Server response time is really good (given it is a shared hosting). The uptime was 99.98% for the month, this is real uptime as I use external tool to check all my site’s uptime.
Update (8 Years Later)
I have received a few complaints about Bluehost from my users. I have had a bad experience with them also. So I have cancelled my account with Bluehost at the moment.
Update (8 Years 5 Months Later)
I have signed up for a 2nd dedicated server from InMotion Hosting for another WordPress site. The server performance, price and support looks very reasonable to me. They are offering free SSL certificate too.
Update (8 Years 7 Months Later)
I have signed up for a hosting account from Linode. Their hosting is geared for developers so this is not the best option for an average user. I am liking their hosting option so far.
Update (8 Years 10 Months Later)
Looks like A2Hosting has started to offer free SSL certificate with all of their WordPress hosting packages. This is nice as it lowers the total hosting related cost on your end.
My Current Webhost Providers
Currently I have hosting accounts from the following 5 hosting providers and I am happy with them:
Short List of Cheap and Good Web Hosting Companies
Below is a short list of web hosting companies that provide affordable and reliable web hosting solutions. If you are starting a WordPress site, you should consider getting hosting from one of the following providers.
I find that the users using these hosting providers face less issues when using e-commerce or membership solution on their sites.
Avoid Godaddy Hosting
I find that Godaddy gives out a lot of poorly configured server for their shared hosting plans. Issues include: PayPal IPN getting blocked, email related issues, PHP Session not working, etc.
So I recommend avoiding their shared hosting plan (buying domain names from them is fine).
Which Hosting Do I Recommend for a Startup Business?
There are a lot of super cheap hosting packages out there but the hassle that comes with those will cost you way more money and time in the long run (don’t get sucked in by the *unlimited* promise). Changing web hosting is a tiresome task that you should try to avoid as much as you can. The amount of mis-configured servers that I encounter while troubleshooting our Premium WordPress plugins is just mind boggling.
You will get a good discount if you use the following link
So the key is to go with a package/provider that is affordable yet has decent quality. I recommend starting with the “WordPress” hosting package from Inmotion hosting (it comes with free SSL and SSD drives). I personally use hosting from them and you are guaranteed to get a properly configured server.
Click on the following button to purchase hosting service from Inmotion (They also have money back guarantee):
The free SSL certificate for your site is really helpful.
Disclosure: If you click on the links and sign up for a hosting account, we will receive compensation from the companies whose services we have recommended in this page. We only recommend products or services after we have thoroughly tested it ourselves. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own. We use the fund to improve our free WordPress plugin development and support.
Which web hosting solution are you using? Are you happy with your hosting service provider? Feel free to leave your comment or suggestion in the comment area below.
What is cost when service is absent!? It’s a testament to you get what you pay for sometimes. Sure it’s cheaper- but so is the service and so is the loading and hosting… Servers have gone down mid updating site. The only encounter I had with customer service was a total nightmare. Once again, everyone can sell the product but do you have the service to retain your customer? Nope not godaddy.
I’m currently using Siteground, I’ve used Inmotion and the support is excellent! 24/7 (and I’ve used them in the middle of the night). I’m happy with Siteground so why switch?
Thank you for the review. I think I will choose HostGator. After combine some reviews, HosGator will be my final choice.
@Skobola, We have a guide with video tutorials for boldgrid. Have a look to see if that helps:
https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/boldgrid-wordpress-website-builder-review-guide-8810
I am going crazy with complicated creation of website in Boldgrid. Note that I have used iPage Webly before, which I found to be too restrictive as well as proprietary, but Boldgrid is much more complicated for me. Is there a Boldgrid manual in Adobe/pdf format, which would certainly help me navigate the “creation” instead of being constantly switched from website to page creator (or whatever they are called), while trying to make my new website. My desired website is/will contain 4 web pages, each having a path at the top, so that viewers can easily go from one page to whichever other one they want to visit.
I have found them to be okay so far. Its on my list above.
Haha..no I meant, is dreamhost okay to use…it is not on your list?
@Nitya, You mean their site isn’t loading? It is loading fine now.
What’s wrong with dreamhost??
I have a WordPress with WooComerce hosted on a VPS at RoseHosting. It isn’t quite the the cheapest around, however I don’t like to bother much with administrative tasks so the tech support there is very helpful when it comes to maintenance. Best thing is that there are no extra expenses and hidden costs, it all comes at a fixed price in one package.
Choosing a hosting provider is not an easy task. I am not a fan of EIG hosting companies, that’s why I choose a provider that has nothing to do with them. The one that I’m currently using – BGOcloud, has really nice packages, its prices are affordable and the security is top notch. Moreover they offer a wide range of hosting services for everyone’s needs.
@Angela, You can call their customer support number and they will sort it out for you.
Thanks for your very informative article. Just signed up with InMotionHosting. But it’s been 15-20 minutes from my purchase and i haven’t received an email nor a phone call from them. Makes me wonder if my purchase really went through.
@Jeff and Leonard, I have dropped them from the list (I had some bad experience with them also).
Bluehost is known to be bad. The people who think it is good never monitor their website. The key to knowing “good or bad” is both personal experience (such as support calls) and actual monitoring of uptime and throughput. There are free sites that can do this: Uptime Robot and Montastic are two such sites. Use them and you will know how good your host really is.
@Leonard, Sorry to hear that you had some problems with Bluehost. My experience has been good with them so far. However, I will keep monitoring the feedback about them.
How can you be happy with BlueHost? Tech support is terrible, every site I have transferred has gone offline because they have some kind of issue in their coding that changes the name server to an incorrect address. They are unsympathetic and refusing to compensate us for a service that DOESN’T WORK .
Beside this, I would suggest you to try Cloudways Platform for WordPress Hosting. One of the affordable cloud hosting service available in their Platform.
I’ve been through similar experiences! I started in 1998. Long story short, I’m not with Hostgator for the past 6 years. Although they’ve had their share of problems, I’ve experienced MUCH less with them than anyone else.
Very informative for a newbie. I have learnt a lot and feel equipped to make a decision about hosting my new blog
WPOven and WP Engine are missing from the list. I believe they are one of the better dedicated hostings around and well worth a look. Besides these there is also lightningbase that can be looked at
I’ve been using HostAwesome for a little while now, and even though they’re a relatively newer WP Host, the service and support could not be more fantastic. In the end, I believe that quality of support really trumps most of the other things, and that specifically looking for “cheap” hosting probably isn’t the best idea.
Thank you for the list I finally settled on Bluehost after some major downtime with Hostgator. So far I am very happy and have not had any problems to speak of. It’s actually shocking how good the service is for such a cheap price.
Thanks admin (want to call a name but I don’t find it 😆 ) this is a good read about cheap and RELIABLE WordPress hosting, InMotion looks great, I like their design and registered as an affiliate too.
May be I will try to use their service one day.
I was using Hostgator for around 6 months, I decided to put one of my clients on my VPS as I couldn’t find affordable hosting in AUS. Big mistake… turns out the IMAP had never been configured properly (or just error’d for some reason) so only POP3 was available. When I asked them to fix it they claimed there was nothing wrong with it despite not being able to connect to it themselves, they tried multiple times. So they called it “user error”… being that I never touched server settings as I never needed to, I fail to see how.
I said, there’s an easy fix to this…(politely) give me a new VPS server and transfer my websites and emails to it.
They denied my request.
The support which normally gets rave reviews I found to be rude, mildly retarded (as they can’t answer simple server questions when you ask them), and downright slow.
IMO, don’t get hostgator… go with one of the others.
I’ve actually split my sites up among lots of $1-$2 hosting providers now. With high traffic sites on more reliable $10 a month hosting. I found this to be more beneficial as the some of the sites I don’t care if downtime is 95% while others I do. Means I save $ and it’s better for SEO (having sites on multiple IPs).
I use HostGator and IPage. I’m satisfied with them, but both have advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll try Immotion for my next project.
I personally use excitedhost for all of my domains and hosting. It’s has easy control panel features,great for WordPress hosting, Plus excitedhost support has 24x7x365 customer care service that really works.
Thanks for the great list with very detailed update, I had to move hosting companies few times due to some have been really worse in terms of loading/resource issues and support.
I don’t know about others but I have used hostgator and its best of the lot.
Thanks for this wonderful post. You put great efforts in your post !!! Blue Host and In Motion hosting both are the best. As they offer most affordable and reliable web hosting services to their customers.
Hostgator is the best host i think.
I have heard of good reviews about the hostgator. I am not sure if the website provider has already solved their issues with the complaints of unwanted ads. But I have read that hostgator is reliable and it has a good customer service. Thanks for sharing your good findings about the web hosting services. Perhaps it is better to canvass the prices first and read the reviews before making the final decision.
@Momoko, Thank you for sharing your favorite web host.
Hmm If it is ok, I would like to add my favorite host to this list.
I have been hosted with ComputingHost.com for the last 4 years.. They have really good budget shared hosting packages but I use a VPS with them which is not bad at all.
I would definitely recommend them for those looking for cheap alternatives 🙂 And a very helpful support team..
Thank you for sharing your findings with the hosting companies. I took your advice and signed up for inmotion hosting. My site is working smoother. I am happy with this move for now.
Thanks for sharing your experience with these web hosting companies. This can be valuable for others who are looking for a good hosting provider
These are good sites for the beginner. Some of these hosts like HostGator and Bluehost are famous and popular because they are cheap and highly accessible for newbies. However, once your site grows, you should consider a dedicated server or cloud server. Depending on your needs, find a webhost that fulfils your requirements.
Good share about your hosting experience, it has given me new knowledge.
I never knew any of these sites. Glad you recommend them. The webhosting hosting services I’ve contacted with have increased or are already expensive.
This time I’ll try WebHosting Buzz!
Thanks a lot for this outstanding article, very helpful, it can be very hard to find an inexpensive hosting company, especially one that offers good uptime and good support, I have been luck so far, but am looking for another hosting company in the UK that can offer faster server response times for my DNN sites running on windows server.
loving hostgator so far. been with them for 2 mos. now and I couldn’t be happier with the support
Nice site with great information and wonderful WP Plugins.
I use Hostnine, http://www.hostnine.com and have been with them for years-as you said, transferring your sites can be a pain. Hostnine transferred all of mine for free.
Their tech support is really great. You can get it by online chat, email/support ticket, and telephone. The online chat is for pretty basic stuff and they will send you a transcript of the chat, which is very useful as you don’t have to take notes about what to do to accomplish something, just follow the steps from the transcript.
The same can be said for the Support ticket, most times I get a response within an hour.
I use telephone support when I want to have someone talk me through the process and so I can ask questions during the procedure.
They have also helped me by installing some programs for me when I had problems.
Hostnine offers Unlimited Hosting Plans with
Unlimited Disk Space, Bandwidth, and Email Accounts with cPanel / Fantastico, Word Press, and web based email.
As of now, the cost is $3.95 per month. I have 8 domains hosted with them and I am very pleased with the company, so much so, that I became an affiliate. I left off my link because I didn’t want to be tacky, but if folks out there want to throw some money my way, send me an email and I will send you the affiliate link.
Thanks for your site, it has kept me up tonight reading everything and looking over your WP products.
Stuart
I have been using HostGator for a few years now, my site has never gone down and their support is amazing! Their 24 hour live chat support is great, i’m always a click away from tech support and there is never a wait. I’m on their business plan for $14.95 per month which includes a free SSL Certificate and dedicated IP address, no complaints here!
Great discussion. Compared to service and rate, I feel M6.Net is better. Recently, They have improved their support and service facility to extreme to make the clients happy. I trust them and guarantee them. Thanks
This is really great post on deciding which is really affordable hosting service. It also guides me about the cheap hosting options. Hard work is shown in the article.
Excellent article! Picking a good web hosting company is tricky business indeed! The last one i used was down more than it was up and the customer service was non existent! I will follow your advice to the letter!
hanks for the list of reliable and cheap web hosting companies! I’ll try one of them and give you a feedback.
In Germany we got some really cheap hosting companies, some of them are rally useable, but there are a few ones, which really suck.
hanks for the list of reliable and cheap web hosting companies! I’ll try one of them and give you a feedback.
In Germany we got some really cheap hosting companies, some of them are rally useable, but there are a few ones, which really suck.
I am using hostgator and bluehost and found both are very good. I am also using blogger but they don’t provide a lot of functionality.