If you’re a small business or startup, price or cost will always be a major consideration when availing of web hosting services. The thing you have to understand is that price is dependent on the type of web hosting service you will avail and the features that come with it. On the typical monthly subscription, pricing plans can be as low as a single figure or reach as high as triple figures. Again, depending on the type of hosting service plan that you get which generally falls into three categories:
Shared Web Hosting. It’s the budget-friendly way to get your site up and running. It costs something like $10 per month or less. Your website is stored in a server that also hosts other websites. The downside is that if other sites you share with the same server experience spikes in traffic that may affect the stability of your site. However, being affordable makes it the choice of many, especially small businesses.
VPS Hosting. This plan offers more features and flexibility and combines the best components of shared and dedicated servers, without the expensive cost of the latter. Your site runs on a server that hosts fewer sites than a shared one, and where the cost of running the server is shared by sites hosted there, resulting in relatively lower cost. Prices usually range from between $20 to $100.
Dedicated Server. You get a server all your own and to utilize its full power – RAM, CPU, storage and everything, if you can afford the price of a $100 or more a month. Your investment, however, will give you the site loading speed you need, ability to handle huge traffic, and greater control over scripts and apps you’d like to install on your server, among others.
Keep in mind that a web hosting service is the one that will store and deliver the files, images, audio, video and other elements that will comprise your website; hence it is important that you properly match the service offerings and features with your needs. Fortunately, most hosting providers, including our top 20 web hosting services providers for small business featured here, offer the three plans listed above giving you scalable and flexible options.
HostGator
HostGator provides powerful web hosting made easy and affordable with options for shared, VPS and dedicated hosting packages. It offers a 45-day money-back guarantee as well as 24/7 customer support via phone and online Web chat. The multi-awarded service boasts of hosting 8 million domains including prominent clients such as Dell, Cisco and AT&T. HostGator utilizes 10 different fiber providers and rents data center facilities from The Planet with four facilities in Texas. The provider offers power back-ups, fire detection, and continuous monitoring to maintain the safety and security of its 12,000 servers. It guarantees 99.9% uptime and provides an RSS feed for server status updates. Except for dedicated servers, all accounts are backed up weekly and its free to restore a backup if you supply the backup file yourself. If not, the provider charges $15. Except for VPS and dedicated server, HostGator does not allow overselling; hence, the capacity it provides is the actual capacity you get.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting provides domain and website services, as well as site hosting tools to various business types. Their services include shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. InMotion Hosting boasts of a very reputable track record, having been branded by CNET as a top-rated hosting company for 14 years. The company has also received an A+ rating by the the Better Business Bureau, a consumer protection organization that monitors and evaluates that integrity and performance of businesses located in the U.S. and Canada. Based in Los Angeles, CA, the provider caters to small and medium-sized businesses with fastand affordable web hosting solutions, along with reliable after-sales support. Tested several times across 4 different websites since 2005, InMotion Hosting recorded an overall uptime of 99.895%. To provide significant web hosting speed for their other clients, InMotion Hosting has collaborated with a number of the world’s largest ISPs and created peering exchanges to build direct data connection.
InterServer
InterServer has been in the business for 18 years providing standard web hosting services and other innovative hosting solutions. The web hosting service provider is a popular choice for individuals and companies looking to achieve online visibility to boost their business and meet corporate goals. Their array of solutions includes Web hosting, cloud VPS, quick servers, dedicated servers, colocation and other managed services. InterServer runs its own data center in New Jersey and also rents a facility in California. Their data center is equipped with features such as UPS power, fire suppression, biometric locks, raised floors, overhead air conditioning, and HVAC. The provider offers a 100% power uptime guarantee on colocation and a 99.9% uptime guarantee on its VPS plans.
Lowest price – $5/month. It comes with unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited number of domains, and unlimited number of emails. Discounts can lower the price to $4/month if you opt for 36 months in one go which only amounts to $144.
1&1
1&1 is one of the world’s leading web hosting providers and is noted for its affordable plans. It offers a wide range of web hosting products such as email solutions and high-end servers in 10 different countries including Germany, Spain, UK and the U.S. It positions itself as a one-stop Internet shop that provides affordable services and products that range from domain registration to web hosting, site creation and technical support to cutting edge technology. 1&1 offers users every available resource to easily and affordably create and maintain an optimal Web presence. 1&1 hosting solutions cater to private users as well as high-end products for small-and medium-sized businesses. From domains to personal plans like MyWebsite to eBusiness solutions like Cloud Hosting and Web servers for complex tasks, 1&1 promises to deliver high quality service to its customers. I&1 operates green data centers in the U.S. and Europe and currently manages more than 19 million domain names.
Lowest price – $0.99/month. The amount is for the first month of a basic plan for a 1-year period. On the 2nd month and onwards, the price becomes $7.99/month. The plan consists of 100GB storage, up to 2.5GB RAM, one website, 25 databases, 500 email accounts, one domain, SSL certificate, and 24/7 support.
HostFav
HostFav Cloud VPS is comprised of two cloud-based hosting options – Cloud VPS Linux LXC and the Cloud VPS for both Windows and Linux. Both options are intended for smooth, reliable, and cost-effective multiple site hosting. Sice both products are cloud-based, you don’t need to invest in additional hardware or worry about storage capacity of your standalone physical server. HostFav Cloud Service is powered by high-performance multicore Intel Xeon processors and RAID disk storage for data redundancy. These translate to highly secure, industry-grade network with scalable environments that offer high availability systems with 99.99% guaranteed uptime. The provider’s data centers boast of network redundancy, power redundancy and interruption-free maintenance.
Lowest price – $2.50/month. That’s for Linux shared hosting and Windows shared hosting with free domain name, performance standard, included domains, sub domains, email accounts and unlimited bandwidth.
WP Neuron
WP Neuron offers premium managed WordPress hosting that is secure and fast with the unique use of Apache, Varnish, and Nginx. Among the product features include updated servers, smart cache flushing, and modern technologies such as PHP7 and HTTP/2. Top level security is one of the strengths of WP Neuron which regularly scans all websites for malware and, if they find some, they will clear your install for free. Among other precautions to keep your site safe with WP Neuron’s hosting include blocking brute force attacks on your website across all their infrastructure, and blocking tools and bots that are scanning your website for vulnerabilities or trying to disable your website with a DDoS attack. Their anti-malware scanner constantly runs on their servers looking for any signs of malware code. Enhanced security and free malware removal are offered with all their plans. You also get to migrate your website for free.
Lowest price – $3.75/install/month. That’s per WordPress install, and comes with unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic, and unlimited data transfer.
Limitless Hosting
Limitless Hosting offers web hosting, VPS, and game servers. It also does reseller hosting and rovides DDoS protection of up to 250 Gbps. For gamer servers, there is a control panel with array of features such as auto-restart and backup system. They also preinstall and maintain all the software you need on your server. Among the hosting features include unlimited mailing disk space, IP tables firewall, SEO and marketing tools, cPanel, 99.9% uptime, monthly backups, CloudLinux, instant activation, free SSL, virus scanner, and many others. Limitless Hosting is best know for offering one of the lowest, if not the lowest pricing plan available today. And all the prices among their plans and packages are comparatively more affordable compared to other web hosting providers.
Lowest price – $.50/month. Yes you read it right. That’s half a dollar per month for 10 GB disk space, 100 GB bandwidth, 1 add-on domain, 1Gbps network speed, and a cPanel.
