Web host plan pricing: The expense of web hosting ranges from nothing to hundreds of dollars a month. Different sevices can be difficult to compare because of a wide variety of features and amounts of disk space, bandwidth, and memory that are available. Read on for some sample pricing information for some of the major types of hosting to help you get a read on the web hosting market.
Web Hosting Cost
With the number of options available included in hosting or as add-ons, it’s impossible to generalize too much about web hosting cost. One web host offers 100 MB of free web space and 1000 MB of monthly traffic in their basic package, while another offers 10 GB of disk space and 300 GB of monthly transfer. Is the second a better deal? You need to look at all the other features to decide.
It is also not possible to compare by plan names. Here are some of the plan names from least expensive to most:
- Basic/Advanced/Professional
- Economy/Deluxe/Premium
- Expert/Business Plus/Unlimited Pro
- Level 1/Level 2
- Express/Starter/Standard/Professional
In addition, the word business in a plan name is not necessarily a good indicator of whether the plan will fit your business needs. In general, it’s important to look at the features, the web hosting cost, and the room for growth, rather than this level of plan name, although, if a web host tailored its names to different types of need (e.g., eCommerce, personal, etc.), then it might be worth taking note.
Also, if a web host offers only one hosting plan, you might wish to think again. Only one plan, even with unlimited this and that, may not provide the room for growth that your business will need. Or it may . . . something to think about when considering web hosting cost.
In addition, be aware that some services, particularly higher-level services that generally need to be adapted to suit individual customer requirements, will often require personal contact to get web hosting cost information. In any case, it’s generally true that the longer increments you pay for, up to a year, the less you are likely to pay in overall web hosting cost.
Shared Hosting Pricing
If there is no label telling you what kind of hosting is involved in a plan, it’s probably shared hosting (see the article “What Is Web Hosting?” for more information). Shared hosting options can range from very inexpensive plans suitable for individual’s web pages to robust plans for eCommerce. If shared hosting doesn’t give you pricing information until you choose a sign-up button, be careful. it may be that someone’s trying to get away with something and their web hosting cost is too much.
Shared hosting prices range from $3/month on up to $25+/month. Then Virtual private servers start at around $14/month on up to $99/month. Dedicated servers can range from bargain basement prices of $79/month on up into the thousands depending on configurations.
