In the event that you choose to hire someone else to create your new website, it might be a quite costly undertaking. However, even if you’re willing to do everything yourself, you still need to consider web hosting fees. The majority of businesses would have you believe that registering for a hosting package just costs a few dollars per month. That’s not quite the whole tale, though. On their websites, hosting companies prefer to highlight their lowest packages, but they frequently forget to explain that month-to-month web hosting comes at a far higher cost.
What exactly do I mean when I say “month-to-month hosting”? It is essentially exactly what it sounds like. You pay for hosting on a monthly basis as opposed to committing to a yearly or multi-year contract. In the long run, at least, choosing a monthly billing cycle is frequently far more expensive than choosing a contract. But in the short run, it’s unquestionably less expensive because it doesn’t call for a big initial expenditure. You also have more freedom with monthly billing cycles because you can stop hosting at any time without suffering a significant financial loss.
Month-to-month plans can be a great option if you want high-quality hosting but are on a tight budget. Regretfully, depending on the length of the contract, determining the precise cost of hosting plans might be a little tricky. But don’t worry—we’re here to support you. We recently looked closely at the month-to-month prices of some of the most well-known hosting services available to help clear up the confusion. Below is a brief synopsis of our findings:
- DreamHost: Monthly billing begins at $4.95.
- Namecheap: Monthly billing begins at $2.88.
- Hostwinds: Monthly billing begins at $8.99.
- 1&1 IONOS: Monthly billing starts at $4/mo ($3/mo WordPress plans).
- Monthly billing for A2 Hosting starts at $10.99/mo ($5/mo for unmanaged VPS plans).
- Cloudways: Monthly billing begins at $10 per month. It provides cloud hosting exclusively.
- HostGator: Monthly billing at $10.95 ($11.68 with taxes) is the starting price.
- Monthly billing for SiteGround starts at $11.95; however, there is a $14.95 setup fee for the first month.
- GreenGeeks has a monthly billing rate of $9.95, but there is a $15 setup cost for the first month.
- Hostinger: Monthly billing begins at $9.99, however there is a $14.99 setup cost plus taxes for the first month.
We didn’t want to compile another list of the lowest web hosting companies for 2022, even if cost was one of the most crucial aspects we considered. Rather, we concentrated on businesses that provide good value to monthly payment plan subscribers.
First, DreamHost
There’s a very good reason why DreamHost is frequently at the top of lists such as these. In terms of functionality and cost, the company’s shared hosting packages are among the best available. DreamHost’s Shared Starter package, which costs just $4.95 per month if you want to use the monthly billing cycle, comes with everything you need to create and launch a new website, even if it’s not the cheapest option on this list. If you’re on an extremely tight budget, it might be harder to recommend the $10.95/mo Shared Unlimited plan, but its less expensive version is unquestionably a great deal.
DreamHost is a fantastic choice for WordPress-based website hosting, but it can manage any kind of project with ease. Affordable dedicated servers and cloud hosting options are also available, with virtual private servers starting at just $15 per month. At DreamHost, scalability is not an issue, and speed is typically excellent. There are many great things about DreamHost, like the nice array of helpful services that you would also be able to utilize.
Advantages and disadvantages
While it only allows one website, the Shared Starter service offers unlimited bandwidth, a free website builder, daily automated backups, a free SSL certificate, and domain privacy. DreamHost just unveiled a fairly interesting feature: a free automated site migration tool. Even though the tool only functions with WordPress websites, which is its primary drawback, it’s still a great addition to the service. Particularly when you take into account that the majority of hosting companies charge a hefty fee for site migrations. Naturally, DreamHost’s 97-day money-back guarantee and free domain names aren’t compatible with month-to-month subscription cycles.
The most evident drawback of the Shared Starter plan is that it does not include free email. A mailbox can be added to your bundle, but it will set you back $1.99 a month. As an alternative, you can purchase as many mailboxes as you like for no extra cost by opting for the $10.95/month Shared Unlimited plan. The fact that the entry-level shared hosting plan only offers 50 GB of storage—albeit on a speedy SSD drive—is another disadvantage that should be noted. While DreamHost does provide more storage than some of its rivals, some businesses, even those with the most affordable plans, don’t. Lastly, DreamHost offers live chat and ticket assistance around-the-clock, but no phone support.
2. Nameless
Namecheap started out as a less expensive alternative to domain registrars like GoDaddy, but over time it started to focus more on web hosting. Given its name, you may have assumed that this business specializes in providing inexpensive services. More precisely, if you choose to pay on a monthly basis, you may obtain a basic shared hosting package for just $2.88. The cost decreases to a mere $1.44 if you want to proceed with the annual contract. But the first term is the only one for which the 50% discount is valid. Following that, the annual plan renews at $2.88, in line with the monthly plan.
Namecheap offers incredibly cheap shared hosting packages in addition to an amazing price on managed WordPress services. The monthly cost of this kind of specialized hosting, which is typically rather expensive, is just $3.88. The best part, though, is that Namecheap’s first month of managed hosting just costs $0.01. That would be the same as providing free web hosting or a complimentary 30-day trial. Namecheap provides VPS and dedicated servers, with prices starting at $11.88 and $44.88, respectively, similar to DreamHost. We have to confess that Namecheap’s offer is really alluring, even though if you’re on a tight budget, a dedicated server isn’t actually the best option.
Advantages and disadvantages
You wouldn’t expect the cheapest hosting plan to have a lot of features given the low price of $2.88/mo, but the selection is actually not that bad. In addition to unmetered bandwidth, a free website builder, an SSL certificate, and free site migration, you get assistance for three websites right now. Although Namecheap makes a greater promise, it can move your website in less than a day. Your first year of hosting should be entirely free if the company breaks that commitment. That is an extremely generous offer that demonstrates Namecheap’s faith in its own offerings.
Conversely, the most affordable shared hosting package only offers 20 GB of storage and excludes automated backups. If you subscribe to the $4.88/mo plan, the restrictions disappear, but if you upgrade to the $8.88 plan, storage is once more restricted, this time to 50 GB. Although cloud storage is a part of the most costly plan, 50 GB is still a fairly little quantity for many webmasters. Aside from storage, it is quite unusual for the SSL certificate to expire free after the first year. The worst disadvantage might be the additional $1 monthly fee if you decide to host your website in a data center located in the United Kingdom. That raises the total to $3.88/month, although you can choose where your website is hosted and not pay the extra money, it must be said.
3. Winds of host
Specialized web hosting company Hostwinds focuses mostly on cloud hosting and virtual private servers. In addition, some extremely attractive shared hosting options are available, as well as reasonably priced (and customized) dedicated servers. Shared hosting is the least expensive option as usual, with a monthly starting price of $8.99. Even though it seems a little pricey in comparison to our first two choices, it’s still less expensive than the majority of hosting providers that accept monthly payments. Furthermore, in terms of the real value for the money, this is unquestionably a great offer.
Regarding affordability, it is difficult to dispute Hostwinds’ Linux-based VPS options, which start at $10.99 per month. Although the starter server is rather basic, you may quickly scale it to the next tier anytime you need a little more power. Regarding the cloud hosting packages, you may pay by the hour with Hostwinds, so you won’t have to worry about long billing cycles. Hostwinds is able to compete with major companies like DigitalOcean in the cloud hosting market due to its extremely affordable pricing.
Advantages and disadvantages
There are a lot of benefits to registering for a shared hosting package with Hostwinds. Unlimited bandwidth and SSD storage are included in the basic subscription, along with free website transfers, an SSL certificate, a free domain (with yearly paying), unlimited email addresses, and a free website builder. To find out more about the website builder in question, see our review of Weebly. Apart from the basic shared hosting plan, Hostwinds has two other packages that include support for multiple websites. Up to four websites can be supported with the $10.99/month plan, while an infinite number can be supported with the $12.99 plan.
Other than its money-back guarantee expiring after 14 days, Hostwinds doesn’t have many drawbacks. The good news is that, unlike other services, the return policy is applicable to monthly billing cycles. However, the business no longer accepts full refunds and now only processes prorated ones. Another thing that can irritate you is that Hostwinds requires you to register for an account on its website before displaying the costs for the different billing cycles. That is also not very beneficial for company, and it is a superfluous additional burden.
4. IONOS 1&1
You shouldn’t overlook 1&1 IONOS, a greatly underappreciated hosting firm, particularly if you’re searching for a business that accepts payments on a monthly basis with no conditions. Although there are certain restrictions on the plans, the costs are really great. The best part is that you can cancel at any time and acquire a simple shared hosting subscription for as low as $4 per month. Additionally, there is a $3/month WordPress option if you want to go even cheaper. The fact that 1&1 offers free domain names with domain privacy for the first year—even with monthly billing—is even more astounding. The cherry on top is that you may pay with PayPal right away and don’t have to waste any time completing personal information forms.
However, you’ll be relieved to hear that the business shared hosting plan starts at just $8 per month if that’s what you’re after. It’s already a great deal, but it gets better. Your first month of business hosting is available for just one dollar. There are no contracts to sign, and there are no setup costs. For potential new consumers who are interested in seeing what IONOS has to offer, this makes the business plan an amazing value proposition. A third shared hosting option, called Expert, is available as well; it costs $14 a month. Considering that this is the most costly plan, the price isn’t too bad.
Advantages and disadvantages
Although the price is a compelling enough reason to try the IONOS, you should always examine its features as well. Highlights include, among other things, SSL certificates, email accounts, daily site backups, DDoS protection, unmetered bandwidth, and 1-click installs for over 70 apps. As usual, you can unlock a few more features by upgrading to the following tier, and you can access all features by going all the way to Expert. The WordPress plans are also available at $1 per month, and they are similar to a hybrid of managed and unmanaged hosting.
Let’s examine IONOS’s limitations in more detail, as we have already stated them. Only 10 GB of storage, 512 MB of RAM, 10 email accounts, and 10 MySQL databases are included with the $4/month plan. The fact that 1&1 describes the performance level for each of the three shared hosting plans is another item that should raise some red flags, although it’s difficult to interpret the statements accurately. For example, the most costly package has a performance level of 5, whilst the cheapest product is stated to have a basic performance level. You could probably expect the performance to be mediocre given the low price, but it should be adequate for the majority of tiny websites.
5. Web hosting by A2
Another all-purpose service that aims to please everyone rather than concentrating on any one niche is A2 Hosting. And it succeeds, for the most part, no doubt. Together with virtual private servers and dedicated servers, the company offers reasonably priced shared and WordPress hosting options. Furthermore, A2 offers some of the most well-liked reseller hosting packages available, with first-term costs as low as $14.70 per month. Although reseller hosting can be quite profitable, it’s not really suited for novices, so if you’re on a tight budget, we suggest sticking with shared hosting.
In relation to that, A2 Hosting’s shared plan is $10.99 a month. Even though there are a few less expensive options available, that pricing is essentially the market average for services that accept month-to-month payments, so it’s difficult to argue with. You can get an unmanaged VPS for just $5 a month in the interim. That’s a great deal, but keep in mind that this kind of hosting is meant for tech-savvy consumers, and a basic server doesn’t have many features. Even yet, we can’t really gripe too much about it because it’s quite hard to find a VPS that affordable elsewhere else.
Advantages and disadvantages
The greatest benefit of A2 Hosting is its anytime money-back promise, however unless you choose a yearly or multi-annual paying cycle, that guarantee isn’t really useful. A free SSL certificate, Cloudflare CDN, 100 GB of SSD storage, limitless email accounts and bandwidth, a staging site, a free website builder, and other benefits are also included. In addition, if you choose to upgrade from the basic tier, you may select from four different data centers and receive automatic backups in addition to a few other helpful services from the organization.
Many excellent features are included with A2 Hosting’s plans; however, if you choose to stay with the $10.99/mo plan, you won’t be able to use most of them. One good example would be server backups, but there are other things like Site Accelerator, Turbo Mode, and performance plugins that you would be losing out on. However, the glaring flaw in this setup is the small amount of physical memory offered. With only 0.7 GB of RAM included in the base plan, performance should be rather mediocre. Of course, you can increase the amount of memory you have by upgrading your plan, but doing so will cost you at least $20 a month for a respectable quantity (2 GB).
6. Cloud-ways
One quite unusual illustration of a monthly web hosting service is Cloudways. In essence, the platform serves as a go-between for users and other cloud hosting companies, such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr. By registering with Cloudways, you may use the data centers and resources that those businesses own, along with some incredibly convenient features. Encouraging everyone to have access to cloud hosting is the aim here. The company facilitates the seamless integration of cloud hosting with content management systems such as WordPress and Magento, among other things.
With so many different hosting options available, Cloudways has something to suit any budget. With the least expensive package, you may use DigitalOcean’s data centers for just $10 a month. Beyond that, Vultr and Linode data centers are available for $11/ and $12/month, respectively. It really comes down to personal opinion because all three of the server requirements are the same. Plans for AWS and Google Cloud are obviously far more expensive. Apart from offering a monthly pricing option, Cloudways also facilitates a pay-as-you-go approach and provides a complimentary 3-day trial for new users.
Advantages and disadvantages
It’s astounding how many features Cloudways offers. A dedicated environment, SSD storage, firewalls, free site migration, automated backups, SSL certificates, and much more are all things you may anticipate. Since the firm exclusively offers managed hosting plans, you can also count on its staff of professionals to handle certain aspects of your server’s security and assist you with any technical problems you may encounter. The icing on the cake is that there are more than 50 data centers worldwide to select from.
However, you should be aware of a few drawbacks using Cloudways in addition to all of its wonderful features. The most evident is that shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers are not available here because the company only offers cloud-based services. Although the basic packages are quite affordable, they do have certain restrictions. especially in terms of resources. You can only use 25 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM, and your monthly bandwidth is limited to 1 TB.
7. GigaGator
Having been in business for almost 20 years, HostGator is an experienced domain registrar and hosting company. Even though HostGator has seen its share of ups and downs over the years, its accessibility and dependable customer service have helped it to stay one of the most well-liked suppliers. Regarding costs, they are rather typical, with the least expensive shared hosting package coming in at about $10.95 per month. Taxes are not included in that pricing, therefore the true cost of hosting for a month is more like $11.68.
While the company does provide additional hosting options such as VPS and dedicated servers, it is more difficult to suggest these for month-to-month payments. Then there are the Gator website builder plans, which have a monthly starting price of about $6. Gator functions similarly to websites such as Wix or Squarespace, where you may purchase an all-inclusive subscription that includes website building tools, hosting, domain name registration, and more. These kinds of platforms are excellent for novices, but Gator is currently quite simple and lacks many intriguing features.
Advantages and disadvantages
The least expensive package comes with almost everything you would expect. Although you only receive support for a single website, the plan comes with SSL certificates, limitless email addresses, eCommerce assistance, and a few other extras. You also don’t have to worry about bandwidth or storage. If you require assistance for more than one website, you can upgrade from the basic plan, but the other extra features aren’t particularly noteworthy. The free dedicated IP and SEO tools are the biggest draws, however they are exclusive to the most expensive plan.
There’s a small but growing reputation among customers of HostGator for trying to upsell. Granted, a lot of businesses could fit that description, but in this instance, the strategy is really aggressive. One reason is that when you try to purchase a hosting plan, the company’s website automatically chooses the one with the longest billing cycle, locking you into a three-year commitment. Additionally, a few alternative add-ons are also automatically added to your cart, pushing the final amount far above what you would likely want to pay.
8. Ground Zero
Although SiteGround is one of our top hosting companies, if you choose to pay month-to-month, its costs can be a little high. But for the time being, at least, the business is running a very alluring limited-time deal. For just $0.99, you can obtain shared web hosting for a duration of three months. That comes to just $0.33 a month, however there is a 3-month contract that you must sign. It will cost $15.95 a year to register a domain name if you don’t already have one. With that, the total cost comes to $16.94, or slightly less than $6 each month. That is an exceptionally kind offer, ideal for short-term tasks.
That is not all that you will have to pay once the promotion ends. With the caveat that you also have to pay a setup charge worth $14.95, the same basic shared hosting plan will typically cost you $3.95 per month, for a total of about $20. The package will continue to cost $11.95 a month after the first month. When you take into account that the setup charge for the other two shared hosting plans is $10 more expensive for no obvious reason, SiteGround’s payment mechanism seems a little arbitrary. If you can get beyond this minor issue, you’ll see that SiteGround makes an effort to give you a reasonable deal for your money.
Advantages and disadvantages
If you stick with the basic shared hosting plan, you will have access to SSD storage, a free SSL certificate for your CDN account, automated daily backups, spam protection, eCommerce support, and FTP accounts, among other things. You will also have unlimited databases, email accounts, and bandwidth. Additionally, SiteGround offers a really useful tool that makes it really simple to set up and customize WordPress websites. The basic package does not include a free site transfer, but you can get one by moving up to the next tier. You’ll also have access to some other helpful tools like on-demand backups if you do this.
Although SiteGround offers a lot of benefits, storage capacity is sadly not one of them. There’s a pitiful 10 GB available with the cheapest plan, and just 40 GB with the most expensive subscription. Another significant drawback of the basic plan is that it can only be used for solo projects because it does not let you add partners. It’s also important to keep in mind that, even if you have limitless access to databases and mailboxes, their sizes are limited.
9. Ecologist
As its name implies, GreenGeeks is all about being green and making every effort to use renewable energy to power its servers. Users who care about the environment can consider GreenGeeks because of their commendable cause. However, that isn’t the reason GreenGeeks is included. Apart from being environmentally sustainable, the company offers a variety of hosting services at affordable pricing. This covers reseller, VPS, shared, and WordPress hosting. Dedicated servers are the sole item lacking in this situation.
The price structure bears a strong resemblance to SiteGround’s. If you pick annual billing, you can receive your hosting for a lower price, but if you don’t mind paying a little bit more each month, you may also choose month-to-month billing. The starting price for shared hosting is $9.95 per month, but there’s also a one-time setup cost. Additionally, unless you already have a domain, you will need to spend an additional $13.95 for it as there is no free domain with monthly payment. When you first sign up, that raises the total to $38.90, including the domain. After the first month, your monthly payment will only be $9.95.
Advantages and disadvantages
A website builder, free website transfer, unlimited MySQL databases, nightly backups, eCommerce capabilities, SSL certificate, unmetered bandwidth and storage, and more are among the features, which are quite basic. Though the primary reason you would want to upgrade is the greater performance, you can also expect free dedicated IPs, a few more features, and improved performance upon reaching the higher tiers. The WordPress plans are essentially the same as the standard ones, except the CMS installation can be installed with just one click.
Other than the setup charge and the dearth of free domains, there aren’t many drawbacks to address here. It is noteworthy, however, that although you can purchase domain privacy separately from GreenGeeks for $9.95 a year, it is not included in the free package. You should expect to pay close to $50 up front if you choose to purchase a domain name with privacy when you sign up for a hosting package. In contrast, it costs about $70 to pay for an entire year in advance. Put another way, while GreenGeeks is difficult to suggest for monthly payment, it does get significantly less expensive after the first month.
10. Provider of Hosting
When it comes to inexpensive web hosting, Hostinger is on par with companies like Namecheap, at least when it comes to multi-year contracts. While Hostinger isn’t as simple to suggest as Namecheap when it comes to monthly fees, it’s still a good choice to consider. The main point is that a shared hosting plan is available for just $0.99 a month, but you have to sign a 4-year contract and pay in full up front. The price increases to $17.83 per month if you choose to pay on a monthly basis.
The massive disparity results from Hostinger charging a $4.99 setup fee in addition to $2.85 in taxes. The monthly cost of the hosting itself would just be $9.99 if those weren’t taken into consideration. By contrast, the total cost of payment for the full 4-year term, including taxes, would only come to $56.55. It goes without saying that in this instance, the multi-annual contract offers far better value for your money. However, we advise choosing the premium plan if you want to continue making monthly payments since it is somewhat more expensive ($19.02/mo) and offers a lot more features than the basic plan.
Advantages and disadvantages
Depending on your point of view, Hostinger’s unique price structure might be viewed as both an advantage and a disadvantage. If you adhere to the premium shared hosting plan, the features are decent enough on their own. In addition to two times the resources of the basic plan, you get unlimited bandwidth, email addresses, and support for an unlimited number of websites with this package. A free SSL certificate, domain name, weekly account backups, infinite databases, and other benefits are also included. As usual, more beneficial features can be unlocked by moving up to the higher stages.
If you’re wanting to pay on a monthly basis, the price of the basic shared hosting package alone makes it difficult to sell. However, when you look at what’s included, it becomes even worse. First of all, it’s quite bad that you can only create one domain email address and that the bandwidth is only 100 GB. Not only that, but there are also relatively few subdomains, databases, and FTP accounts, in addition to the lack of daily backups.
Comparing monthly billing to annual or multi-year contracts
Hosting companies, as you might expect, would rather you sign a long-term contract than choose a monthly billing schedule. If you choose the long-term option, the full duration—12, 24, 36, or more months—would require you to make payments in advance. This is one of the reasons businesses consistently advertise these contracts on their home sites, conveniently omitting to include the section where a sizable upfront commitment is required.
Hosting companies, with a few notable exceptions like as DreamHost or Namecheap, usually conceal the fact that they even allow month-to-month payments. It is not unusual to need to initiate the checkout procedure in order to view all of the billing cycles that are accessible. When you choose the month-to-month option there, you’ll frequently be shocked to see that there’s a significant discrepancy between the monthly price that is advertised and the actual monthly cost that you must pay.
Adopting a long-term contract has undoubtedly its drawbacks, but are there any perks as well? Without a doubt. If you choose this route, you will not have to worry about your hosting for a year or more after making the large upfront payment. Furthermore, businesses frequently give large discounts on yearly or multi-annual contracts, which will really help you save a ton of money over time. Even though the first term is typically the only time the discounted costs are offered, it’s still worthwhile.
Not many hosting companies offer monthly pricing, which is another crucial point to make. Many of the largest companies now operating on the market, such as Bluehost, InMotion Hosting, iPage, and numerous more, do not enable that choice. Put another way, if you don’t mind committing to a yearly subscription, you get access to a much wider range of organizations.
The features must also be taken into account, since some of them will not be accessible with month-to-month payments. Most notably, with their shared hosting plans, nearly all providers give away free custom domain names for the first year. Some even add domain privacy. This gift is typically only available with annual contracts, though. You may be missing out on a valuable feature as well: the money-back guarantee. While there are occasionally exceptions, refund policies generally don’t apply when you pay for your hosting plan on a monthly basis.
Even while monthly subscription has some disadvantages, many customers may find it to be a highly enticing alternative. For starters, since you didn’t initially invest much, you can terminate your hosting at any time without suffering a significant financial loss. In addition to being a very risk-free choice, monthly billing is also a terrific way to try out a service before committing to a lengthier payment plan. Of course, paying on a month-to-month basis is also advantageous for individuals on a tight budget who can only afford to make a little monthly payment rather than a significant upfront investment in web hosting.
Last Words
It was a little difficult to compile this list because so few hosting companies explicitly state that they accept monthly billing. The majority of businesses make every effort to persuade you to purchase a long-term plan, which is understandable from a commercial standpoint. The objective of this post was to outline the top monthly web hosting packages that we currently think exist; nevertheless, as each user has unique requirements and preferences, the final decision rests with you.
But in our opinion, if you’re searching for a service that strikes a nice balance between cost and features, you should definitely give DreamHost a try. If you’re looking for sheer cost, Namecheap is definitely your best option; on the other hand, Hostwinds is a little more expensive but provides much more value. While some of the other providers on the list are very beneficial in the short run, after the special discounts and offers stop, it becomes more difficult to suggest them.
