After the success of our guide to the Best Shared Web Hosting Services, we got enquiries as to why we don’t recommend cheaper web hosts to help readers looking for cheap web hosting for their first blog or site. The quick answer to that is – ‘You get what you pay for’. We, too like a lot of webmasters and bloggers started with cheap hosting services. We soon realized that the amount of time we were spending in trying to contact customer support, dealing with downtime issues etc was inhibiting our ability to focus on actual value generating activities for our blog. Hence, we moved over to a better host and now avoid recommending cheap hosts for our newer sites. However, we understand that there are some readers who would like to try out their first blog with minimal investment and hence have compiled this list of the top cheap web hosts.
Top Cheap Web Hosting Companies
1. 1&1 Web Hosting
| Rank | 2 |
| Hosting Costs (Annual Plan) | |
| Starter Hosting Plan* | $8 / mo. |
| Unlimited Domain Hosting | $10 / mo. |
| First Year Discounted Rate for Single Domain Hosting | $0.99 / mo. |
| Platforms | Linux & Windows |
| Customer Support | Average |
| Pros | Free Domain Name. SiteLock and CDN included in Middle Tier Plans. Windows Hosting Available. SSL Certificate Included. |
| Cons | Average Quality and Reliability of Service. |
| Key USP | Good for small e-commerce stores who need SSL. |
| Overall Score | 5.6/10 |
1and1 is another good provider who provides cheap web hosting with some great features included like an SSL certificate, CDN and SiteLock basic. It also has a website builder and provides a soft limit of 20 websites on its starter plan. It also has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Another positive point is that 1and1 offers Window’s shared hosting as well. Get started with 1and1 now.
*Note: This allows hosting unlimited domains but caps the number of databases to 20 thereby effecting a 20 site limit unless you are hosting static HTML websites.
2. NameCheap Web Hosting
| Rank | 3 |
| Hosting Costs (Annual Plan) | |
| Single Domain Hosting | $2.57 / mo. (Up to 3 websites) |
| Unlimited Domain Hosting | $4.4 / mo. |
| First Year Discounted Rate for Single Domain Hosting | $1.25 / mo. |
| Platforms | Linux |
| Customer Support | Average |
| Pros | Lowest First Year Discounted Rate, Cheapest Renewal Rates. |
| Cons | Average Quality and Reliability of Service. |
| Key USP | Good for someone who wants a web host which is virtually free for the first year |
| Overall Score | 5.4/10 |
NameCheap makes it pretty clear that this is the cheapest web hosting service around. Its starter plan comes at $2.88 per month while the hosting costs only $1.25 per month for the initial year. It has a reasonable set of basic features for you to try out your blog or first website. Get started with NameCheap now.
Summary of the Best Cheapest Web Hosting Companies
These are the top cheapest web hosting providers in the market. Here is a summary of the rankings of each web hosting service along with the link to their website.
| Rank | Company | Score |
| 1 | 1&1 Web Hosting | 5.6/10 |
| 2 | NameCheap Web Hosting | 5.4/10 |
The focus of this guide was to provide the list of the top cheap hosting providers, which are not necessarily the best. As we have mentioned earlier, we would not advise you to opt for any of these providers and go with one of the best share web hosting providers instead.
Do let us know which web hosting company you chose for your blog or website using the comments section below.
Also Read: Guide to Web Hosting, Best VPS Hosting Providers, Best Web Hosting for Small Businesses and Blogs.
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