Have you decided to start an e-commerce, blog, non-profit, or another initiative that requires the creation of your own website? That’s great! Nowadays, there are wonderful opportunities for making a website, especially given the availability of CMS platforms that make it easier than ever before to create and maintain one.
But maybe you also have the uneasiness that nearly all budding online entrepreneurs and enthusiasts have: how much will the service cost you per month and are you able to choose a reliable plan at a reasonable price? In this blog article, we will tell you in detail exactly how much the monthly web hosting service you need will cost you and which type of hosting would be the best one for you.
Factors Determining the Cost of a Monthly Hosting Service
Month-to-month web hosting prices depend on various aspects, among which the following five are the most common:
- Type of web hosting: All web hosting types are made to respond to particular customers’ necessities. Therefore, the cost of the service also depends on the hosting type.
- The length of the plan period: The longer the contract, the lower the monthly hosting price is. And vice versa – the shorter the period of time for which you subscribe in advance, the more expensive the monthly hosting price is.
- The options and features included in the plan: A plan or package with more options (such as website builder, managed WordPress, and backups) will cost you more. But at the same time, it is much more profitable to prepay for these services in a package than turning them on additionally when a necessity arises unexpectedly.
- The host: Monthly hosting prices vary between different hosting companies depending on their region of origin, the different kinds of additional services they may offer, the customer support expertise, and more similar aspects. But what determines the price is not always the quality of the service as there are great hosting providers whose rates are permanently low.
Check the Current Promotions Before Buying Your Month-to-Month Web Hosting
Competition in the field of web hosting market is very high indeed. This is the reason why promotions are quite frequent, sometimes even year-round, and very often you can save up to 50% (in some cases, you could save even more than 60-70%).
Before choosing your monthly hosting plan, it is advisable to check the prices of at least 4-5 hosting companies in advance. If you have time to do that, why don’t you check even more than 4-5? Through a detailed individual investigation of all web hosting products and their prices, you can find exactly which hosting company offers the best ratio of price-quality-quantity. Competition is so huge that no matter what time of the year you need to make a web hosting subscription, you will always be able to find the right one for you at a promotional price.
Prices of the Different Types of Monthly Hosting
Shared Web Hosting
It is the cheapest option due to its main feature: the server space on which the site data is stored is shared between your and many other websites. Thereby, websites use the same storage space, resources, and processing capacity. The low price comes precisely from the lower cost of the overall maintenance.
The most affordable type of plan is irreplaceable for enthusiasts who have just created their personal or non-profit website or blog. And it is perfect for just-beginning businesses, e-commerce, or affiliate marketing initiatives as well.
Depending on the amount of disk space and bandwidth, the shared hosting by Hostens could cost you per month as much as a regular cotton t-shirt you could use for fitness. But if you prepay the shared hosting plan for the next 3 years, then the monthly fee will cost you as much as a can of light beer or a 100g bar of milky chocolate.
The only significant disadvantage of the shared type of hosting is that, from time to time, some performance issues and security concerns might appear. Specifically, what we are talking about is the possibility that your website might sometimes suffer due to malicious attacks against other websites sheltered on the same physical server. Similarly, for certain periods of time (usually up to an hour or two), traffic to your site might be temporarily limited because someone else’s site is attracting too many visitors at that particular period of time. Apart from these two cons above, which could appear as problems from time to time, a shared hosting plan is a great solution for your brand-new website.
VPS Web Hosting
A virtual private server (VPS) is a hosting service that is very suitable for websites that have really huge traffic. Its main feature is that many sites share space on a common physical server, just like a shared server does. But unlike a shared server, VPS enforces virtual boundaries that provide individual server space and resources for each individual website sheltered on the huge physical server. That means that websites based on the same physical server could function separately and unattached from each other.
If you pay monthly, a Linux-based VPS hosting by Hostens could roughly cost you as much as a cheap pair of everyday shoes. If you prepay for 3 years in advance, a Linux VPS could cost you monthly no more than the price amount of a kilo of fresh tomatoes. Windows-based VPS prices tend to be more expensive, with the monthly price ranging from approximately a dinner at a regular restaurant (if paid month-to-month) to a big sandwich at a fast-food chain (if the amount is prepaid at once for a period of 3 years forth).
The server space that a VPS server could guarantee is suitable for international sites or huge national websites, such as news portals, which need a lot of traffic on a daily basis. The prices of this type of plan are significantly higher than those of the shared server.
Dedicated Web Hosting
This is the most expensive type of plan as the physical server is used by only one client. The average monthly cost of using a dedicated hosting plan is roughly the same as buying an occasional wintery jacket made of nice fabric.
Typically, such servers are needed for websites that require a really huge amount of memory. Such are torrent trackers, video-sharing portals, banks, online libraries, etc. It is not suitable for low or medium-traffic sites due to the simple fact that their actual storage and bandwidth necessities are much lower.
Since the dedicated server is self-contained, users have full control over it, and they can customize it so it can fit all their privacy, security, and process criteria, and even some additional caprices. All these responsibilities might be transferred to the hosting provider when the dedicated server is “managed”, but such an upgrade could affect the price, which could rise even more than that of a decent wintery jacket).
Reseller Web Hosting
This is not just a type of plan offered by many hosting companies but also a business opportunity to earn passive income by renting out server space without having to maintain a physical server at your home.
Depending on disk space and bandwidth, the monthly price of a reseller hosting plan by Hostens can approximately range from that of a good book (if paid month-to-month) to the price of an office lunch (if paid for 3 years in advance).
Usually, with this type of plan, each of the sub-clients (i.e., your clients) has their own control panel provided. As a reseller, you should take care of providing decent technical customer support service and billing your customers. But the reseller host (you) could rely on the primary provider to resolve huge technical issues, ensure additional server space when necessary, and add extra options for individual sub-customers should they need any.
Other Expenses of Creating and Maintaining a Website
Domain
The domain name is a component of the URL address that you could choose on your own. Examples of domain addresses are UN.org, CNN.com, Euornews.net, etc. Depending on the purpose you will be using the website for, the domain could contain any of the following few exemplary elements:
- The name of your brand, e-commerce website, or non-profit organization
- Your personal name (in case your site is needed for a blog)
- A catchy keyword or phrase related to your website’s topic
- Any other kind of component you consider important
You could purchase a domain from any hosting company you want, even if you are planning to use the hosting services of another company. The standard registration fee of a .COM, .ORG, or .NET domain is like that of a crunchy burger. As hosting providers often give discounts on the price of the domain to their customers, it is usually more profitable to register a domain on the website of the same provider that you will be using to subscribe for the hosting service. In addition, almost all hosting companies have transfer fees for domains purchased from other hosting companies, and this is another expense that you could save by ordering a domain from your hosting provider.
What is more, some hosting companies, such as Hostens, even offer completely free domains, which you could take advantage of if you use their hosting services (some of Hostens’ free domains are .SITE, .WEBSITE, .TECH, .ONLINE, .STORE). For that reason, we would recommend you buy a domain for your website from the site of the hosting provider you intend to subscribe to.
SSL Certificate
Not all sites need an SSL certificate. But in case your website is going to collect the personal data of your visitors, then it would be good to ensure their security and peace of mind by letting them know that their data will be protected (all the websites that are SSL-protected have their URLs started with HTTPS instead of the regular HTTP). Also, secured websites have better chances to appear higher on Google when searching keywords.
Some web hosting providers offer SSL certificates together with their regular hosting plans. And others make discounts for users of their hosting services. But in most cases, this price is not included in the usual hosting package as most users prefer not to pay for things that they do not know if they will really need. Virtually, an SSL certificate is only needed when a site works with personal data. It encrypts the private data of the customers so it would be impossible for any malicious actor to illegally acquire it and thereafter commit potential crimes with it.
There are three types of validation of SSL certificates, and all of them are available on Hostens:
- Domain-validated: The certifying authority will ask you to confirm the ownership of your domain before issuing the certificate to you. This is the cheapest type of validation, and it annually costs as much as a bottle of regular red wine. It is good enough for websites requiring any kind of registration.
- Organization-validated: The certifying authority will check the name of your organization and if it is legally registered, as well as the validity of your contact details. It costs per year as much as a decent smartphone, and it is great for medium e-commerce businesses.
- Extendedly validated: Besides the legal status, your organization’s name, and the validity of your contact details, the certifying authority will also check your organization’s location before providing you with the SSL certificate. Being useful for banks, medical centers, universities, and other public and private institutions processing private data, its annual cost is roughly as much as an average-sized modern television set for your living room.
Virtual Private Network (VPN) Service
A common additional service that hosting companies offer is a Virtual Private Network (VPN). It is a service that is not usually necessary for website owners, and it is more likely used by website visitors. But it still finds its application with website owners who would like to see how their website looks like in different regions of the world. Some e-commerce sites, for example, may offer prices in dollars for customers from the United States, but also prices in euros in any eurozone member state of the EU. A VPN can help website owners to verify that the information their site provides is regionally valid.
VPN ensures a secure and protected connection when surfing the internet by encrypting your traffic and hiding your identity in real-time. Thus, VPN makes it quite more difficult for malicious activities to steal personal data from you.
VPNs are often used in countries with dictatorial regimes that restrict freedom of speech and information. Thanks to this technology, many people who live in these authoritarian societies have access to alternative information to the local propaganda of power.
A monthly VPN subscription is relatively cheap. Usually, it costs less than a cup of fancy Italian ice cream.
Final Words
When it comes to hosting companies specifically, quality and reputation are two completely different concepts. We would like to remind you that contrary to common perceptions nowadays, “expensive” is not synonymous with “qualitative”. You can get high-quality hosting services at a low price, one of the options being Hostens with their 4.8 out of 5 stars on the prestigious Trustpilot service that ranks websites by letting real users rate and write genuine reviews.
As you have already read this blog article, you now know what to look for when choosing an affordable and high-quality hosting provider. You just need to spend no more than an hour researching the prices and services offered by different hosts and make the right individual choice of a decent month-to-month web hosting plan.