How Much Does Web Hosting Cost? A Complete breakdown
How much does it actually cost to host a website?
For most websites, web hosting costs between €2 and €40 per month. This refers to shared hosting, which is the cheapest type of hosting. Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, can cost more than €1000 per month.
Between these two extremes, you'll find countless options in between. There are many types of hosting you can choose from. There are also quite a few variables that determine exactly what hosting you need for your site and how much it will cost.
In this article, I'll cover all types of hosting and what you can expect to pay for them. By the end, you'll know exactly which type of hosting is right for your website. I'll also share tips on finding the best budget-friendly hosting providers.
What does web hosting cost: types of web hosting and pricing
| Type Hosting | Costs | Best suited for |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Hosting | $2.17 – $54.37 per month | Suitable for most websites, especially for smaller sites or medium-sized websites with between 20,000-50,000 monthly visitors. |
| VPS Hosting | €5 – €200 per month | Perfect for medium to large websites with over 50,000 monthly visitors, especially e-commerce sites or those handling sensitive data. |
| Cloud Hosting | $11 – $440 per month | Best for larger, fast-growing websites that need resource flexibility. It's more robust and distributes the website across multiple servers. |
| Dedicated Hosting | €500 per month or more | Generally for websites with millions of monthly visitors or websites of large multinational corporations. |
Shared hosting
With shared web hosting, you share a web server with other websites. This makes it the most affordable form of hosting available. Most websites run on this type of hosting.
How much does shared hosting cost?
Shared hosting typically costs between €2 and €40 per month.
The exact costs depend on the quality of the hosting provider and the hosting plan you choose. I'll illustrate this using a few hosting plans from Cloud86:
You can get hosting from Cloud86 for less than €2 per month. However, you'll receive less support with this option compared to their more expensive plans. Additionally, your site will load somewhat slower with this plan.
For just one euro more, you can purchase their Webhosting Medium plan. This allows you to run a small online store, which isn't possible with their cheapest plan. You'll also receive comprehensive support and can install up to 10 websites on this plan instead of just two.
What about those really expensive shared hosting plans?
An example of this is the SiteGround GoGeek plan which costs just over €40 after renewal:
Here are a few reasons why this costs so much compared to those cheaper plans from Cloud86 that I just showed you:
- You get 24/7 customer support with just a few minutes' wait time.
- SiteGround runs on the Google Cloud Platform and has servers in 7 locations worldwide.
- You can install as many sites as you want with this plan.
- The plan can handle up to 400,000 monthly visitors.
For your first website, you probably won't need all of this. If you're just starting out, I recommend beginning as inexpensively as possible and only upgrading to a more expensive hosting plan when you actually need it.
Which websites are suitable for shared hosting?
For most websites, shared hosting is the best solution. If you're starting a website for the first time, it's smart to use shared hosting. I personally use it for all my new sites and only migrate a site to another type of hosting once it reaches roughly 20,000 monthly visitors.
VPS hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. Similar to shared hosting, you share a physical server with other websites, but you get your own virtual partition on this server.
You can read more about VPS hosting here.
How much does VPS hosting cost?
VPS hosting costs between €5 and €200 per month.
VPS hosting under 50 euros typically doesn't include management services.
VPS hosting plans with robust specifications that are managed for you typically cost at least 100 euros.
For which websites is VPS hosting suitable?
A VPS is suitable for medium-sized websites, starting from 50,000 monthly visitors. However, this isn't an exact science: for example, e-commerce sites that use substantial resources might logically benefit from setting up a VPS with far fewer visitors.
A VPS is also a smart choice for websites that handle a lot of sensitive data.
Remember, setting up an unmanaged VPS does require some technical knowledge.
Cloud hosting
With cloud hosting, your website is spread across multiple servers. This makes it a more robust solution than both VPS and shared hosting. Should one server ever fail, other servers can step in to fill the gap.
You can read more about cloud hosting here.
How much does cloud hosting cost?
Cloud hosting is available from as little as $10 per month with providers like CloudWays.
Cloudways' customer service can be somewhat inconsistent, but their hosting is fundamentally user-friendly and easy to set up.
A provider like SiteGround offers better customer service but costs at least €80 per month:
In my opinion, their cloud hosting isn't worth the money.
Which websites are suitable for cloud hosting?
Cloud hosting is an excellent choice for larger, rapidly growing websites that need flexibility in resources. You can easily scale cloud hosting up or down as needed. For example, if you're expecting a large surge in visitors, you can request additional server resources to handle this influx.
Websites typically don't need cloud hosting until they've been around for a few years.
Dedicated hosting
With dedicated hosting, you have a server entirely for yourself. You don't share any resources with other websites.
How much does dedicated hosting cost?
For dedicated hosting, you typically pay €500 per month or more.
Some websites pay thousands of euros per month for their dedicated hosting.
For which websites is dedicated hosting suitable?
Generally, these are websites that receive millions of visitors per month, or websites belonging to large multinational corporations.
WordPress hosting
You may have come across the term “WordPress hosting” before. WordPress hosting can be shared hosting, but it could also be cloud hosting, for example.
The term actually refers to additional services offered by hosting providers to make their hosting more suitable for WordPress sites. This includes extra security, automatic updates, and a helpdesk staffed with WordPress experts.
You can read more about WordPress hosting here.
Additional web hosting costs to consider
When setting up web hosting, there are often some “hidden” costs that you might not immediately think about when starting a website. Here are the most important ones.
Domain Name Registration
Usually costs between €9 and €17 per year.
You can register a domain name with most web hosting providers. Some hosting providers offer a free domain name for the first year.
Email service
Usually costs between €7 and €10 per user per month.
Many hosting providers offer free email, but these email services are often nothing to write home about. Eventually, you'll end up turning to a paid service like Google Workspace or Outlook.
How much does it cost to change web hosts?
If you do it yourself, it's free. Some premium web hosting providers will do it for you in the form of a free migration. Other hosting providers can also do it for you, but typically charge around $50 for the service.
Why you shouldn't try to pay as little as possible for hosting
It makes sense that you'd want to save money on hosting when you're just starting out as a freelancer or when you're setting up a website as a hobby project.
When your business is generating substantial revenue, it no longer makes sense to pinch pennies. At this stage, please spend more than just a few dollars per month on your web hosting. For €13.95 per month (the price after renewal), you can already get lightning-fast hosting with phone support from a provider like Cloud86.
