Bluehost Choice Plus Plan Review (Should You Get This Plan or the Basic Plan?)

Looking for a reliable and feature-rich web hosting solution? This Bluehost Choice Plus Review has got you covered. In this post, I’ll provide an in-depth analysis of this popular plan, highlighting its benefits and drawbacks to help you make an informed decision.

In my review of Bluehost, I have covered the key features and pros and cons of this beginner-friendly web hosting service. Here I will zoom in on their Choice Plus plan.

It’s a plan that is on the higher end of the pricing scale and therefore offers some extra goodies that the more serious website creator may be interested in. But, and it is a big but, Bluehost is known for its price hikes once the rather attractive promotional period has expired. 

Are these extra features enough to make you swallow the cost and continue with the Choice Plus plan? That’s what I’m here to find out.

TL;DR: the Bluehost Choice Plus plan has a good range of features and generous plan limits. However, users may want to eventually change providers as its standard rates are expensive compared with competitors, and some features stop after 12 months.

What Is Bluehost and the Choice Plus Plan?

Bluehost is a web hosting company that specializes in several different types of web hosting. It is owned by Newfold Digital Inc. (formerly Endurance International Group) and was initially established in 2003.

The platform can provide you with hosting solutions for online stores, WordPress, WooCommerce, and standard shared hosting, along with VPS and dedicated hosting for large organizations and corporate websites.

The Choice Plus plan is part of the shared hosting options and is a higher-tier plan with premium features.

Bluehost Choice Plus Plan: Features at a Glance

Out of Bluehost’s four shared hosting plans, its Choice Plus plan is the second most expensive. That also means it’s got the second-highest number of features and limits. Here they are at a glance:

• Free domain for the first year
• Host an unlimited number of websites
• Up to 200k visits per month and 40 GB worth of storage
• Free website migration and staging
• SEO tools like Yoast SEO
• Email marketing included
• Enhanced security, including daily backups (first year only) and domain privacy
• Multi-site management
• Automatic security updates
• Performance analytics
• WordPress plugin management
• Free SSL certificate and Cloudflare CDN enabled
• Client invoicing
• 24/7 chat support and office hours phone support (EST)
• Access to premium WordPress website themes for free
• Free $100 Google ads credits

Why Choose Bluehost Choice Plus Plan?

Here I’ve highlighted a few things that stand out to me on the Choice Plus plan.

More Generous Limits

Since we’re on a higher-tier plan here, it makes sense that the plan limits would be more generous. And they certainly do jump up from the previous plan.

For example, the Plus plan offers a 50k visitor limit, whereas the Choice Plus plan shoots straight up to 200k visits with nothing in between. Similarly, the amount of SSD storage is doubled to 40 GB SSD storage on Choice Plus.

Interestingly, the server performance remains standard – the same as the other lower-tier plans. You don’t get “high” performance unless you go one step further and upgrade to the Pro plan.

Enhanced Security

All of Bluehost hosting plans offer malware scanning as standard, but on the Choice Plus plan, you do have a couple of nice extras. 

Firstly, you get full domain privacy. This protects your personal data in Whois records from being displayed to unauthorized persons. This means that nefarious individuals keen on identity theft won’t be able to nab and use yours.

Also, you get a daily website backup service included. But here’s the kicker. It’s only for the first year. After that, it’s unclear how often these backups occur, as it doesn’t say. 

However, I did some digging in Bluehost’s knowledge base, and it states they perform backups daily, weekly, or monthly. So one would assume it would drop to weekly or monthly after the first year.

Officially Endorsed by WordPress

WordPress – the undisputed king of websites – is a respected authority, so if it says something is good, well, then it must be good.

To be endorsed by WordPress is an accolade worth mentioning, and Bluehost is one of a select handful of hosting providers that WordPress officially recommends.

This means that it provides a reliable and stable hosting service where WordPress sites can happily sit and run smoothly and at optimum speeds. And who doesn’t like a smooth-running website?

Access to Pro Tools

Here’s where it gets good. The Choice Plus plan gives you access to a raft of goodies that the lower-tier plans don’t offer. 

First of all, you get multi-site management. This means you can manage all of your websites from the same control panel without having to log out of one thing to use another. Super convenient.

Secondly, the site will automatically scan for and perform any available updates. This ensures your sites are always running on the latest software versions, which helps prevent issues and site lag.

Thirdly, you get access to one-click staging. This allows you to create a clone of your website, allowing you to test out any changes or additions without damaging the original site. So if you manage to install something dodgy, it won’t have any effect on you whatsoever. You simply delete the cloned site and move on.

Lastly, you can view your sites’ performance analytics to see where they can be further optimized, manage your plugins from the control panel, and perform client invoicing too.

All-in-all, these are some neat tools that make the upgrade worthwhile.

Great Support

Nothing is more painfully annoying than having an issue and being unable to reach someone to resolve it. Fortunately, Bluehost has 24/7 chat support, so you can get in touch whenever needed. 

Of course, I couldn’t resist testing it out. At the time, I was in a European time zone (I know… I’m such a jet setter!), and I only had to wait about five minutes for a response. 

I felt that was a pretty quick wait and also important because Bluehost’s phone service is limited to EST (eastern standard time) office hours, thus making it largely inconvenient for anywhere outside of the Americas.

Who Is the Bluehost Choice Plus Plan For?

I’d say that the Choice Plus plan is a good option for anyone with low to medium hosting needs, particularly if they’re WordPress sites. Bluehost is fairly uncomplicated and easy to use, making it ideal for hosting newcomers too.

However, larger businesses or agencies may be disappointed with the lack of features on offer, particularly where daily backups are concerned.

I feel that anyone managing more than a couple of websites will get frustrated having to eventually perform manual backups each day.

Bluehost Choice Plus Plan Pros and Cons

Pros

• Generous plan limits
• Host unlimited websites
• WordPress hosting with automatic WordPress installation
• Use of the pro tools, including staging
• Free domain for the first year (domain privacy protection can be added)
• Unlimited email accounts
• Access to the Bluehost website builder
• Decently available customer support
• Endorsed by WordPress.org
• Automatic backups
• Bluehost cPanel control panel

Cons

• The price increases dramatically once the promotional period ends
• No uptime guarantee
• Daily backups only included for the first year
• No dedicated IP address

Bluehost Choice Plus Plan Pricing

Bluehost has two contract options for its Choice Plus plan:

• 12-month contract: From $5.45/month paid annually (Best Deal)
• 36-month contract: From $7.45/month paid annually

Note: The Bluehost pricing page states that a 12-month contract costs From $5.45/month, paid annually. However, a popup appears when you click through to the payment page, giving you a better promotional rate of $4.95/month, along with free domain privacy.

As is common with hosting providers (including the Bluehost hosting plans), you get a low promotional rate for your first term. When contract renewal rolls around, the price jumps up. In Bluehost’s case, the normal cost is $19.99/month.

Try with confidence, as Bluehost provides a 30-day money-back guarantee with all its hosting plans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary – Bluehost Choice Plus Review For 2023

Overall, I don’t think the Bluehost Choice Plus plan is a bad option. It’s a known-to-be reliable service from a robust platform and trusted hosting provider. Your website will be safe on Bluehost’s servers.

However, I don’t think it’s one of the best Bluehost shared hosting plans, because the jump from the promotional rate to its standard rate is a little hard to swallow and disproportionate to competitor pricing, particularly when I don’t feel you’re getting anything special for the price.

I fear that while it’s a great choice during the promotional period, as soon as the price jumps, you’ll also be jumping ship to a cheaper platform.

If you’re keen to try Bluehost and make use of its promotional rate, you should sign up straightaway (remember you are covered by Bluehost’s 30-day money-back guarantee).