Bluehost hosts over 2 million websites and has earned a reputation as a trusted web hosting brand. Here I explore and explain the Bluehost pricing plans and ways you can save money.
If you have read my Bluehost review then you might be ready to pull out your credit card and get started with Bluehost.
But before you do, I will show you how the Bluehost pricing structure works so you can pick the best plan for you and your budget.
Get up to 60% off on hosting
From $2.95 per month
How Much Does Bluehost Cost?
Bluehost offers an impressive range of web hosting options, with everything from cheap shared hosting to high-end dedicated servers.
Prices start $2.95/month (for your initial term, I’ll go into this more later), and there’s even a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it risk-free before committing to a subscription.
Bluehost Shared Hosting
At the cheapest end of the spectrum, Bluehost offers four shared hosting plans. Advertised prices from $2.95/month, but these are only accessible with an initial three-year plan.
For starters, the Basic shared hosting plan allows you to build one website with up to 50 GB of SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth. You will also get a free SSL certificate and a free domain for the first twelve months.
I’ve personally used this plan before, and I actually quite like it. It includes everything you need to create a simple site, and it’s affordable.
But before I move on, I want to just take a minute to explain the deceptive (industry-standard) Bluehost pricing plans.
Now, the advertised price of $2.95/month for the Basic plan is only available with an initial three-year subscription. This first-term low introduction pricing is industry-standard, but with exceptions.
- 12 months costs $4.95 per month.
- 24 months costs $3.95 per month.
- 36 months costs $2.95 per month.
Get up to 60% off on hosting
From $2.95 per month
On top of this, the plan renews at $7.99 per month. That’s almost three times higher than the advertised price, which could be a major issue for some.
Moving on, the Choice Plus plan (from $5.45/month, renews at $10.99) support unlimited websites and storage with unlimited domains, subdomains, and parked domains.
A Choice Plus subscription also comes with domain privacy and site backup through the CodeGuard Basic program.
The Online Store plan starts from $9.95/month and comes with WooCommerce online store builder and is ideal for anyone looking to launch an online shop.
And finally, the Pro plan (from $13.95/month, renews at $23.99) comes with everything in the Choice Plus plan, as well as a dedicated IP address and lower-density servers.
PRO TIP
You can take advantage of marketing credits included in the Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro Plans. The marketing credits take on the form of the following:
- Bing Ads. Redeem $100 credit by logging into a Bing Ads account. With Bing Ads, there are no spending limits.
- Google Ads. Redeem $100 credit by logging into a Google Ads account and spending not less than $25 on your Google Ads campaign.
| Basic | Choice Plus | Online Store | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSD Storage | 50GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free SSL | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Performance | Standard | Standard | Standard | High |
| Free Domain | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Domain Privacy | N/A | N/A | Included | Included |
| Codeguard Site Backup | N/A | N/A | Included | Included |
| Dedicated IP Address | N/A | N/A | N/A | Included |
| Monthly Price | $2.95/month | $5.45/month | $9.95/month | $13.95/month |
Bluehost WordPress Hosting
Bluehost also offers a selection of shared and managed WordPress hosting plans. The three low-end WordPress shared plans are actually identical to the standard shared hosting options, and they even have the same name and price tag (Basic, Plus, Choice Plus).
However, there are also three fully-managed WordPress plans which are much more powerful. Prices start from $19.95 per month for a Build plan (renews at $29.99), which comes with a range of advanced WordPress tools.
For example, it includes daily backups, malware detection and removal, and an integrated marketing center, among other things.
The Grow plan (from $29.95 per month) adds Jetpack Premium, Bluehost SEO tools, and Blue Sky Ticket support.
And finally, a Scale subscription starts from $49.95 per month and comes with everything in the Grow plan, as well as Jetpack Pro, unlimited video compression, and a range of other advanced tools.
Ultimately, the Bluehost prices for managed WordPress hosting are significantly higher than for shared hosting, but you absolutely get what you pay for here.
Bonus Info Related to WordPress
In 2021, the company rolled out its new Bluehost Website Builder for WordPress. This is a drag-and-drop website builder that allows you to create a professional-looking WordPress for business or personal use.
The tool is designed to be user-friendly for both beginners and advanced WordPress users. Those who want to take advantage of the Website Builder can create new websites via Bluehost, but still retain access to everything in their website via WordPress.
The features of the Bluehost Website Builder for WordPress include:
- Drag-and-drop editing, with no coding required; any section of the user’s website can be edited using the drag-and-drop editor; after publishing their website, users can continue to utilize live changes to check any edits to their site in real-time
- Smart templates recommended by Bluehost; suggested templates are generated based on information provided by users when they sign up for the Website Builder
- Access to a library containing hundreds of stock images and custom fonts; although fonts can be uploaded using the Website Builder
- All design elements optimized for mobile devices, including all the smart templates mentioned earlier
- One-click WordPress login that allows users to move back and forth between platforms; all users of the Website Builder still get to retain 100 percent ownership of their website content
| Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSD Storage | 50GB | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | Included | Included | Included |
| Free SSL | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic WordPress Installs | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic WordPress Updates | Included | Included | Included |
| Codeguard Site Backup | N/A | N/A | Included |
| Office 365 Mailbox | N/A | Included | Included |
| Monthly Price | From $2.95 per month | $5.45 | $5.45 |
Bluehost VPS Hosting
If you need something a little more powerful than shared hosting, one of Bluehost’s VPS plans could be the right option. They are a little simplistic and lack the customizability of some competitors, but they aren’t too expensive.
For starters, the cheapest Standard VPS plan costs from $18.99 per month for an initial subscription and renews at $29.99 per month.
It includes two CPU cores, 30 GB of dedicated SSD storage, 2 GB of RAM, 1 TB of bandwidth, and one IP address.
The Enhanced plan (from $29.99 per month) adds more server resources, while the Ultimate plan ($59.99 per month) includes four CPU cores, 120 GB of SSD storage, 8 GB of RAM, 3 TB of bandwidth, 2 IP addresses, and more.
| Standard | Enhanced | Ultimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cores | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| SSD Storage | 30GB | 60GB | 120GB |
| Bandwidth | 1TB | 2TB | 3TB |
| Free SSL | Included | Included | Included |
| RAM | 2GB | 4GB | 8GB |
| Free Domain | Included | Included | Included |
| Enhanced Control Panel | Included | Included | Included |
| Free Backups | Included | Included | Included |
| IP Addresses | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Monthly Price | $18.99 | $29.99 | $59.99 |
Bluehost Dedicated Server Hosting
At the higher end of its hosting range, Bluehost offers three dedicated server options. Prices range from $79.99 to $119.99 per month but, like the VPS plans, these are quite simplistic compared to the options many competitors offer.
For example, there is very little information available about what sort of hardware is used.
The cheapest Standard plan (from $79.99 per month) simply comes with a four-core 2.3 GHz CPU (which is quite slow), 500 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM, 5 TB of bandwidth, and three IP addresses.
Overall, Bluehost’s dedicated server plans are a little too simplistic for my liking, and I’d recommend looking elsewhere if you need a high-end hosting solution.
PRO TIP
Given that Bluehost is a US company, its primary servers are located within Utah: one at Provo City and the other at Orem City. Apart from its US hosting operations, Bluehost also offers hosting services for the Indian market, via Bluehost India (bluehost.in), and for the Chinese market, through Bluehost China (cn.bluehost.com and bluehost.cn).
| Standard | Enhanced | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cores | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| SSD Storage | 500GB (mirrored) | 1TB (mirrored) | 1TB (mirrored) |
| Bandwidth | 5TB | 10TB | 15TB |
| Free SSL | Included | Included | Included |
| RAM | 4GB | 8GB | 16GB |
| Free Domain | Included | Included | Included |
| Root Access | Included | Included | Included |
| Free Backups | Included | Included | Included |
| IP Addresses | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Monthly Price | $79.99 | $99.99 | $119.99 |
What Are the Best Ways to Save Money With Bluehost?
Although Bluehost is already one of the cheapest web hosting providers in the world, there are still plenty of ways to save money on your subscription. These include:
Sign Up for a Long-Term Plan
Since Bluehost offers significant discounts for long-term subscriptions, I’d highly recommend signing up for three years, to begin with. The Basic shared hosting plan essentially gives you a year for free. And don’t forget, you can also request a refund within the first 30 days with most plans.
Buy Your Domain Elsewhere
At first glance, Bluehost’s domains appear quite cheap. For example, .com domains start at just $11.99 per year. But, domain privacy and protection aren’t included, and it costs an extra $11.88 per year. And, the renewal price for the second and subsequent years is $15.99 per year.
This means that you will be paying almost $28 per year for your domain when competitors like Namecheap only charge $8.88 ($12.98 on renewal) with privacy included.
Bonus Tip: Approach A Sales Rep For Renewals
It is true that you can handle the renewals process yourself for your Bluehost service. However, there is a chance that you can get a special discount if you get in touch with a sales rep.
How Do Bluehost Prices Compare to Competitors?
In general, Bluehost hosting plans are very competitive and lower than those of most of its competitors. In saying that, the VPS and dedicated server plans are very simplistic, and there’s better value for money to be had elsewhere.
Below, I’ve compared monthly Bluehost prices (the lowest for each category) with HostGator and Hostinger, two extremely popular competitors. If you’re looking for low prices above all else, Hostinger is a great option.
| Bluehost | Hostinger | HostGator | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared | $2.95 | $0.99 | $2.75 |
| Shared WordPress | $2.95 | N/A | $5.95 |
| Managed WordPress | $19.95 | $2.15 | NA |
| VPS | $18.99 | $3.95 | $19.95 |
| Dedicated | $79.99 | N/A | $89.98 |
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Bluehost cost?
Bluehost offers standard shared hosting (from $2.95 per month), WordPress hosting (from $2.95 per month), managed WordPress hosting (from $19.95 per month), VPS hosting (from $18.99 per month), and dedicated servers (from $79.99 per month).
Does Bluehost have a money-back guarantee?
Yes, Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with its shared and WordPress hosting. Note that not all plans are covered, and things like domain registration fees aren’t refundable. Read the fine print.
Does Bluehost offer email-only hosting?
No, Bluehost doesn’t currently offer email-only hosting options. However, all of its standard hosting plans do come with comprehensive email tools.
Are there any hidden fees I should be aware of?
Unfortunately, Bluehost is great at charging hidden fees. Make sure you pay attention to renewal prices before you purchase a subscription. Watch out for automatic add-ons during the checkout process, and be very wary about purchasing extra hosting tools.
Are there any Bluehost coupon codes available?
A quick internet search will reveal a selection of Bluehost coupon codes. However, these change regularly, so we’d recommend selecting the plan you’re interested in and testing it with the 30-day money-back guarantee as a safety net.
Bluehost: Company Profile
Matt Heaton founded Bluehost in the late 1990s. Its official launch, however, came later in the year 2003.
Owned by Endurance International Group (now known as Newfold Digital), Bluehost offers shared hosting services that include shared hosting, dedicated server hosting, VPS hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and WordPress hosting.
Bluehost Pricing: The Verdict?
Bluehost is a very popular web hosting provider, but it’s probably not quite as good as you expected. Its shared and WordPress hosting options are excellent, but the VPS and dedicated server plans simply aren’t worth considering.
What’s more, Bluehost has a very deceptive fee structure that catches a lot of people off-guard. For example, introductory prices are significantly discounted, and you will have to sign up for three years to access the advertised deals.
- How much does Bluehost cost?
Cheap shared hosting with Bluehost starts from just $2.95 per month. However, you have to pay 36 months in advance to access this price, and your subscription will renew at $7.99 per month. Managed WordPress hosting starts from $19.95 per month, VPS costs from $18.99 per month, and dedicated servers are priced from $79.99 per month. - What is the cheapest Bluehost plan?
There are numerous Bluehost plans on offer, but the cheapest shared hosting starts at just $2.95 per month (36-month / 3 year sign up period). - How can I save money with Bluehost?
There are numerous ways to save money with Bluehost, but we’d recommend starting by signing up for a multi-year plan and registering your domain through a third-party registrar.
The bottom line: Seriously consider using Bluehost if you’re looking for a reliable, beginner-friendly shared or WordPress hosting provider, but look elsewhere if you need a high-end VPS or dedicated server.
Get up to 60% off on hosting
From $2.95 per month
