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If you’re looking to purchase a Bluehost product, you may be overwhelmed with so many offers, plans, discounts and sometimes hidden fees.
It’s not surprising. Just take a look at their website – it’s a minefield of the many different services they offer.
So let me walk you through Bluehost pricing and plans in detail, to help you make sense of it all, and find out if it’s right for you.
Sidenote: Bluehost offers big discounts for the first year. This guide references prices at renewal for transparency’s sake.
Here, I’ll talk about the main services they offer:
Bluehost Pricing: What do they offer?
Shared hosting at Bluehost costs between $9.99 to $28.99 monthly after renewal (discounts the first year available). All plans include a free domain the 1st year. Their managed WordPress hosting starts at $29.99 a month. VPS is $52.99 and a dedicated server starts at $149.99 monthly.
Bluehost Yearly Pricing & Plans Overview:
- Shared Hosting: Renewal from $9.99 to $28.99 per month.
- VPS: From $52.99 to $128.99 a month at renewal.
- Dedicated Hosting: At renewal costs between $149.99 and $249.99 a month.
- Managed WordPress Hosting: Renewal prices go from $29.99 to $59.99 per month.
- WooCommerce Hosting: Costs between $24.95 and $39.95 a month when renewed.
Bluehost Shared hosting cost
Unless you have a big project or you have unusual technical needs, shared hosting (the cheapest) is your best option. Bluehost offers the following plans:
| Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allowed websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Visitors | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 10 GB | 20 GB | 40 GB | 100 GB |
| Free domain name | 1st year | 1st year | 1st year | 1st year |
| Subdomains | 25 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Email accounts | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Advanced backup | No | No | Included first year | Included |
| Databases | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| FTP accounts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Secure FTP accounts | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Free SSL | Via Let’s Encrypt | Via Let’s Encrypt | Via Let’s Encrypt | Via Let’s Encrypt |
| Dedicated IP | No | No | No | Yes |
| Refund policy | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Prices after renewal * | ||||
| 12 months | $9.99 / month | $14.99 / month | $18.99 / month | $28.99 / month |
| 24 months | $9.99 / month | $13.99 / month | $18.99 / month | $27.99 / month |
| 36 months | $9.99 / month | $13.99 / month | $18.99 / month | $26.99 / month |
| More information | www.bluehost.com | |||
* Bluehost offers interesting discounts the first year, but the prices go up after renewal.
Sidenote: Be warned that in my experience, Bluehost’s performance is not the best. Other providers such as SiteGround offer better results (see our SiteGround vs Bluehost post). Or compare them to other cheap web hosts.
The Basic shared hosting plan is for smaller projects that don’t need to host more than one website and don’t plan to use more than 10 GB for storage. You’ll be allowed to create 5 email accounts and your website will be SSL-ed for free.
If you need hosting for more than one website and need more web space, consider the Plus package as it comes with unlimited websites and 20 GB of storage.
The Choice Plus plan offers a nice (but expensive) perk; an advanced backup (and restore) system that will keep your projects safe – free only the first year. Being 100% honest, having this important feature only on the two most expensive plans is a big boo for Bluehost. Many competitors include this in all their plans.
Finally, the Pro tier is a good match for those looking to have a dedicated IP and premium SSL certificates.
You can read more information about Bluehost’s shared hosting plans, or our full Bluehost review for more details.
Bluehost VPS – Virtual Private Server
If you need more capabilities than the shared hosting offers, or require a customized setup of your own server, a VPS is the next logical step.
You can think of a VPS as a dedicated server that has been divided into several smaller servers. Each of these smaller servers hosts different projects – similar to dividing a big house into smaller flats.
But it gets pricey – you’ll need some budget for it.
| Standard | Enhanced | Premium | Unlimited | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | 30 GB | 60 GB | 90 GB | 120 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB | 3 TB |
| CPU cores * | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Ram * | 2 GB | 4 GB | 6 GB | 8 GB |
| Dedicated IP address | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Price for 1 year (after renewal) | $52.99 a month | $63.99 a month | $97.99 a month | $128.99 a month |
* Higher CPU and RAM memory translate to higher server performance.
Bluehost VPS storage runs on SSD drives which are much faster than traditional hard drives and improve the overall speed – I would not expect otherwise at these prices. Unlike some providers, Bluehost offers 24 hours support with their VPS plans too.
> More about Bluehost VPS hosting
Bluehost dedicated server prices
A dedicated server is the right choice for those looking for a high-performance solution and expecting a lot of traffic.
You can think of this as having your own private jet instead of traveling commercial (e.g. with United Airlines) – much faster and more baggage allowance.
But yes, as with having your own private jet, dedicated hosting won’t be cheap:
| Standard | Enhanced | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | 500 GB | 1 TB | 1 TB |
| Bandwith | 5 TB | 10 TB | 15 TB |
| RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| CPUs | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Price for 1 year (after renewal) | $149.99 a month | $209.99 a month | $259.99 a month |
Managed WordPress hosting
If you have a large WordPress site, Bluehost offers a managed WordPress solution. This is built on top of a shared optimized server, that is ‘highly tuned to run WordPress extremely fast’. But be aware that this is rather expensive.
| Build | Grow | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allowed sites | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Webspace | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Backups | Daily | Daily | Daily |
| Restores | 3 per month | 3 per month | Unlimited |
| Video Compression | No | 10 GB | Unlimited |
| Price for 1 year (after renewal) | $29.99 a month | $39.99 a month | $59.99 a month |
Additionally, it comes with SiteLock to increase your site’s security by running automatic malware scans. And you’ll get access to Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network) that will speed up your WordPress site.
Personally, I think that providers like WP Engine or Kinsta have better WordPress optimized hosting solutions at similar prices. And if you are looking for a cheaper but solid alternative, check SiteGround or these other low price WordPress hosting providers.
Bluehost domain prices
Many users choose Bluehost as their domain name registrar – if you ask me, Namecheap is a better and slightly cheaper option for this.
Here’s how much will you pay for domain names with Bluehost:
Domain names at Bluehost cost $19.99 a year for a .com, an .org, or a .net domain and $29.99 if you are looking for a .co.uk – these are renewal prices.
Additionally, Bluehost tries to push you to add Codeguard, a backup add-on that will cost you $2.99 extra a month – a bit cheeky if you ask me.
Bluehost SSL Certificate pricing
All Bluehost hosting plans provide free SSL certificates one way or the other (e.g. via Let’s Encrypt). But if you are still looking for one, Bluehost proposes several alternatives to SSL your domain name.
| Provider | Yearly price |
|---|---|
| Positive SSL | $50 |
| Comodo SSL | $80 |
| Positive Wildcard SSL | $149 |
| Comodo Wildcard SSL | $299 |
These are really pricey. Again, you can find cheaper alternatives at providers like Namecheap.
A piece of advice: Bluehost is one of the pushiest providers I’ve ever tried. So if you open an account with them, be ready to receive endless upgrades and upsells pitches. You’ve been warned.
Do you have any question or would like to share your experience? Please, leave a comment below.
Bluehost Pricing FAQ
Currently, Bluehost doesn’t offer email accounts. They encourage you to purchase one of their hosting plans where you can create email accounts.
Using hosting plans for email purposes is pricey and not straightforward to manage. If you are looking to create your own email account(s) but don’t need web hosting, check other providers like Namecheap.
Bluehost is great at charging for random stuff, be aware. For example, if your hosting account expires without a renewal, they’ll demand $30 extra to reactivate it. They also try to mask the renewal prices behind insane discounts during the first year.
Yes, all Bluehost hosting plans come with a 30-day money-back policy, meaning Bluehost will refund your money during that period.
However, be aware that this policy doesn’t apply for most of the other products and add-ons (e.g. domain names).
Sure, you can cancel your Bluehost product from your dashboard, find the renewal options under the ‘Billing Information’ section and set it to ‘Do not renew’. This ensures that you can use the product for the entire purchased period and won’t be canceled immediately.
If you need to cancel your Bluehost account at once, contact their support and ask them to take care of it.
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1 Dec 2022: Prices and packages updated
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