WordPress Hosting Costs – How Much Do You Really Pay?

A lot of WordPress beginners start off by going down the free route, but free options are often unreliable, slow, and come with a host of restrictions. If you’re serious about getting your blog up and running, it’s worth looking into the costs of hosting and what you should be paying for.

WordPress is a [content management system (CMS) that allows you to build a website or blog, customized to your own preferences. WordPress is known for its ease of use, flexibility, beginner-friendliness, and overall intuitive user interface. Not to mention that WordPress hosting provides the advantages of better performance, more cyber-attack resistance, and an automated update system for apps and plugins.

WordPress hosting is essentially like any other hosting type, only it is specifically designed for WordPress websites. It is optimized for performance and security enhancements, and it includes a one-step WordPress installation that’s quick and simple. There are two main types of WordPress hosting, including shared and managed WordPress hosting.

WordPress hosting provider

Hosting providers are devoted to providing a stable environment for your website and its data. They are the ones who store information about files, customer logins, databases, and more — essentially all of the important parts that make up an e-commerce site. The power to keep your website up and available to customers rests in the hands of your hosting provider. Make sure to go with a well-established provider that offers WordPress hosting services. The hosting provider is responsible for your websites:

• Uptime – refers to the percentage of time that your website is up and available. So, this is a very important feature for your website, as it directly influences the relationship between your business and your customers. A quality hosting provider should offer a 99.99% uptime at least.

• Speed – although the hosting provider is not the only factor that influences speed, it still has a big impact on it. Speed is very important as most customers would not wait more than a few seconds for a website to load.

• Ease of Use – this is an important factor for anyone, especially non-professionals who do not have prior technical expertise. So, it is important to make sure that the hosting provider you choose has a well-designed cPanel, or control panel, through which you will manage every aspect of your website, blog or online store.

• Customer support – a quality hosting provider offers 24/7 customer support, with multiple channels for communication, like live chat, phone support, tickets, etc.

WordPress hosting plan

You also have to choose the most suitable plan for your business needs. Hosting plans from providers differ in price: the more advanced their features and functions are, the higher the monthly fee.

When choosing a hosting provider for your WordPress site or blog, remember that what is important is not only how much you pay per month, but how many of your site's visitors can be hosted on a single server.

• Shared WordPress hosting: this type of hosting is the cheaper of the two, because users share the physical server with other websites. This means that users will have to share resources with other users. However, most quality hosting providers still offer a server that has optimized WordPress performance. Some hosting providers also offer their users to pre-install WordPress, aside from the one-click installation process that most cPanels already have. Also, some providers offer free SSL certificates and malware scanning, to ensure the security of your site.

• Managed WordPress hosting: this is the more expensive, advanced, and upgraded type of WordPress hosting. Aside from everything shared WordPress hosting offers, managed WordPress hosting has better hardware specifications than shared. Also, it does the caching for you, with no need for plugins. Managed WordPress hosting provides customers with more custom WordPress security features, such as firewalls, malware scans, and intrusion detection. Additionally, managed WordPress hosting has staging sites where users can see the changes they want to make before they make them public for all to see. All of these features, alongside the many more that managed WordPress hosting offers, are the reason why this type of hosting is the more expensive one.

However, managed hosting saves users a lot of time, especially for beginners. Seeing as there are technical aspects of running a website that beginners would have to learn, like updates, managed hosting goes a long way in helping as it takes care of this for the users. Thus, by spending more money on managed hosting, you save yourself a lot of time that you can invest in other things you are confident in and good at.

Disc space, bandwidth, and monthly traffic

One of the core differences between hosting plans and their prices are based on the amount of bandwidth and disk space they provide. And you don’t always need the plan that offers the largest amount of bandwidth or storage. For example, websites that attract a few hundred visitors per month usually don’t need that much storage or bandwidth, compared to sites that attract thousands of monthly visitors.

Number of hosted websites

Many users want to have multiple sites at the same time. They also want to be able to host these sites on the same web hosting account. This is available with WordPress hosting. The number of websites one user can host simultaneously goes up alongside the storage and bandwidth. If for instance, you want to host three websites on the same account, you will need a plan that covers the amount of storage these three sites would use. Basic WordPress hosting plans start at one website, but if you’re looking to host more, you can always purchase a more expensive plan that will give you what you need.

Security

Internet security is a major concern for the hundreds of millions of users who are on the web. And, e-commerce owners have to be especially careful — without firewalls, SSL certificates, and other protective features, webmasters can't protect their sites and e-commerce businesses, which means that privacy will come into jeopardy. Also, many users install their own plugins to make sure that their sites are secure.

• ECommerce: online eCommerce stores can obtain necessary features via WordPress plugins. Your hosting plan needs to be compatible with the eCommerce software you use, and should include a free SSL to ensure the security of your site.

• Webmail: Having email addresses from your domain name enables additional branding options, so it’s a good feature to have. Look for a provider that will offer you as many branded email addresses as you need, and be aware that many providers have limits on how many addresses you can have on your account.

• Automatic backups: it is important to choose a provider that provides automatic backups, to reduce the risk of losing all your work due to a small error. Also, having automated backups means the provider will back your site up for you, instead of having to do it manually.

• Additional plugins: security, SEO, caching, and other plugins are compatible with WordPress sites and hosting, and all differ in price. Having these plugins will provide a better, more stable, and smooth experience for both you and your customers. So, these are good features to have, depending on what your site needs.

• Scalability: it allows you to easily raise the amount of bandwidth you require in real-time, ensuring that your website's performance keeps up with your changing needs. So, if you experience unexpected growth, this feature of your hosting plan will ensure that your website’s performance is uninterrupted.

• Hosting: The price for WordPress hosting falls within the range of $3 and $71.99 per month, depending on the provider and the type of WordPress hosting you choose (shared or managed). A good thing to know is that the most expensive option is not always the best for you and your site.

• Domain: WordPress requires users to buy a domain name, and the prices vary depending on the popularity and uniqueness of the name. The majority of domain names start at $12 per year, but can cost much more if they’re considered premium.

• Security certificates: Security plugins can cost from $0 to $300, depending on what level of security you are looking for. Additionally, SSL certificates can cost anywhere from $50 to $600, depending on their quality and what they offer. However, Verpex offers free SSL certificates with all our WordPress hosting plans!

• WordPress plugins: WordPress has a myriad of plugins that you can install to boost your site’s performance, like backup, caching, eCommerce, SEO, miscellaneous plugins and other integrated services. All of these plugins vary in price, anywhere from $0 to $2000, depending on what you get.

• WordPress Themes: There are many free and paid themes that WordPress offers. Also, due to its popularity, WordPress has numerous professionals available that can help with theme design and development. The paid themes can cost anywhere from $19 to $100.

There are many different factors that can influence the cost of your WordPress website. Everything from the size and functionality of your site, to the maintenance strategy and marketing approach you take can affect how much you end up spending. So, while these estimates can give you a general idea, your actual costs may vary.

If you're looking to build a website, it's best to start small and use as many free resources as possible. Once you have a steady stream of traffic and a solid audience, you can then think about adding premium features or templates to your site.