The Best Cheap Web Hosting Services (Below $5/mo)

Article by Jerry Low . .
Updated: Oct 21, 2020

Thanks to various factors, web hosting providers can now offer more for less. This means more flexibility and choice for consumers like you and me.

Today most shared hosting plans are cheaper than $5/mo. For those who are new or hosting simple sites with low resource demands – inexpensive shared hosting is an ideal launch point.

Our team at WHSR has tested more than 60 hosting companies and studied the pricing of 1,000 hosting plans. Here's a quick glance on some of the cheapest plans from hosting companies we recommend.

Head-to-Head Comparison

Important notes

1. Shared Hosting is where your websites share the server resources (server memory, CPU power, bandwidth, etc) with other websites. It is the most cost-effective to host a website today. More than 90% of individual hosts their domain and sites on a shared hosting plan.
2. There are certain common problems (such as rushed server) with low cost hosting plans. I have written the solutions for some of these issues at the bottom of this page – do check them out.
3. Some companies give out free domain (usually for 1st year) to new customers but that shouldn't be your main consideration factor. A .com domain costs just $10 – $15/year – don't let that affects your buying decision.
4. Cheap hosting deals don't always stay cheap. Many companies lure customers in with cheap prices, and then jack up the renewal fee two or three years later. Many of these companies lose money during the first two or three years they have a customer, so they charge the higher prices later to recoup their losses. It's also important to look at the renewal price when you signup.
5. When choosing a low cost host, you should also look past your current website needs and consider if a host can support future needs. For example, if your site grows in popularity, can you easily move on to more powerful options such as VPS hosting?

Top 10 Cheap Hosting Providers Reviewed

1. Hostinger

Cheapest plan signup at: $0.99/mo – Click here to order now

Hostinger offers a wide variety of hosting services, ranging from the advanced with VPS cloud hosting plans to beginners who just want to get started with a shared hosting.

Hostinger's cheapest plan – “Single” is priced at $0.99/mo.  At the price less than a dollar, you get to host 1 website with 10 GB disk space and 100 GB bandwidth, plus innovative features like advance cron jobs, Curl SSL, MariaDB and InnoDB database, weekly backup – stuffs that you don't usually get from a budget hosting plan.

If you are willing to pay slightly more, Hostinger's Premium Shared Hosting Plan (starts at $2.89/mo) comes with free BitNinja Smart Security, which protects you against XXS, DDoS, Malware, and a number of other cyber attacks; and Mail Assassin, which protects you from spam mails.

Learn more about Hostinger in our review.

Hostinger Review

In brief, here's what I like and dislike about Hostinger. You can learn more about our experience in this in-depth Hosting review.

2. InterServer

Cheapest plan signup at: $4.00/mo – Click here to order

Self-deemed a easy-to-use cheap hosting provider, InterServer specializes in shared, VPS, dedicated, and co-location hosting solutions.

Two things I like the most about InterServer:

1. The company do not increase their price after first term – InterServer shared hosting plans is locked at $5/mo (or $4/mo if you signup and renew for three years), and
2. They allow users to host unlimited domains at below $5/mo (most budget plans we discuss in this article allow only one domain per account)

These two factors made InterServer the easy choice when you plan to host multiple (low traffic) websites in one account for more than 5 years.

Quick Review: What I Think About Interserver

I started using InterServer since 2013 and visited the company HQ at Secaucus, New Jersey in 2016. Their server performance was rock solid and technical supports are superb (all done by in-house staffs). You can read my detail InterServer review here.

3. InMotion Hosting

Cheapest plan signup at: $2.49/mo – Click here to order now

InMotion Hosting is reliable, features-rich, and affordable.

Lite plan starts at $2.49/mo. It allows users to host 1 website and comes with a free domain, SSH access, PHP 7 support, site backup and restore, full support in Cron and Ruby, and malware protection. What's more – if you are a first time customer, folks at InMotion Hosting will help migrate your site for free.

Admittedly, InMotion Hosting does not offer the cheapest plan in town, but they are the best hosting provider in overall based on my experience.

I use InMotion Hosting personally and have collected years of record in InMotion Hosting uptime and speed test. To find out more, please check out my in-depth InMotion Hosting review here.

InMotion Hosting Review

Here's what I like and dislike about InMotion Hosting.

4. GreenGeeks

Cheapest plan signup at: $2.95/mo – Click here to order

Founded in 2006 by Trey Gardner, GreenGeeks has benefited from his extensive experience in several large hosting companies. Today, Trey and his experienced core team of professionals have built GreenGeeks into a healthy, stable and competitive company.

The company’s roots lie in North America and has served over 35,000 customers with more than 300,000 websites. As an eco-friendly company, it has dedicated itself to leaving a positive energy footprint and replaces used energy with triple the energy credits that are used.

But that's not all – On top of being environmental friendly, GreenGeeks is also very budget friendly. Their all-in-one, 300% green shared hosting plan costs only $2.95/mo at signup.

Here's a quick view on their pros and cons. You can also learn more about GreenGeeks in Timothy review.

What's Good & Bad About GreenGeeks

5. TMD Hosting

Cheapest plan signup at: $2.95/mo – Click here to order

For first time customers, TMD shared plan starts at $2.95/mo – a 60% price cut from the standard renewal price. The company has been around for over 10 years and has four data centers spread across the United States and an overseas data center in Amsterdam.

We’ve recently were given a free account by TMDHosting so we decided to put the hosting provider to the test. Turn out – the budget host is not bad at all.

Learn more about TMD Hosting in this in-depth review.

TMD Hosting Advantage & Disadvantages

Here's what I like and dislike about TMD Hosting.

6. A2 Hosting

Cheapest plan signup at: $3.92/mo – Click here to order

A2 Hosting is fast, reliable, and cheap. Their shared hosting comes in three flavors – Lite, Swift, and Turbo.

Lite, the cheapest plan of all, allows users to host 1 website, 5 databases, and 25 email accounts.

You wouldn't know Lite is a budget plan by looking at its features: Full SSD storage, SSH access, Rsync, FTP / FTPS, Git and CVS ready, Node.js and Cron support, and pre-configured for best WordPress performance (using in-house built WP plugin – A2 Optimized). All these for $3.92 a month.

Learn more in my A2 Hosting review.

A2 Hosting Pros & Cons

7. HostPapa

Cheapest plan signup at: $3.95/mo – Click here to order

Founded in 2006 by Jamie Opalchuk, HostPapa is based in Ontario, Canada.

I did an interview HostPapa founder, Jamie Opalchuk, in December 2016. We talked about the company operations and business focus; Mr. Jamie was very transparent and helpful with his answers.

We have been tracking the web host since mid 2017. You can learn more about my experience in this detail HostPapa review.

Personally I found HostPapa an okay host – they are not the best but their cheap price tag is definitely a huge plus – considering that the cheapest plan also comes with free domain name, 100 GB storage, and 120 free pre-built site templates.

HostPapa Pros & Cons

In summary, here are HostPapa's pros and cons –

9. ScalaHosting

Cheapest plan signup at: $3.95/mo – Click here to order

Starting at a highly reasonably price of $3.95/mo, ScalaHosting has a lot to offer. Although it keeps true to the single-site-only concept of most hosting plans, elsewhere it is generous. If you’re a newbie to web hosting this is an excellent place to start.

It gives all new users free website migration, domain name, and SSL. This alone would make it an extremely strong value-for-money proposition. Also included is a software installer, 7-day cycle of automated backups, and more.

Most importantly, there is a lot of room to grow at ScalaHosting. From their range of shared hosting plans, you can move on to their also-excellent VPS hosting plans.

ScalaHosting Pros & Cons

Some of what I like and dislike about ScalaHosting include:

9. FastComet

Cheapest plan signup at: $2.95/mo – Click here to order

FastComet is a rare gem in the hosting world. With a long list of useful features and low price tags – the web host is suitable for both newbies and advanced users.

A test site was setup at FastComet in early 2018 and we tracked their server performance for over a year. You can check out the results we got in this detail FastComet review.

FastComet cheapest hosting plan is incredibly low price at signup – their cheapest plan, FastCloud, costs only $2.95/month at signup. The plan comes with 15 GB SSD disk space, malware scan and report, free network firewall, SSH access, and daily backup.

FastComet Review

Here's what I like and dislike about FastComet in a nutshell.

10. BlueHost

Cheapest plan signup at: $2.95/mo – Click here to order

Bluehost entered the web hosting market in 2003 and has been going strong since then. The Provo, Utah based company is well-recognized today and hosts over two million websites.

Unlike many other companies in today's hosting space, Bluehost does not officially disclose where their servers are hosted. Aside from a likely presence in Utah, little is really known and there are no options to select a location on sign-up.

Support is available via live chat, phone, and a ticketing system. Should you need more specialized assistance, Bluehost also has marketing consultants who can work with you on your needs.

Quick BlueHost Reivew

Budget Hosting: The Cheaper the Better?

Hosting prices have changed drastically over the last 10 – 15 years. In early 2000, a $8.95 per month package with basic features was considered cheap. Then the price dropped to $7.95, then $6.95, $5.95 per month, and then even lower in 2020.

If you look at some of the lowest-priced offers I hand-picked above – you'll notice that today, some shared hosting services cost less than $1 per month.

Market Data

So how low does the price need to go in order to be considered as a cheap hosting solution in today's market?

To answer this question, we looked at more than 1,000 hosting plans around the world. Short answer – to be tagged as a “cheap hosting provider”, one need to go below $5/mo on signup and not higher than $10.00/mo when you renew.

But wait, the cheapest hosting plan might not be right for you

There are a number of factors you need to consider when choosing a web hosting service.

Price is only one of these factors.

There are also other criteria – such as hosting uptime, server speed, security features, software version, after sales support, etc; that you need to look into.

A good budget host should comes with sufficient server resources to host at least one low traffic (~1,000 visits per day) website.

The hosting plan should also includes basic hosting features, including (but not limited to) basic server maintenance features, email services, easy installer for popular scripts, latest version of PHP and MySQL, live-chat technical support, 99.9% server uptime, and reasonable server network speed.

Some budget hosting companies also provide regular server backup, auto malware scanning, additional dedicated IP as well as one-click Let's Encrypt SSL activation. These features are nice to have but they are like “bonus”. I can totally understand if hosting companies are charging users extra for malware scanning or backup-and-restore feature.

This brings us back to the list of best cheap hosting at top of this page.

Common Problems with Cheap Web Hosting (and How to Solve Them)

So far we have covered a list of cheap, quality hosting services to consider.

Now it's time for some useful tips on how to deal with the common problems that arise in cheap hosting deals.

Problem #1: Aggressive Up-Selling and Cross-Selling

Most low cost hosting companies have aggressive up-selling and cross-selling practices.

Budget hosting companies are in market to make money.

And they do so by selling or recommending add-on services and web applications such as SSL certificates, advanced email hosting features, domain names, CDN services, email marketing tools, and more.

While some of the offerings are straightforward, some cheap web hosting providers trick their customers to sign up for free trials. When the trial ends, they charge their customers high prices for the services. Their customers end up paying premium prices for services they simply wanted to try and likely don’t even need.

 Solution: Be very caution during check out

Be very caution during the check out process, make sure that the hosting company did not sign you up on any software or web service trial. You can check with the web host live chat support if in doubt and ask if you have signed up to any web services.

Be skeptical with every emails and suggestions you receive from your hosting company. Avoid clicking blindly and do your research before signing up for any add-ons in your account.

In short, be a smart consumer – and you'll be alright.

Problem #2: Rushed servers

Some budget hosting companies tend to overload their capacity and host way too many websites in one server.

The practice is known as overselling. While overselling is good in bringing the hosting cost down (learn more in my other article – The Truth of Unlimited Hosting); it some times jeopardize user experience. Sites hosted on a crowded server leads to slow response rate and frequent down time.

 Solution: Avoid web host with rushed servers; track host uptime after signup

A slow and often down server affects your website user experience and Google rankings badly. This is why we emphasize so much on server uptime and response rate in our hosting reviews. No one should host their sites on a slow and unstable web host.

Once you signup to a new hosting:

• Track your site uptime with a third party tool like Uptime Robot, Monitis, or Pingdom.
• Test your server response rate (by looking at time-to-first-byte readings) using Webpage Test or Bitcatcha.

More tips: What is hosting uptime?

Uptime refers to the amount of time that your website is up and running, available to visitors and potential clients; anything that isn’t uptime is downtime – and to oversimplify it, downtime is bad.

Downtime means that people can’t reach your site which can be frustrating to potential visitors while also costing you traffic and revenue. Additionally, if people aren’t able to reach your site the first time, they may not try again. That said, hosting providers provide minimum uptime guarantees which is a guarantee that they’ll have your site up and running that percent of the total hours in a day.

Don’t deal with hosting providers that give less than 99.9% uptime guarantee. If your existing hosting provider is constantly doing less than 99.9% uptime, it's time to switch web host.

Uptime samples published in WHSR

More about uptime monitoring tools (which to use)

There are literally dozens, if not more, of server monitoring tools available online – some are free and some costs upwards of thousands of dollars annually.

Some run simple HTTP checks to confirm whether your site is running, while others perform very complex back-end jobs to monitor more than 50 checkpoints simultaneously.

The various tools run every end of the spectrum, which can be a bit overwhelming to users, but also ensures that there is a tool out there to fit your needs and budget.

For example, I use free tools like Uptime Robot, and Pingdom frequently to track a web host.

If you are running a enterprise level websites and looking for more powerful tools, check out Nagios Uptime and Cacti.

Problem #3: Bad neighbors

Occasionally, cheap hosts are infiltrated by what are commonly referred to as bad neighbors.

These bad neighbors are spammers who eat up the server resources or careless webmasters who get hacked. If you share a server with spammers, there won’t be enough resources left for you. If you share a server with someone who gets a Trojan or computer virus, your site might get infected too.

 Solution: Request to switch server box

Back in old days, cheap web hosts are often exploited by spammers and hackers. I believe this does not happen that often these days as hosting companies normally will have very strict policy against spammers and hackers.

If your account was hacked from the inside, request for a relocation and ask the host can shift you to another server block.

Problem #4: Black-Holed IP

You usually get a shared IP address when subscribe to a cheap web host. In rare occasion, this shared IP address might be black-listed due to other users' activities.

 Solution: Check host IP before signup

It’s recommended to check your web host IP on SpamHaus Block List as soon as you got your account. Or better, ask them for a list of IPs to check before signing up.

To determine your website IP address, type the following code in your PC command prompt.

nslookup yoursiteaddress.com

If unfortunately your server IP is on the list, there are only two things you can do: 1. Push the web host to white-list the IP; and 2. request for relocation or a change of IP address.

Problem #5: Poor technical support

Some cheap hosting companies have poor customer support and fail to respond to customer requests timely. The slow response times are not always due to a lack of caring. In some cases, cheap hosts simply don’t have enough technical staff members to attend to customers' support requests.

 Solution: Talk to support staffs before signup

There is not much we can do with a hosting company that runs on poor after-sales support.

If other aspects (price, hosting performance, features, etc) are good – then you might want to stay and just deal with it. Else, the only choice you have is to leave them.

For newbies who prefer to get spoon-fed support, the best thing to do is to avoid hosting companies with bad service. Talk with the support department before you place your order, ask related technical questions (such as inodes limits, CPU cycles, Ruby on Rails, etc) and judge their quality based on the responses.

For your reference, I did an undercover experiment and talked to 28 hosting companies (which many of them charge less than $5 per month and can be categorized as “cheap web host”) support in 2017 – see what I found out in this study.

Problem #6: Hidden fees & charges

Some low cost hosting companies have suspicious business practices and unclear terms and conditions.

 Solution: Read ToS; Avoid cheap hosting companies with questionable user policy

The hidden charges explains why the cheapest host may not be the best hosting choice.

Avoid, I repeat, avoid any cheap web host that charges unreasonable cancellation fees.

Read TOS (quick tip: go to the host’s ToS page, press Ctrl + F, search for keyword like ‘cancellation’ and ‘refund’) clearly and make sure how cancellation is done. The web host may charge for the domain registration (which may goes up to a one-time $25 fee) and SSL certificate fees; but anything more than that is a no-go.

Do not go with those with fishy cancellation policy no matter how cheap they are.

Problem #7: Fees increment after first term

Cheap hosting companies don’t always stay cheap.

In fact, many lure customers in with cheap prices, and then jack up the renewal fee two or three years later.

Unfortunately, this is the industry norm. Many of these companies lose money during the first two or three years they have a customer, so they charge the higher prices later to recoup their losses. A lot of customers don’t realize they are going to pay higher prices and they get sticker shock when they see the auto-charge on their credit card statement.

 Solution-1: Host Hoping

Renewal price for cheap hosting plans are normally higher than signup price.

For example, iPage promo price is $1.99/mo during signup and when it comes to renewal, it will go up to $9.99/mo (at time of writing).

The same policy runs on most budget hosting companies including A2 Hosting, SiteGround, GoDaddy, Hostgator, Bluehost, InMotion Hosting, and so on.

The ultra-low price tag is how hosting companies lure customers to switch host.

For renewals, the only way to keep prices low is to do ‘web host hoping’ – meaning, keep switching host every time when the contract expires. And, for budget hosts that provide ‘Anytime Money Back Guarantee’, I would recommend to sign up for a longer subscription period as it allows you to enjoy the low price a little longer (and take back money if you do not like your host any more).

 Solution-2: Stick with companies that offer acceptable renewal rates

Some budget web hosts allow customers to lock in at low renewal price upon signup.

For example, InterServer and FastComet lock the renewal price at your signup rate.

The price you sign up for is the price you renew your hosting subscription in future. For example, FastComet customers who sign up three years at $2.95/month will be able to renew their plans later at $2.45/month. Same goes to InterServer – which allow customers to renew at the signup price.

Problem #8: Long subscription period

Some web hosts will request their customers to subscribe for a very long period in exchange of the low price tags.

Many years ago Lunarpages marketed its shared hosting deal as $4.95/mo. But the $4.95/mo deal is only available for customers who are willing to pay 5 years up front – which is a rip-off. 5 years! Anything can happen online in 5 year time, the hosting company might just take your money and close shop.

 Solution: Avoid signing up for more than 24 months 

Unless you can cancel and ask for a refund any time during the subscription period; else any contract longer than 2 years is a no-go.

Problem #9: Limited allowable inodes

Some budget hosting will limit inode usage in users account to control storage capacity and server resources.

 Solution: Stick with host that allow 150,000 inodes and above

I don’t stress much on inodes these days, but I wouldn’t go with host offering 50,000 inodes per account.

The easy solution is to read company's ToS (quick tip: go to the host’s ToS page, press Ctrl + F, search for keyword like ‘inodes’ and ‘number of files’) clearly before you sign up.

On the other hand, it is your responsibility to limit the number of inodes on your account. Understand that unlimited hosting is not limited. Keep any duplicated files in your account, delete unnecessary files, delete emails regularly (empty inbox and download emails to your local PC instead), and optimize your databases.

Frequently Asked Questions

In a Nutshell: Not All Cheap Web Host Are Bad

Not all shared hosting companies are bad. Cheap unlimited shared hosting plans are very popular and powerful these days. More than 90% of individual hosts their domain and sites on a shared hosting plan.

And they work just fine.

It does not make your sites ‘cooler’ or better simply because you opt for an expensive hosting solution. Not to mention – if you do the comparison, there are plenty of things can go wrong too with a dedicated or VPS hosting.

Some site owners subscribed to VPS or dedicated hosting simply because of their ego – with the kind of mindset where they think they are different and better. But that's not true. In fact, I know some small business owners who have switched over to dedicated hosting when they didn’t need it, and they have regretted it. They have spent money on unnecessary server resources and expert technical assistance when shared hosting would have been fine.

Until you have built up a high traffic site / blog, there is no need to put that much of time and money into a powerful hosting plan. It’s just a waste of time and money.

Instead, put your focus on content and marketing.

Understanding your needs

If you are buying something you don't need, you are wasting money no matter how cheap or good it is.

And that is why you need to know your hosting needs before you choose a new web host. Before you leave this page to buy a web host, make sure you have basic understanding in web host and domain name. Think thoroughly about our own needs and answer these questions –

• What kind of website are you building?
• Do you want something common ?
• Do you need Windows applications?
• Do you need a special version of software (ie. PHP)?
• Does your website need special software?
• How big (or small) can the web traffic volume go?
• What is your 12 (or 24) months budget for the website?
• How much of this money should go into hosting?

For starters –

• Pick a web host that you can afford for at least 2 years. Your site / blog may not make any money at all, particularly at first, so you want to be sure you don’t have to shut the blog down because of lack of funds.
• You don't need premium web hosting services for now. An affordable shared web host should be good enough for now. Just remember to check about space limitations and server uptime.
• Right now you should focus on building useful content and growing your community. You should spend more on marketing and content. Get a good newsletter service and start building your email list, start social media marketing ads, get in touch with local bloggers and hire them to promote your blog, etc.
• Ask questions about customer service and if they will help you understand running a website because you are new to blogging.

Recommended Budget Friendly Web Host: Hostinger, InMotion Hosting, GreenGeeks

For seasoned bloggers and site owners –

• As part of your job now is to make sure your readers can navigate smoothly within your site/blog. You need a very reliable and fast web host.
• You should track your site uptime and response speed with tools like Pingdom and Uptime Robot.
• Monitor your blog memory usage and know your limit – once your blog hits 80% of the allocated memory (this the usual bottleneck you’ll first bump into with shared hosting), then it’s time to consider upgrading to VPS or cloud hosting.

Recommended Budget Friendly Web Host: A2 Hosting, Interserver, Cloudways

Relevant Resources

We have also published a number of actionable guide and helpful hosting reviews for those who are searching for a web host.

• Full list of hosting providers we reviewed
• Guide: How much to pay for a shared & VPS hosting
• Guide: How much does it cost to develop a website
• Tool: Compare web hosting services
• List: Best email hosting services for businesses
• List: Best free website hosting services
• List: Best managed WordPress hosting
• List: Best web hosting services for businesses