We've done our best to compile a list of the most reliable and cost-effective web hosting providers in the industry.
For this report, we reviewed dozens of low-cost hosting providers to determine which ones offered the best combination of safety and speed.
We compared all the available alternatives and found that the following six firms provide the best combination of price, quality, and service.
These six businesses may have all made it to the top, but they each have their own unique offerings.
Each of these firms specialises in a different area of web hosting, from providing the cheapest prices on the market and the simplest WordPress hosting to providing more complex hosting with advanced features and exceptional support.
TAKE NOTE: All units of sped measurement are milliseconds (ms).
Table of Contents:
Growing Your ‘Website Domain Asset’ in the Long Term 🏢
Are you an SaaS behind the times?
The staff at Hosting Data understand the power of websites. In many ways, we think web domain assets are the future for small businesses. Not opaque NFTs but clearly valuable software offerings.
In reality, if you are already bringing in traffic to a stream of clients, expanding your web domain traffic may be a great way to boost long-term, passive online income.
To keep up with online revolutions, even well-established SaaS businesses like eToro must strengthen their attention faster by using reliable web SaaS revenue services 📊, helping to safeguard and expand their digital holdings.
The Costs of Web Hosting for Small Businesses? (2023)
1. Hostinger – Best-Priced Web Hosting for Small Businesses (£2.59/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ Weekly free backups
- ⭐ Free website builder
- ⭐ Optimized for WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal
- ⭐ Turbo servers offered
- ⭐ Improved protection
- ⭐ Blazing fast
- ⭐ Zero cost SSL certificates
- ⭐ Protection against hackers
- ⭐ Many outstanding capabilities
Affordable, Top-Notch Hosting at Lowest Possible Price 📉
Why do we recommend Hostinger over all the rest? You might begin by comparing the pricing, which is over a third less than that of the closest competition.
When it comes to web hosting, we usually advise our readers to avoid services that cost less than a coffee per month. However, we make an exception for Hostinger because of its stellar performance and stability at that price point. Hostinger is our top pick since it's reliable, affordable, and accepts bitcoin payments without sacrificing service quality.
Your domains will be safe from resource sharing, downtime, and security breaches, despite Hostinger's low pricing, since the company takes precautions against these threats. As compared to other web hosts, their uptime and performance are exceptional. Its support staff is accessible around the clock, worldwide.
Anyone who want a simple website or blog up and running with minimum effort and upkeep can go no farther than Hostinger UK, as shown by our review. With Hostinger, you can have a WordPress site up and running in minutes, plus you'll get a free SSL and domain name registration.
PROS
CONS
2. SiteGround – Top Web Hosting for Small Business Support (from £2.99/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ Daily free backups
- ⭐ Optimized for Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal
- ⭐ Turbo servers offered
- ⭐ Improved protection
- ⭐ Impeccably fast
- ⭐ Zero cost SSL certificates
- ⭐ Protection against hackers
- ⭐ Many outstanding capabilities
An Elite Service Starting from just £2.99 Each Month in the United Kingdom ✅
StartUp, SiteGrounds' most inexpensive plan, costs £2.99 per month. It's loaded with features like free SSL, free CDN, and free professional email accounts. If you need to host many websites on a single plan, though, you'll need to pay £4.99 per month for GrowBig or £7.49 per month for GoGeek.
Adding extra website hosting capacity is just one benefit of upgrading. There will be greater storage capacity, more traffic each month, backups on demand, and premium, prioritised assistance.
Online shop plans have comparable pricing structures, varying only in terms of store volume.
SiteGround offers discounts on their services on occasion so that you may take use of them at a lower cost. Apart from that, during the length of your first contract, you'll get a 40-60% discount on all of the aforementioned programmes. When it comes time to renew your plan, regular rates will apply.
Why Does SiteGround Have Superb E-Commerce?
SiteGround has an impressive uptime guarantee of 99.95 per cent. Time is money when you're operating an online store. There is a potential £80,000 in lost income for every hour that your website is unavailable. There are also the intangible costs of damage to one's reputation and the price of fixing things.
Use of resources is another factor to think about. Dynamic designs and features, such as high-res photos, streaming video, and interactive media, are commonplace in the e-commerce space and might be enticing at first glance but can quickly drain your site's resources.
SiteGround provides free domain registration, domain transfers, WordPress installation with a single click, unlimited custom email addresses, and unlimited subdomains.
Free SSL certificates, free automatic backups, and 24/7 site monitoring are all included in even the most basic plan. There goes £60 a year and a lot of hassle.
At the end of the day, their support service is unparalleled. They are quick to reply through phone, email, or live chat, and they take the time to patiently explain how to solve any problems.
If you're looking for a cheap alternative to shared hosting, go no further than SiteGround. For an annual fee of just £2.99, they also provide managed WordPress hosting. After the conclusion of your first term, the monthly cost will increase to £11.99.
PROS
CONS
3. HostPapa – Well-Priced Web Hosting for Startups (£2.95/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ Free domain registration, setup, and transfer
- ⭐ Free customizable email address
- ⭐ Free site builder and content delivery network
- ⭐ Free marketing tools
- ⭐ Free individual instruction
- ⭐ 24-hour customer service and live chat
- ⭐ Free SSL
- ⭐ Bandwidth restricted
Pricing begins at £2.95 per month and rises to £8.95 per month if you want to renew your subscription.
HostPapa's Business plan normally costs £8.95 per month, but for the first three years of service, you can get it for only £2.95 per month. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are all accepted methods of payment for the service.
HostPapa's ordinary shared hosting plan and their middle-tier Business plan both provide discounts that bring the monthly price down. The company offers a full refund if you are not satisfied with their service within 30 days.
HostPapa is your best option for the most affordable Business package and the finest hosting service overall. It's a fantastic choice for the money, and the customer service is quick and helpful.
Servers Around The Globe 🌐
HostPapa's headquarters are in Canada, however, its servers may be found on every continent. The firm boasts both industry-leading speeds and one of the greatest uptime percentages.
Then there are the bonuses and extras, which may number in the thousands and include hundreds of applications, marketing resources, and freebies. Whether you're just starting out with a personal blog or launching a full-fledged enterprise, you'll be able to get all the tools you need to launch your site quickly and securely.
PROS
CONS
4. HostGator – Most Affordable Cloud Hosting for Small Businesses (£2.20/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ Installations requiring a single click
- ⭐ Automatic backups are provided for free
- ⭐ A discount coupon for Google AdWords worth £100
- ⭐ With boundless data transit and storage
- ⭐ Open source (unlimited with higher tier plans)
- ⭐ Open SSL at No Charge
- ⭐ Create a personalised email address
Hatchling Plan pricing begins at around £2.20 ($2.95) per month with a 24-month commitment. The cost increases.
If you renew your contract, the price will increase to a bit over a fiver monthly. If you sign up for an initial year of service, the premium HostGator Business (or WordPress Hosting) plan will cost you just a fiver ($5.95) per month. They welcome payments made with PayPal and all major credit cards.
In terms of savings, HostGator promo codes and discounts are widely disseminated online. You have 45 days to evaluate their services risk-free thanks to their generous money-back guarantee.
HostGator is a little more costly than the other alternatives we've provided, but you'll still get a lot of bang for your buck. When compared to competitors, HostGator's speed, performance, and uptime are all on par; yet, the host's extensive feature set makes it ideal for sophisticated bloggers and marketers.
Good for Those in Need of Advertising
Their free website builder is excellent, and they've put forth a lot of effort to make their WordPress hosting better. Because of its Search Engine Optimization features and ability to integrate with both Google Adwords and Bing Ads, it is an excellent choice for eCommerce platforms.
If you use HostGator, you can rest assured that your data is safe thanks to their free SSL certificates and regular backups. Moreover, customers will have unlimited data transfer and storage space, complimentary domain names, and a simple set-up procedure.
Read our in-depth analysis of HostGator to learn more.
PROS
CONS
5. Bluehost – Reliable Web Hosting for Small Businesses (£2.45/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ Registration of new domains is now free of charge
- ⭐ Open SSL with No Cost
- ⭐ Installation of WordPress with a single click
- ⭐ Uncapped capacity
- ⭐ Bonus £200 worth of Google Adwords credit
- ⭐ Provide cPanel assistance
The cheapest monthly payment for the first 12 months of service is £2.45. For the next renewal, the monthly fee will rise to under a tenner. For your convenience, Bluehost accepts all major credit cards. Also, they provide a 30-day money-back guarantee.
As long as there has been an internet, there has been Bluehost. The business was opened in 1996, but changed its name to Bluehost in 2003. They have been hailed as the premier WordPress hosting provider for the last several years running.
Our comprehensive Bluehost review has shown that the service is more costly than others; yet, the added features may be well worth the additional cost.
VIP Table of Hosting 👨🎤
There must be something right with the company's model for it to survive this long and continue to service millions of clients. British users will be pleased to learn that the company has data centres all around the globe.
When it comes to user-friendliness, both Siteground and Bluehost are strong contenders; in this comparison, you can learn more about their shared and differentiated features.
The organisation clearly caters to newcomers, as seen by its extensive knowledge base of how-to lessons.
Everyone from inexperienced webmasters to seasoned programmers will find something to like about Bluehost. With Bluehost, even the cheapest plans feature industry-leading uptime guarantees. The fact that Bluehost is based outside of the United Kingdom makes getting in touch with customer service a bit trickier for those living in the United Kingdom.
PROS
CONS
6. A2 Hosting – Fast Web Hosting for Small Businesses (£2.50/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ No cost for automated backups
- ⭐ Built with WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla in mind
- ⭐ There are lightning-fast servers accessible.
- ⭐ A free SSL Certificate
- ⭐ The Means of Preventing Hacks
- ⭐ Plenty of high-tech extras
Begins at £2.50/mo for starter plan, goes into the 100s for premium plans like dedicated. If you want the low price on basic shared hosting, you'll need to commit to a 36-month plan; after that, the price will go back up to under a tenner per month. Payment options include PayPal, Skrill, and the majority of major credit cards.
Prices reduced: the business provides a wide variety of discounts and special offers for new clients, all of which are periodically revised. A2 offers a prorated refund at “anytime”, in addition to the standard 30-day refund policy.
For us, A2's higher starting price is the single drawback to an otherwise excellent offering. In most respects, the A2 Hosting plans are superior to those of the competition. In contrast, the other five businesses on our list provide comparable quality at a lower cost.
Faster Than a Flash ⚡
When analysing A2 Hosting, we had our doubts about the company's claimed lightning-fast speeds. Our assumptions were incorrect. They keep their word, and you won't find a better web hoster in this pricing range anyplace else.
Its cheapest plan still has built-in protections against hacking and other security risks. A2 also provides free backups, a very high uptime, and lightning-fast speeds.
PROS
CONS
7. iPage – Underrated Web Host for Small Businesses (£1.65/Month)
Features & Fees:
- ⭐ Registration of new domains free of charge
- ⭐ 1000 layouts
- ⭐ Construct a website before buying
- ⭐ Certificate of SSL encryption security
- ⭐ Enough space for keeping anything
When you sign up for a 36-month plan, your monthly cost drops to £1.65 from £2.48. It will cost you a bit over fiver each month after the renewal. All major payment cards and PayPal are accepted here.
You may have to look around on sites like Coupns.com, Groupon, and RetailMeNot to discover discounts and promo codes, but it's worth the effort. iPage provides a normal 30-day money-back guarantee.
There are no sluggishness concerns with this top-notch web host, as we note in our iPage review. We have heard largely negative things regarding the company's customer service.
The fact that iPage is based in the United States is its major drawback and the main reason it has fallen from our top 6. This may be a problem for British customers since their customer care is only accessible during US business hours. Customers on the most basic plan also must purchase for an SSL certificate, a feature included at no cost with the majority of our top recommendations.
Are Sales Spiking? Don't Waste Your Time Elsewhere
Several advantages of iPage are available to individuals who are not hindered by time zone variations. In addition to having a free domain for the first year, you will also have access to a plethora of premium options. The quality of their virtual private servers places them among the top VPS providers we've researched.
As an added bonus, you have limitless storage space and access to more than a thousand premade design layouts to work from.
We strongly suggest iPage if your site's traffic is growing quickly enough to warrant a virtual private server (VPS), but you have a restricted hosting budget.
PROS
CONS
The Cost of Web Hosting for Small Businesses: Purchasing Advice
Here's Why You Shouldn't Sign Up for “Free” or Very Low-Cost Hosting 🙀
Although there are undoubtedly many linkages to well-known, established brands, there are also many links to relatively unknown businesses hoping to cash in on the popularity of their namesake.
That's the catch-22 of really inexpensive or free hosting.
It's business as usual. The cost of sustaining a technological platform may quickly add up when you include in things like infrastructure, updates, security, and more.
The whole of it is too much for anybody to give up voluntarily. They are either earning a profit off of you without your knowledge or consent, or they are charging you less than you are worth.
Where do they get such ideas?
The most common method is covert data collection and subsequent sales to other parties. One should be wary of bargains that are too good to be true for more than one reason, including targeted marketing.
While we have covered a few exceptional free web hosts, these providers are the outliers.
Most free web providers earn their money by packing hundreds or even thousands of users onto a single server and giving them all the same IP address.
This is the issue, though:
- ⚠️ Adverse neighbours. Spammers and con artists choose free or low-cost services because they need little to no upfront investment and allow them to blend in with the crowd. Your website's performance will suffer and it will crash often if you let these resource hogs to remain.
- ⚠️ Large amounts of idle time. When you have bad neighbours, you have more downtime, which may be bad for business. In our opinion, you should avoid working with any provider that promises less than a 99% uptime.
- ⚠️ You can easily break into them. Services that employ a pool of IP addresses are a prime target for hackers since they have weaker protection and more potential victims.
- ⚠️ Chaos is simple to disseminate. Malicious programmes and viruses may quickly propagate with the help of a vulnerable system and an unwitting user base.
- ⚠️ Google's punishments are severe. Google indexers will form an opinion of you based on the sites you associate with, fair or not (or use). Sites hosted on servers with a history of frequent outages and a significant concentration of known security flaws or spammers will not fare well in search engine results.
- ⚠️ Hardly any help at all. For the most part, the customer service that comes with free or very cheap hosting plans is unreliable, slow, or simply poor. You won't be able to access any kind of FAQ or knowledge base; instead, you'll be given a slow-response email address or a phone number that leads you straight to an automated system or an extremely long wait period. The safety measures are inadequate. When they are given at all, even necessities like SSL come at a steep price.
Unfortunately, the reality of these free or ridiculously discounted deals seldom becomes apparent until after the return policy has expired. The promised low costs are only available to those who sign a long-term commitment. If you wait until you get subpar service before complaining, it will be too late to cancel.
When joining up with a company, it's in your best interest to study the nitty-gritty details, such as the TOS and SLAs. The problem is that nobody wants to spend their time reading through lengthy, ambiguous contracts.
Take advantage of free trials to learn more about each company's reliability.
So, you may as well simply give the money away for free, rather than wasting endless hours trying out different strategies in the hope of finding the greatest one. Imagine instead if you had access to an expert third party who could gather all the data, evaluate each firm, and provide you with clear recommendations.
We're supposed to be doing that!
Where and How Fast is Your Server? 🛩️
The farther that information needs to go, the more time it will take to get to its destination. In computer terms, this lag is known as “latency”.
Yet, isn't it true that data travels at the speed of light?
Yes. When a user fills in a URL, the computer needs to jump through routers; the farther away the user is, the more routers the computer will have to jump through to get to the desired location. More routers mean longer delays.
Final Verdict
Like everyone else, we appreciate a good deal. Yet, you shouldn't always expect to get what you pay for when something is free or very inexpensive. You get what you pay for sometimes.
Need some direction? You can count on us to take care of everything. Our intention is to provide you an in-depth analysis of the most cost-effective hosting packages available in the UK.
We've done the legwork to find the businesses who provide the finest combination of value for money, interesting features, and helpful service. After we're done with our studies, we compile the results and provide them to you in the form of charts and articles.
No one can tell you what to do with that data.
FAQs
Your inquiries concerning web hosting costs in the UK should be easily answered by browsing through this area of our FAQ. The following are some of the most frequently asked questions we get.
Which Low-Cost Dedicated Server Plan is the Best?
We've found that Kinsta offers the most reliable and high-quality dedicated hosting services overall. But if you're concerned primarily with cost, we suggest… furthermore Kinsta.
In comparison to the majority of other hosting providers, whose lowest dedicated hosting plan starts at over £100 per month, Kinsta's starts at only £28.50. The dedicated plans they provide are the most costly and highest quality available, but that's another story.
Where is the Most Affordable Web Hosting?
Our recommendations are not free, but you may try them risk-free since they all come with a money-back guarantee. While we advise against using a free hosting service, you can get excellent service from a firm like Hostinger UK for just a few bucks a month.
What is the Average Cost of Web Hosting Per Month?
The answer is that it is dependent on the package of services you choose. Safe, low-cost hosting often costs between £2 and £4 per month, paid in full at the beginning of the contract.
Does WordPress Need Specialized Hosting, and are Managed Plans Any Good?
As a result of its immense popularity, a great number of web hosting providers now provide both free WordPress installation and cheap managed WordPress hosting.
For Cpanel Hosting, Which Companies are the Best?
Almost all of our top options provide CPanel hosting, and if you're unfamiliar with how to use it, you can find a wealth of information online.
Where Can I Find the Quickest UK Hosting Provider?
The results of our performance tests indicate that A2 Hosting is the quickest hosting platform currently available.
In most cases, the quickest option is to use a VPS hosting service that can be customised. You'll have access to tools and customization options with virtual private server hosting. Nevertheless, the site owner, not the host, is responsible for all upkeep and customization, therefore this approach needs a good deal of technical expertise and effort.
For more, check out this article on the top Minecraft server hosting websites.
