How Much Is Too Much (Or Too Little) To Pay For Hosting?
So we’ve established that you need web hosting in order for your website to be seen online. So the question is, how much should you be paying for website hosting?
With a wide range of price ranges (FREE to hundreds of dollars per month), it is hard to know what to choose. We talked in our last article about you getting what you pay for. So why would anyone choose a free hosting plan, other than the obvious?
Free Website Hosting
There are many free hosting providers and a lot of them offer advanced services like CGI, shell access, PHP, SSI, and other advanced topics. However, free hosting is usually supported by advertising.
Free hosting is great for personal websites. Because they are supported by advertising, they are not ideal for any serious business. If you plan to run a business on your site, free hosting is great for testing your site and preparing the pages, but not good for running the business unless you can turn off the advertising.
Paid Website Hosting
With paid hosting, you pay some money typically once a month for space and services on a Web hosting provider’s site. Prices range from a few bucks to several hundred per month. Generally, it depends upon what services you want. Services include CGI access, database support, ASP, ecommerce, SSL, extra space, extra bandwidth, and more.
Standard paid hosting is a great option for most website businessses. Be sure to examine the options available from your server so that you get what you need. And don’t focus solely on price – changing hosting providers can be difficult and expensive. Most hosting providers will offer a plan that is less than $10/month and will be sufficient for many small to medium sized businesses.
While there are many more options out there, from dedicated servers to colocation, unless you are a large business with a high volume of traffic and sales, chances are a basic website hosting account will do. One thing you can do to save money on website hosting is paying for an annual package. Providers will often offer at least a 10% discount for paying in advance.
Next Week: What About Website Hosting Security?
