How Much Does WordPress Cost? WordPress Pricing and Plans for Small Businesses

WordPress can seem quite attractive as a free CMS that powers more than 40 percent of the internet’s websites. But it’s important to understand what WordPress actually is — and isn’t — before you can decide if it’s right for you. 

WordPress isn’t a simple drag-and-drop website builder so it requires some coding knowledge to get started. Moreover, it doesn’t include hosting or domain registration, which is why you’ll need to look elsewhere for those services.

At the top of our list of the Best WordPress Hosting Services is Bluehost. Another popular web hosting service is GoDaddy. This guide will explain the features and pricing of WordPress website hosting plans from both of these providers.

Bluehost is our top pick for hosting and maintaining your WordPress website. Simple and affordable, Bluehost is a trusted brand with an impressive history of security and reliability. 

Bluehost offers three types of WordPress hosting: shared, managed, and ecommerce. Note that Bluehost also offers an optional drag-and-drop website builder with these plans to help you build your website. But you don’t need to use the Bluehost builder to host your WordPress website using Bluehost.

Using a shared plan from Bluehost means your website will share server space with other websites. All Bluehost shared plans come with a few basic features: 

• Unlimited Bandwidth Unless Your Site Violates Bluehost’s Terms of Use: This means you can trust your website to be consistently fast and functional.
• Free Domain Registration for One Year: This removes one of the hassles of starting a new website. 
• A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate: This keeps your and your customers’ data safe. 
• Access to Cloudflare Services: With this popular content delivery network (CDN), you can ensure your site will deliver fast loading times for users worldwide. 
• 24/7 Customer Support: Bluehost’s round-the-clock support provides peace of mind in case you encounter any issues with your website hosting service.

The Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting plan is the least expensive way to host a WordPress site with Bluehost. Although it’s quite limited, it may fit the bill for many websites with low storage needs.

Features

The Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting plan is the only shared plan with a storage limit. It allows for only one website, containing up to 50 gigabytes (GB) of data. This might be enough for smaller, informational websites or blogs. If you want to host more than one website or a site that contains lots of files or large files, however, you may need to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting Plan = $2.95/mo.

Bluehost’s pricing model is a bit complicated. You can pay as little as $2.95 per month for the Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting plan when you sign up for a one-year commitment. But after your first contract term ends, the cost will increase based on the term of your renewal period with different pricing for one-month, six-month, one-year, two-year, or three-year agreements. Here’s a high-level overview of these prices:

If you know you’ll want to use Bluehost for at least three years, you may want to consider Bluehost’s three-year introductory price of $4.95 per month. This option means you’ll pay more in the first year than if you chose the one-year option for $2.95 per month. But you’ll then pay considerably less in the second and third years. The three-year introductory price is typically the most affordable option in the long term.

When To Use

The Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting plan is a good choice for a simple website like a blog. Businesses that just need to provide some information to current and potential clients, such as restaurants or freelancers, also might find this plan meets all their needs.

Start hosting your website with the Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting plan for as little as $2.95 per month.

The Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan is similar to the Bluehost Basic Shared WordPress Hosting plan, but with fewer limits and some additional perks.

Features

The Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan allows you to host multiple websites — with no limit on the number of domains hosted. It also has no storage limit as long as you stay within Bluehost’s Terms of Service. (This should be easy because the limits in the Terms of Service are very high limits related to database size and the total hosted file count.)

Some additional perks of this plan include a one-time credit of up to $200 for use with Google Ads or Microsoft Ads. This can help you get your business website in front of a broader set of potential customers. You also get a 30-day trial of the Microsoft 365 subscription service.

Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting Plan = $5.45/mo.

The Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan can cost as little as $5.45 per month for the first year with a 12-month contract. After that, the price will increase based on the term of your renewal contract as discussed above. The three-year introductory rate is $7.45 per month. 

When To Use

With the option of hosting multiple websites and unlimited storage, the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan is especially useful for service-based businesses with multiple subsidiaries. It also works well for restaurant and hospitality groups as well as creative freelancers who need a lot of space to store photos or videos.

Check out the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan today!

The Bluehost Choice Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan is very similar to the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan, but it includes a few extra security features. Note that while it has the same introductory price as the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan, this plan’s monthly cost after the introductory contract period will be higher.  

Features

In addition to all the features of the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan, the Bluehost Choice Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan includes two additional — and important — features:

• Enhanced Privacy: Bluehost masks your identifying information (i.e., your name, phone number, and physical address) in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) database, which helps you avoid spam and other unwanted contact related to your website.
• Bluehost’s CodeGuard Service: This service automatically backs up your website regularly for one year. After that, you can purchase CodeGuard as an add-on feature.

Bluehost Choice Plus Shared WordPress Hosting Plan = $5.45/mo.

The Bluehost Choice Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan has the same introductory rate as the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan: $5.45 per month for the first year or $7.45 per month for the first three years. After the introductory period, this plan costs four to five dollars more per month than the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan. Because CodeGuard is only included for the first year, the only extra feature you’ll get with this plan is the domain privacy service.

When To Use

Because the Bluehost Choice Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan only provides one extra feature when compared to the Bluehost Plus Shared WordPress Hosting plan, it’s only likely to appeal to business owners who don’t want their phone number and address publicly available and are willing to spend an extra $60 to $70 per year to keep that information private.

The Bluehost Pro Shared WordPress Hosting plan comes with all the features of the other shared plans, but it’s optimized for high-traffic websites or websites that otherwise require specific usage parameters.  

Features

With the Bluehost Pro Shared WordPress Hosting plan, your website is still stored on a shared server. But it’ll have its own dedicated internet protocol (IP) address. This means no other website shares a specific IP address with yours, and only you and your staff will have access to that address. A dedicated IP address can help your site load faster, deliver email more quickly, enable secure remote access for your team, and prevent the blacklisting or blocking of your website stemming from an unrelated website’s behavior.

This plan also provides advanced computing capabilities, using a more powerful central processing unit (CPU). While the vast majority of websites may not need Bluehost’s optimized CPU resources, they might prove necessary for sites that include dynamic content or expect extremely heavy traffic.

The Bluehost Pro Shared WordPress Hosting plan also includes Bluehost’s CodeGuard automated backup service for the life of the agreement. Regular, automated backups of your site will help ensure you can quickly restore it in the event a problem arises.

Bluehost Pro Shared WordPress Hosting Plan = $13.95/mo.

During the introductory period, the Bluehost Pro Shared WordPress Hosting plan can cost as little as $13.95 per month for the first year or $18.95 per month for the first three years. After the introductory period, this plan costs considerably more than Bluehost’s other shared hosting plans. 

When To Use

The dedicated IP address included in the Bluehost Pro Shared WordPress Hosting plan may be necessary for businesses that deal with extremely sensitive information, such as medical companies. Websites with very high traffic or those that use a lot of processing power also will benefit from this plan’s optimized CPU resources.

Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting plans — also called WP Pro — include services that’ll take care of much of your website’s day-to-day maintenance and troubleshooting. You can maintain a hands-off approach, trusting Bluehost’s team to keep your site functional and up-to-date while you focus on the business itself. 

Bluehost’s managed plans also help you grow your business with tools dedicated to small business marketing needs, such as customer engagement, statistical analytics, and search engine optimization (SEO).

The Bluehost Build WP Pro plan includes basic hosting services, updates and maintenance performed automatically or by Bluehost’s team, and various business-oriented analytics and security tools.

Features

The Bluehost Build WP Pro plan allows you to forget about the day-to-day maintenance of your website hosting. There are no limits to how many websites, domains, and subdomains you may use. Bluehost can manage all of your websites, including WordPress installation and updates, SSL security certificates, and CDN integration. This alone can prove very attractive to business owners who lack the experience or time to manage their own website hosting. But managed hosting isn’t the only appealing feature of this plan.

The Bluehost Build WP Pro plan also includes basic site analytics through the popular WordPress plugin, Jetpack. The WP Pro “Marketing Center” dashboard not only displays specific traffic analytics for your sites and blogs, but also enables you to manage your business’s social media integrations. This plan also automates verification of your business with Google Business Profile, ensuring your company appears properly in Google search engine results.

With all WP Pro plans, Bluehost removes your personal information from the ICANN database for enhanced privacy. Meanwhile, malware and spam filters protect your email, comment sections, and any other user fields from cyber attacks and unwanted messages.

Daily scheduled backups of all your hosted content ensure you never risk losing more than 24 hours of new content. Moreover, a built-in staging area lets you test new content without publishing it to your live website.

Bluehost Build WP Pro Plan = $19.95/mo.

The Bluehost Build WP Pro plan costs $19.95 per month for the first year when billed annually. After the first year, it costs $29.99 per month. Like all Bluehost WP Pro plans, it also comes with a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

When To Use

Blog-based or informational websites with few marketing needs and little interest in selling ads are a natural fit for the Bluehost Build WP Pro plan. Restaurants and hospitality groups, for instance, may find this plan perfectly suits their needs. It’s also a great way to get a feel for Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting plans — and you can always upgrade to a more full-featured plan later.

Test drive the Bluehost Build WP Pro plan today.

The Bluehost Grow WP Pro plan includes everything in the Bluehost Build WP Pro plan plus an expanded set of analytics and marketing tools.

Features

In addition to verifying your business with Google Business Profile, the Bluehost Grow WP Pro plan includes SEO tools to help your websites climb to the top of search engine results. Integrations with various review-based services (e.g., Yelp and Google Reviews) also allow your customers to write reviews directly from your website, increasing your company’s reach on the web. 

This plan also includes a higher tier of the Jetpack plugin’s tool suite, including Jetpack Ads. That’ll enable you to sell advertising space on your site — a largely passive way to generate additional revenue.

This plan also gives you access to Bluehost’s in-house support system, Blue Sky. With Blue Sky, you can get 24/7 email assistance with not only Bluehost services, but also WordPress questions. Blue Sky’s support staff includes dedicated WordPress experts who can help with every aspect of your website.

Bluehost Grow WP Pro Plan = $29.95/mo.

The Bluehost Grow WP Pro plan costs $29.95 per month for the first year when billed annually then $39.99 per month thereafter. Like all Bluehost WP Pro plans, it also comes with a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

When To Use

Just as the name of this plan implies, the Bluehost Grow WP Pro plan is ideal for growing businesses or those currently pursuing a growth strategy. Businesses with active marketing teams, enough traffic to justify selling advertising space, or that could benefit from SEO tools and customer reviews should consider this plan.

Ready to get your business website seen by more potential customers? Check out the Bluehost Grow WP Pro plan now.

The Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan suits larger businesses with more dynamic or complex content as well as those that simply have huge amounts of content on their sites.

Features

The Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan includes everything in the previous two WP Pro plans along with some tools that enable you to streamline extensive content production. Unlimited video compression, for example, allows video-heavy websites to load quickly and smoothly as well as host their own video content instead of streaming it through a third party. 

The Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan includes the Elasticsearch tool, which provides advanced search filters and speeds up searches on your site. This plan’s PayPal integration also allows your business to accept digital payments directly from your website. In addition, a higher tier of the Jetpack plugin’s tool suite supports deeper analytics and enhanced security — especially valuable if your business accepts online payments.

With the Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan, you also get access to Blue Sky support teams via live chat. For large businesses in fast-paced industries, real-time support from Blue Sky experts can prove crucial.

Bluehost Scale WP Pro Plan = $49.95/mo.

The Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan costs $49.95 per month for the first year when billed annually then $59.99 per month thereafter. Like all Bluehost WP Pro plans, it also comes with a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

When To Use

With its 24/7 chat support, the Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan is ideal for larger businesses that may need to make difficult changes or address issues on the fly. Its PayPal integration makes accepting payments easy so service-based companies also may view this plan as a good fit. The video compression tool allows content creators to keep their content local vs. relying on third parties, which means this plan may work well for video producers or advertising companies as well. 

Does this sound like a good fit for your business? Try the Bluehost Scale WP Pro plan today.

WooCommerce is an ecommerce plugin for WordPress that allows you to build a full-featured online store. Bluehost incorporates this powerful tool into its ecommerce WordPress hosting plans along with solutions designed to help you get the most out of the WooCommerce plugin.

These ecommerce WordPress hosting plans come with the same unlimited bandwidth and storage found in Bluehost’s shared and managed WordPress hosting plans. They also include SSL certificates, Google Business Profile verification, site monitoring and statistics, and free domain name registration.

The Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan includes basic hosting services, updates and maintenance performed automatically or by Bluehost’s team, and various WooCommerce-oriented analytics tools.

Features

In addition to installing and updating WordPress, Bluehost’s ecommerce WordPress hosting plans also keep the WooCommerce plugin up to date and performing at its best. 

This plan supports an unlimited number of products so you never have to worry about your online catalog growing too large for your servers. Moreover, this plan enables you to install major payment processors with a single click so you can start accepting payments immediately upon launching your online store. 

With this plan, your site visitors will be able to leave reviews, filter product searches, and use discount codes you provide. You can even create transactions manually in case you initiate sales by other means or need to invoice customers directly.

With the Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan, you get one year of Bluehost’s CodeGuard backup tool plus a 30-day trial of the Microsoft 365 subscription service.

Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting Plan = $15.95/mo.

The Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan costs $15.95 per month for the first year when billed annually. After that, it costs $24.95 per month.

When To Use

Because it doesn’t include product customization tools for size or color variations, the Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan works best for online stores that sell simple, discrete products. 

Try the Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan today.

The Bluehost Premium Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan includes all the features that come with the Bluehost Standard Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan plus a few extra for specialized ecommerce businesses.

Features

This plan adds support for subscription products, product variations like size and color, and the ability to create online bookings and schedule appointments during a transaction. With this plan, your WordPress website will even automatically calculate sales tax for customers’ orders by city, state, or country.

The Bluehost Premium Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan also includes CodeGuard backup tools for the entire duration of your hosting agreement and removes your personal information from your domain’s listing in the ICANN database.

Bluehost Premium Ecommerce WordPress Hosting Plan = $32.95/mo.

The Bluehost Premium Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan costs $32.95 per month for the first year when billed annually. After that, it costs $39.95 per month.

When To Use

With its flexibility regarding subscription products and product customization, the Bluehost Premium Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan ideally suits magazines and other media companies. With appointment-setting and booking tools, it can even meet the needs of hospitality and product rental companies. 

Sign up for the Bluehost Premium Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan today.

GoDaddy is another extremely popular website hosting service — and it has four plans specifically made for hosting WordPress websites. These plans are competitive with Bluehost’s prices, but the cheaper GoDaddy plans are somewhat more limited than Bluehost’s lower-tier plans. 

The pricing of GoDaddy’s WordPress Hosting plans is even more complicated than Bluehost’s. Except for the GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan, the prices in the above screenshot reflect a discounted introductory period of three years. (Like Bluehost, GoDaddy also offers introductory periods of one and two years — both at slightly less discounted prices.) This guide will note the cheapest introductory price, the long-term renewal price, and the month-to-month price.

If you commit to at least one year to start, GoDaddy also will give you free domain registration for the length of your introductory term. In addition, you can opt to receive one year of a business email address at your domain name through the Microsoft Outlook software system.

The GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan is the least expensive way to host a WordPress site with GoDaddy. While this is a somewhat limited plan, it may fit the bill for many websites with low storage needs.

Features

All GoDaddy WordPress hosting plans come with SSL certificates, which GoDaddy will install and keep updated for you. Each of these plans also include a reliable CDN, site backup and restoration tools, daily malware scans, and automatic WordPress updates.

The GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan allows up to 30 GB of data storage across any websites you host with GoDaddy. It also limits traffic bandwidth to 25,000 monthly visitors. 

GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting Plan = $2.99/mo.

The GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan can cost as little as $2.99 per month when you sign up for a one-year introductory contract. After your introductory contract, the price will increase to $9.99 per month. If you choose a monthly contract instead, expect to pay $11.99 per month.

Unlike other GoDaddy WordPress hosting plans, this plan’s one-year, introductory price is lower per month than its two- and three-year introductory pricing. But if you know you want to use GoDaddy to host your website, choosing a three-year introductory contract (at $6.33 per month) will still save you a bit of money.

When To Use

With its limits on both storage and bandwidth, the GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan is likely only appropriate for small blogs and informational websites with intentionally limited reach. GoDaddy will warn you if you risk exceeding these limits, but it may be better to budget for a more expensive plan from the beginning.

Start hosting your website with the GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan today.

The GoDaddy Deluxe WordPress Hosting plan is somewhat less limited than the GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan, and it includes a few extra features. It targets growing business websites that don’t yet need unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Features

In addition to all the features that come with the GoDaddy Basic WordPress Hosting plan, the GoDaddy Deluxe WordPress Hosting plan allows you to take payments using GoDaddy Payments — both online and in person. An included subscription to Yoast — one of the top SEO tools for WordPress websites — will assist you in growing your business by helping it rise toward the top of search results. 

This plan’s storage limit is 75 GB. That may still be somewhat low if you intend on hosting multiple sites or if you need to host a lot of large photo and video files or interactive content. In addition, this plan’s monthly visitor limit increases to 100,000 per month.

GoDaddy Deluxe WordPress Hosting Plan = $9.99/mo.

The GoDaddy Deluxe WordPress Hosting plan can cost as little as $9.99 per month when you sign up for an introductory contract of three years. After your introductory contract — whatever its length — this plan’s monthly cost will rise to $14.99. If you instead opt for a monthly contract, expect to pay $17.99 per month.

When To Use

The Yoast SEO tool is a premium addition to GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting plans, and it may justify the upgrade to this plan. But if SEO and other marketing tools grow your business beyond 100,000 site visitors per month, you’ll need to upgrade again. The GoDaddy Deluxe WordPress Hosting plan is ideal for growing businesses that don’t yet have 100,000 website visitors per month, but would like to meet or exceed that soon. 

Check out the GoDaddy Deluxe WordPress Hosting plan today.

The GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan is the least expensive WordPress hosting plan without storage and bandwidth limits. It also adds a few security features.

Features

In addition to all the features that come with GoDaddy’s other WordPress hosting plans, this plan removes limits on storage and bandwidth. It even includes a credit to use with Google Ads or Microsoft Bing ads. These features should give you the peace of mind to grow your website — and your business — freely. 

You also won’t have to worry that your increased site traffic and visitor interactions may leave you vulnerable to malware and hacking. The GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan includes not only the daily malware scans found in the previous plans, but also free, unlimited malware removal and hacking repair tools.

GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting Plan = $12.99/mo.

The GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan costs $12.99 per month when you sign up for an introductory contract of three years. After your introductory contract, the price increases to $19.99 per month. Alternatively, the cost of a monthly contract is $21.99 per month.

When To Use

With no limits on storage space or bandwidth, the GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan suits any business that’s already big enough to have more than 100,000 monthly site visitors and needs to host more than 75 GB of data or multiple websites. Medium to large advertising and marketing firms may find this plan covers all their bases as might news organizations or media websites.

Start hosting your website with the GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan today.

The GoDaddy Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan is the only GoDaddy WordPress hosting plan specifically designed for ecommerce businesses. It enables you to build a full-featured web store.

Features

The GoDaddy Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan lets you sell both digital and physical products in your online store. It also allows customers to schedule appointments with your company or complete bookings directly on your website.

This plan is as unlimited as the GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan so your online store can be as large as necessary to fulfill your customers’ needs. Its included SEO tools also will help you optimize each of your product pages so they appear in relevant searches.

GoDaddy Ecommerce WordPress Hosting Plan = $15.99/mo.

The GoDaddy Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan can cost as little as $15.99 per month when you purchase a three-year, introductory contract. After your introductory contract, the price will go up to $24.99 per month. If you instead opt for a monthly contract, you’ll have to pay $29.99 per month.

When To Use

Ecommerce businesses of any size will want to consider the GoDaddy Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan. If your WordPress business website doesn’t need an online store, then the GoDaddy Ultimate WordPress Hosting plan should suffice. But this is the only hosting plan you should consider from GoDaddy if you plan to sell products online. 

Sign up for the GoDaddy Ecommerce WordPress Hosting plan today.

Now that you have an idea of the costs and features associated with hosting plans for your WordPress website, you can choose the right plan for your business. With a plan from either Bluehost or GoDaddy, you can successfully launch the business website you’ve spent so much time thinking about!