Hosting costs account for a significant amount of expenditure for small businesses. Most of the best web hosting providers all start off cheap but have a reputation for stinging you with high renewal costs.
Based on my experience, Namecheap is still cheap, but wouldn't always be my go to for cheap hosting because launching a site on a budget can be hard.
My top-tip: instead of hunting for always-cheap hosting to begin with, find the best cheap hosting deals and then migrate your site before renewal (it's usually free and support do it for you).
Best cheap web hosting overall
Namecheap has three cheap shared hosting plans. Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. These three subscriptions are all unmanaged shared hosting plans. While the plans are unmanaged, you don't need to be a hosting expert to use them. That's because each plan uses cPanel (an easy to use interface between you and the server) and provides one click installers for WordPress and anything else that you might need to get started. Very simple to use and very cheap.
Unfortunately, Namecheap don't make the true cost of their hosting plans clear. They offer a free 30-day trial then 24 months at $1.88. It appears that it renews at under $6 a month which is still cheap.
There are more powerful managed hosting plans from Namecheap and these are the EasyWP plans. These are also cheap. When we tested the cheapest EasyWP plan it was around 40% more powerful than the Stellar plan but still didn't quite match the power of Hostinger for a plan only a few dollars more.
Overall, if what you're looking for is cheap hosting then Namecheap is the best option in my opinion. It might not have the best website builder, cPanel might be a bit outdated, and performance might not be the best but for simple sites I don't think there is much better.
Read the full Namecheap review
Best cheap web hosting for value
As mentioned above, compared with the cheapest hosting, Hostinger is twice as expensive but performance is 70-80% better. For this reason I think Hostinger is one of the top cheap hosting providers when it comes to value for money.
Hostinger is also super easy to use. Some of the WordPress templates can be a bit difficult to get your head around but the AI Agent for WordPress tool can help a lot. This tool is only available from the Business plan onwards which is more pricey but I think it's worth it for people that might need a helping hand. After the website it built, you can always down-grade at the end of the plan.
Bottom line is, the price for this host is on par with most hosts of this calibre but you get better performance, better AI tools for building and managing, and long 48-month discounts which make this one of the top web hosts for value.
Read the full Hostinger review
Best for small business
For this recommendation we're venturing outside of what some might consider cheap but remember this is for a small business. SiteGround's GoGeek plan is more expensive but it supports up to 400K monthly visitors. This is incredibly good value. In comparison WP Engine's plan that supports 400k monthly visits is over $194/mo. Now, I'm not saying you should stick a site with 400K monthly visits on shared hosting but if you're going upwards of 100K monthly visits this should be a consideration.
SiteGround is ideal for someone who is looking to start a small business or is ready to upgrade their hosting. When it comes to managed hosting, this platform goes a step ahead and delivers hassle-free website management through its ultrafast managed WordPress hosting. With SiteGround, you get expert server management, including setup, maintenance, and security configurations. Plus, it also offers automatic updates for server software, including the operating system, web server software, PHP, and MySQL, ensuring that websites run on the latest, most secure, and fastest server configurations without manual intervention.
Yes, it's not really considered 'cheap' if you pit it against Namecheap but lets put it in perspective. Compared with the cheapest web hosting SiteGround offers around eight times the performance when it comes to load testing at basic levels. Namecheap wouldn't be able to keep up if we stressed it to the same levels as SiteGround.
Compared with WP Engine, SiteGround is 74% less expensive. We don't know how much better WP Engine is because they throttled our tests.
Best cheap managed WordPress hosting
Any of the budget hosts on this list are good for a standard WordPress site, but if you've got a website that is outgrowing low-cost shared hosting and you still need something affordable, Cloudways is an excellent option. Rather than traditional shared hosting, Cloudways acts as a managed platform for top-tier cloud providers like DigitalOcean, AWS, and Google Cloud, giving you a dedicated environment with resources that aren't shared with anyone else.
Pricing is where Cloudways requires a slight shift in perspective. Essentially, it's a step up to around $50 a month for a robust, mid-tier configuration. While they aren't "cheap" in a low-cost sense, they are highly affordable compared to premium managed WordPress options like WP Engine or Kinsta. You are still saving a significant amount of money while gaining enterprise-grade speeds, advanced server-level caching (like Memcached and Redis), and auto-healing servers that prevent downtime.
Because Cloudways targets users prioritizing performance, it skips some beginner-friendly extras. The platform lacks a traditional file manager, and it does not offer domain name registration or email hosting, meaning you will need to source those elsewhere.
Overall, if your WordPress site needs serious power to handle high traffic or complex databases, Cloudways delivers premium managed cloud performance without the premium price tag.
Read the full Cloudways review
Best cheap for beginners
If you are an absolute beginner building your first website, Bluehost is arguably the easiest platform to get started with. While competitors like SiteGround cater better to agencies or performance-focused businesses, Bluehost is laser-focused on making WordPress as simple and accessible as possible.
The onboarding process is practically seamless. Once you enter your payment details, Bluehost automatically installs WordPress in the background. Rather than throwing you into a complex server control panel, you are guided through an AI website builder that generates a clean, workable layout based on a quick description of your site.
Bluehost's standout feature for novices is "WonderBlocks." If you have ever found the default WordPress page editor frustrating, WonderBlocks acts as a highly intuitive drag-and-drop toolkit. It allows you to easily insert pre-built templates for headers, galleries, forms, and pricing plans directly onto your pages, saving hours of formatting headaches. The hosting dashboard itself is incredibly clean, keeping the most technical server settings hidden away so you don't get overwhelmed.
There are a few caveats. Bluehost does tend to suffer from "plugin bloat," installing several third-party tools by default that can weigh down your initial page loading speeds. Fortunately, simply disabling the plugins you don't need provides an immediate performance boost. You should also be aware that like many budget hosts, the deeply discounted introductory prices will increase significantly when it's time to renew.
Overall, if you want a guided, hassle-free entry into WordPress without needing to learn any code, Bluehost delivers an unbeatable beginner experience. Just remember to migrate before renewal.
Read the full Bluehost review
Cheap web hosting FAQs
What is the cheapest web hosting?
The answer to this really depends on what you're hosting and your goals. You can get the best free web hosting but it'll never really be any good. If you're tech savvy you can get free static hosting at Kinsta, Google App Engine has a free tier, and there are other options too.
For non-web-pros the these options are the best cheap hosting choices.
Why are these hosts the same ones you usually recommend?
The web hosting space is really competitive. All hosts are trying to out compete each other on the lowest price with the best performance and most features.
These hosts are cheap anyway. Especially considering the discounted price. If you want something cheap forever then you can use Namecheap but as mentioned earlier, you will be sacrificing on performance.
Can you use free web hosting?
Yes. You can also sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a 1.5m boat but why would you want to?
Websites are important and site performance is important. If you want a website you should do it properly and make the most of all tools available to you.
How to save money on web hosting?
My advice is to get the longest introductory price you can with the most features. You might not use all of them, you might use more than expected.
Once your introductory period is over, migrate to another host on another introductory price. Repeat until you settle on a host that you like.
Can you run a website without hosting?
No. This is like asking if you can click your fingers without a hand.
Web hosting is what makes your website accessible on the internet. Without it your website is just files on a computer somewhere.
Website builders will include hosting in their plans so you never need to think about it but they're more expensive. Purchasing your own web hosting and then putting a website on it is the cheapest way to own a website.
How we tested the best cheap web hosting services
With the best cheap web hosts, our top consideration is the value for money they offer. It's worth noting that we don't always consider the lowest price tag to be the best cheap web host, given how different each provider's cheapest package can be. This is why we put all the top providers side by side and compare their features along with their pricing.
Next, we test the reliability of these services with the help of various tools. While we're at it, we also form an opinion on how easy to use a provider is, and whether it's something we'd recommend to beginners.
Customer support is also an important criteria. In addition to the availability of support agents (24/7 or 24/5), we also look at the channels available (email, phone, and live chat).
Check out how we test web hosting providers for more information.
