Which BlueHost Plan is Right for You?

BlueHost has a plethora of plans. There are four shared webhosting plans, three dedicated webhosting plans, three cloud hosting plans and three virtual private server hosting plans. The dedicated hosting plans are Standard, Enhanced and Premium. The shared hosting plans are Basic, Plus, Choice Plus or Prime and Pro, sometimes also referred to as Pro Package.

 

The Available Shared and Dedicated Hosting Plans of BlueHost

 

The Standard plan costs $119.99 but you can get a discount and pay $79.99 per month for 4 Cores and 8 Threads speed, 500GB mirrored storage space, 4GB RAM, 5TB bandwidth, 1 included domain, 3 IP addresses, free SSL, 24/7 support and thirty days money back guarantee. The Enhanced plan costs $159.99 but you can get a discount and pay $99.99 per month for 4 Cores and 8 Threads speed, 1TB mirrored storage space, 8GB RAM, 10TB bandwidth, 1 included domain, 4 IP addresses, free SSL, 24/7 support and thirty days money back guarantee. The Premium plan costs $209.99 per month, discounted to $119.99 per month for 4 Cores and 8 Threads speed, 1TB mirrored storage space, 16GB RAM, 15TB bandwidth, 1 included domain, 5 IP addresses, free SSL, 24/7 support and the same money back guarantee. All the three are dedicated webhosting plans.

 

The Basic shared webhosting plan is for one domain, it could be a WordPress website. The plan offers five email accounts, 50GB storage space for website, unmetered bandwidth, registration of one domain, twenty five sub domains, free SSL and up to 20 MySQL databases. There is no domain privacy, dedicated IP or SpamExperts support for free. These are payable add-ons. The Basic plan costs $8.99 per month for a yearly contract, $8.49 per month for a two years contract and $7.99 for a three years contract.

 

The Plus plan hosts unlimited websites, there are unlimited email accounts and unmetered storage space, unmetered bandwidth and unlimited sub domains. Domain registration for one website is included. There is no domain privacy, dedicated IP or SSL certificate. However, a promotional offer does include SSL certificate for one site in the price. You can have SpamExperts support for one website and unlimited MySQL databases. The cost of Plus plan is $12.99, $11.99 and $10.99 for one year, two years and three years terms respectively.

 

The Choice Plus or Prime plan includes everything in the Plus plan and in addition there is domain privacy included in the cost. SpamExperts support is available for one website. The Choice Plus or Prime plan costs $16.99, $15.99 and $14.99 for one year, two years and three years contracts respectively. The Pro plan or package has everything that Choice Plus of Prime plan offers but assures high performance. Additionally, SpamExperts support is available for two domains and there is a dedicated IP included in the price. There is a free SSL certificate, regardless of the availability of promotional offers. The Pro plan costs $25.99, $24.99 and $23.99 for one year, two year and three year contracts.

 

A promotional offer is available right now that reduces the cost of Basic plan from $7.99 per month to $2.95 per month, Plus plan from $10.99 per month to $5.45 per month, Choice Plus or Prime plan from $14.99 per month to $5.45 per month and Pro plan from $23.99 per month to $13.95 month. The pro plan uses a high performance server. There are marketing offers worth $200 in each of the three plans other than Basic.

 

The Best BlueHost Plan for You

 

All shared webhosting plans of BlueHost have inclusive features and add-ons. You can go for registration and hosting of additional domains, dedicated IP for one or more websites and the same applies to SSL certificates, SpamExperts, domain privacy, SiteLock, Site Backup, Restore Pro and other features. It is easy to compare different plans based on your requisites and budget. If you have only one website then the Basic plan is all you need to consider. It is unnecessary to consider Plus and Choice Plus or Prime as you would not be hosting multiple websites and the servers these two plans use are the same as Basic. You would not witness any major change in performance of the website. The two plans, Plus and Prime, do not have many add-ons such as dedicated IP, domain privacy or supporting software and applications such as Spam Experts and SiteLock for multiple or unlimited websites. If you have one site or one domain, go for Basic.

 

If you have two or more websites, you must consider Plus or Choice Plus. The latter, also known as Prime, is a better proposition since there are more features and you would be paying the same every month given the promotional offer at your disposal. You would have to pay more with the Prime plan compared to the Plus plan when you have to renew the term but then you can choose to downgrade and save money if you do not need the additional features. If there is a promotional offer available at that point in time, leading both plans to have the same price, then you can continue with the Prime plan.

 

Should you need your websites to perform much better than the average sites, your default choice should be Pro and that is unless you go for dedicated webhosting. There is no better plan than Pro in the spectrum of shared webhosting plans of BlueHost. The Pro plan still has some elusive features that can be always accessed by paying more. The add-ons are not relevant or necessary for every website, webmaster or company. Assess your needs and plan accordingly. Those who have websites dealing with lots of traffic or if their sites are heavier than usual and hence more demanding of resources should go for the Pro plan. Companies or individuals who are concerned about security, dedicated address and better backup & restore should also go for the Pro plan. Others can choose Basic for one site and Choice Plus or Plus for multiple websites.