Is This Web Hosting Company Worth Signing Up For? Bluehost Business
Did you know that Bluehost is home to more than 2 million websites?
This is a lot.
Their large customer base is proof that they’re doing something right. They provide reliable service, good server speeds, and all plans offer useful features for intermediates and beginners.
Bluehost provides live chat support and phone support 24 hours a day, and a 30-day money back guarantee.
There are also some downsides to this plan, such as higher renewal costs and restrictions on the cheapest one.
All of our reviews are based on actual data, such as speed, uptime, and cost.
Without further delay, let’s take an in-depth look at Bluehost and see if it can offer you the top-quality website hosting service. Bluehost Business
Bluehost Video Review
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General Info & Hosting Overview
Our Verdict: 5.0
SPEED: 688 ms (April 2020 to March 2021)
UPTIME 99.96% (April 2020-March 2021).
SUPPORT: Live Chat 24/7, Phone, Email, Knowledge Base
APPS – WordPress, Joomla Drupal, Drupal, phpBB and More Than 75+ open Source Projects
FEATURES: Unmetered bandwidth, Unlimited Websites and Storage, Free Domain 1st Year, Free SSL Certificate and CDN, Spam Experts, Domain Privacy, 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, WordPress 1-Click Install
HOSTING PLANS
SITE TRANSFER: Get a single WordPress site for FREE starting at $2.75/mo Bluehost Hosting: The Pros and Cons of Bluehost Hosting Bluehost is a company that has been in existence since 2003. This gives them a lot of knowledge about what makes a great hosting service.
Their introductory prices are affordable, customer support is easy to reach and helpful, and you get many useful features to go with your hosting plan. They also offer reliable uptime and high server speeds.
Let’s examine the strengths of Bluehost. Bluehost Business
1. Great uptime during 12-months (99.96%)
Uptime is one of the most critical aspects when choosing a web host – after all, if your site is down, your users can’t access it. You should make sure you have consistent uptime when looking into hosting services.
Our benchmark for “good uptime” is 99.93% after reviewing more than 40 web hosts. We want to see at least 99.93%.
Bluehost has surpassed this benchmark to comfortably keep our test site available for 99.96% over the past 12 month (April 2020-March 2021). The entire year’s downtime was less than four hours.
Bluehost average availability
March 2021 – 100%
February 2021: 99.97%
January 2021: 100%
December 2020: 99.98%
November 2020: 100%
October 2020: 99.67%
September 2020: 100%
August 2020: 99.99%
July 2020: 99.98%
June 2020: 100% Bluehost Business
May 2020: 99.90% (scheduled maintenance)
April 2020: 99.99%
2. Rapid Page Loading Speed (688ms)
Google has conducted research and found that people who wait longer for pages to load are 32% more likely than others to abandon your website. This trend only worsens if your page load time is longer.
Furthermore, Google is more geared towards mobile-first indexing.
You must optimize your website for mobile users to avoid losing traffic.
A slow website can mean lower traffic and sales. Page loading time is, right after uptime and sales numbers, the second most important aspect of your website’s success.
Check stats Bluehost test site had an average load time of 688ms for the past one year. It is not the fastest, but it is still good. Bluehost Business
3. Low Introductory Pricing ($2.75/mo)
Bluehost’s default pricing starts at $3.95/month, which is an introductory price from the regular $8.99/month rate.
The good news is that Bluehost has negotiated a price reduction for our readers, dropping the initial price to $2.75/month. This price allows you to get almost everything you need to run a website. You get 50GB SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, an SSL certificate, and much more. Their uptime and page load speeds are excellent, so you would get a very good deal.
The cheapest plan is not without its limitations, but we are not completely satisfied with them. More on this later.
4. Included with Security Options and Features
Bluehost is among the most affordable options on the market. This makes it easy to be happy that they aren’t skimping on security options and features.
Already with the cheapest plan, Bluehost provides your site with a free SSL certificate. Other great features include a free CDN(Cloudflare), a quick WordPress install, multiple CMS Integrations, and additional eCommerce plug-ins.
Higher-tier plans include the Spam Experts addon, domain privacy protection and server backups. SiteLock protects you from malware attacks and offers more security features.
Codeguard is another type of protection that provides daily backups to allow you to roll back older versions of a site in the event of it being hacked.
Postini, from Google, is the final security tool worth noting. It protects your email from spam, so any suspicious emails are blocked. Bluehost Business
5. Simple to use for beginners
Only advanced users can consider some of the top web hosts. Bluehost is also great for beginners.
The customer portal is easy to use and very clean. However, it can sometimes be a little slow. Bluehost is even more user-friendly because of the layout of their cPanel control panels. It is easy to install WordPress and get started with it through cPanel. All you need to do is a point and click in most cases.
You can also create a website without WordPress by using a website builder such as Weebly, Drupal or Wix. You can then customize a template by just dragging and dropping elements on your page.
Bluehost also offers advanced features for users who wish to use their code to build their sites.
6. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Bluehost offers a 30-day guarantee for all hosting plans.
You can give the service a try to determine their performance and then ask for a refund if they don’t meet your expectations. A few words of warning, however.
Bluehost’s terms state that these are the conditions under which Bluehost will guarantee your satisfaction.
Only web hosting prices are eligible for refunds. You cannot get refunds on any other products such as domains and other add-ons.
Bluehost would take $15.99 off your bill if you get a free domain.
Bluehost will not issue a refund if a request is made after 30 days.
It’s not precisely a no-questions-asked policy like we’ve seen from some hosts. Before signing up, make sure that you agree to these points. Bluehost Business
7. Customer Support Available 24/7
Bluehost provides 24 hour customer support through live chat, phone, or email. Bluehost also has a large knowledge base that provides answers to common questions and other useful information.
We decided to test their live chat option and found it pleasant.
The representative was quick to respond and knowledgeable. Yes, there were some duplicate responses, but the follow up questions encouraged us to create our own and more helpful answers.
8. One Free WordPress Site Transfer
If you already have a site and want to switch to Bluehost’s hosting plan, then this perk is for you.
Bluehost is only just starting to offer a complimentary site transfer with all their plans.
These free services come with some restrictions. First, you must have a WordPress-based site. And secondly, you have to request the migration within the first 30 days after signing up with a hosting plan.
Simply contact their customer service department and follow their instructions. It usually takes around 1-3 days for the migration to be completed.
You can only purchase this price if you do not have a WordPress website, or if you have more than one. This includes up to 5 website and 20 email account transfers.
9. The Official WordPress.org Recommended Hosting Host
WordPress is the most used platform for website creation – approximately 44% of the Internet’s websites are built with WordPress.
It’s safe for us to say that they are an authority on hosting solutions. WordPress recommends only three hosting partners for WordPress sites. Bluehost Business
Of course, you can use almost any web hosting provider to create a WordPress site. Bluehost is one among the few partners that are officially recognized is encouraging.
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Cons of Using Bluehost Hosting
Even though we’re happy to see such low introductory prices, the renewal rates can get a bit steep.
Let’s look closer at these negatives.
1. Renewal rates are higher
Prepaying for hosting upfront is the best way for you to get the lowest price. The average monthly price decreases, but you’re also committing hundreds of dollars in advance.
Rest assured, you can use the 30-day money-back guarantee to get a refund if you don’t like their service. However, once the initial plan duration is over, you can expect a steep rise in the rates.
Let’s assume you agree to the lowest plan for three years. It is $2.75/month. After the initial period ends, the renewal price of the next period is $8.99/month for a 3-year commitment.
In this instance, the third period is three times more costly than the first.
2. Cheapest Plan Restrictions
Bluehost’s lowest shared hosting plan comes with a few restrictions.
A single website is permitted, however storage space is limited. SSL certificates are not included in the free security package. If you need more security or have multiple sites, you must upgrade to at least the next pricing tier. This is twice as much.
Unfortunately, restrictions on the lowest priced plan are very common in the web hosting industry. These companies are in competition to attract customers with the lowest pricing, and then upsell decent hosting services at higher prices. Bluehost Business
Bluehost Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts
Here are the pricing plans for Bluehost shared hosting.
| Pricing | $2.75/month Renews at $8.99/mo |
$5.45/month Renews at $11.99/mo |
$5.45/month Renews at $16.99/mo |
$13.95/month Renews at $26.99/mo |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Storage | 50 GB | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Email Accounts | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Other Features | – | • Spam Experts | • Spam Experts • Domain Privacy & Protection • Codeguard Basic |
• 2 Spam Experts • Domain Privacy & Protection • Codeguard Basic • Dedicated IP |
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Quick facts
- Money-Back: 30-day money-back guarantee
- Website Migration: One WordPress website is free. Other migrations cost $149.99 for up 5 websites and 20 email addresses.
- You get a domain for free? Yes, for the first year. Then renews at $15.99 per year.
- Sign Up Easier: Simple and Guided Sign-up Process
- Payment Methods – Major credit cards and PayPal.
- Hidden Fees & Clauses: No refund for domain names. Renewal rates for both domains and hosting are much higher than the introductory rates.
- Sign-up bonuses: There are some upsells, but not too aggressive.
- Account activation: In most cases, instant activation. Activation can be delayed if there is suspicion of fraud or if the information provided is inaccurate.
- Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: Easy-to-use cPanel
- Installation of Apps and CMS (WordPress, Joomla, etc. Mojo Marketplace makes installing apps fast and easy. Bluehost Business
Bluehost is a Recommended Choice
Yes.
Bluehost has performed slightly better in the past, but they still provide a reliable service with decent server speeds.
They offer strong security options, a great guarantee of money back, many user-friendly apps, multiple tiers of hosting packages that are suitable for different customers, and many tiers. Our special discount makes the price as low as $2.75 per month.
Bluehost isn’t perfect. The hosting plans’ renewal rates will increase dramatically after the initial signup period, and the cheapest plan has some critical restrictions compared to the next tiers.
Bluehost offers good performance and value for money.
Bluehost are you familiar with their services? It doesn’t matter if you leave a negative or positive review, as long as it is helpful for our visitors. Bluehost Business
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