WordPress organization has granted official recommendations to only 3 web hosts out of the many that exist currently. The quality that Bluehost offers has won this recommendation.
Additionally, Bluehost is not only a WordPress web host but also serves the needs of big business organizations with its advanced e-commerce applications.
Data sheet of the host
Bluehost is one of the best web hosts for targeting the US market for WordPress and shared hosting services. The host maintains all your data on the servers while meeting the modern standards.
The shared server plan usually meets the hosting requirements of the majority of the people starting in the online world. With the progress of your website, you can always upgrade your plans with dedicated hosting, VPS, and more.
Bluehost serves the needs of people requiring shared hosting plans. The use of OpenStack technology ensures reliable hosting services from the company. The dedicated server configurations allow you to maintain the highest level of privacy and control. The excellent hardware and easy to operate management console are the biggest positives of Bluehost shared hosting.
Shared Hosting Plans offered by Bluehost
- The cheapest plan offered by Bluehost is known as Basic plan. It includes a free domain name, 5 email accounts, 50 GB of storage, unlimited monthly data transfers, and free domain name transfer. It comes at a price tag of $3.95 per month if paid for three years initially.
- The second plan called Plus plan can be purchased to host unlimited websites. There is no upper limit of storage and the Bandwidth offered is also unmetered. The promotional price for a commitment of three years is $5.95 per month.
- The plan that offers the best value for your money is the Choice Plus plan as it carries all the features of Plus plan and some additional features as well. You receive domain privacy and protection with this plan. Also, a back-up of your website is maintained so that you can restore your site to a previous version in case of any unforeseen discrepancy. It costs the same as the Plus plan and our favorite too.
- The biggest plan on offer is the Bluehost Pro plan. Along with all the features of the Choice Plus plan, it also offers you a dedicated IP address. The performance of your website will be the highest with this plan as there is less load on a single server. The monthly price for this plan is $13.95 when purchased for three years together.
All these four plans offer a free SSL powered by Let’s Encrypt to establish a secure connection for your website. These prices are the promotional prices applicable for the first three years only. Renewals are available at normal rates by Bluehost which are quite reasonable as well.
The introductory prices are slightly lower and the renewal prices.
The WordPress seal of approval is enough to prove the quality of services offered by Bluehost. You will find four Linux-based plans for building a WordPress website with the hosting service provider. Since these plans are optimized for managing your website content, these are costlier than the shared hosting plans.
The managed WordPress hosting offered by Bluehost is built on its Virtual Private Server. It is fast and simple to use but offers less customization. Quick installation, easy navigation, and MOJO Marketplace are some highlights of this program.
Back up of your website’s data is maintained automatically by Bluehost. SiteLock security, CDN, automatic WordPress updates, and integrated W3 caching are other useful offerings under the WordPress packages.
WordPress Hosting Plans offered by Bluehost
- The cheapest plan called the Basic plan allows you to host 1 website and provides 50 GB storage. It comes at a monthly cost of $3.95 if purchased for three years together.
- The second plan is the Plus Plan that allows you to host unlimited WordPress websites. You receive unmetered storage under this plan and it costs you $5.95 per month when committed for three years.
- The biggest plan is the Choice Plus plan costing the same as Plus plan and offering the same features as well. Additionally, it comes with CodeGuard Basic Backup which is normally found in premium plans. This one, therefore, gives the best value for the money you spend.
All these plans offer a free domain for 1 year and include a free SSL certificate as well. These prices are the promotional prices applicable for the first three years only. Renewals are available at normal rates by the company.
The renewals to these plans are a little expensive than the offerings of some of its competitors. The quality offered by the company is, however, unmatched.
You can configure unmanaged WordPress sites as well. The Mojo Marketplace allows you a one-click WordPress installation which is quite simple.
The introductory prices are slightly lower and the renewal prices.
If you are not a fan of shared hosting, Bluehost offers VPS hosting for you. It adds security and flexibility to your online presence. The competitive pricing, 24/7 support, and superb uptime offered by Bluehost guarantees your website’s success.
The virtual servers of Bluehost are better in many ways than the shared ones. The biggest advantage is full root access to the server that allows you to perform several commands and make configuration changes to your hosting environment. The other important benefit is increased security. Since the operating system is not shared with other users, your website files are secure. Bluehost also provides unlimited storage and SiteLock protection feature for added security.
VPS Hosting Plans offered by Bluehost
- The cheapest plan is known as the Standard plan that offers 30 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth, 2 GB RAM, and 1 IP address. You will get a processor with two cores to handle the load of your website. This plan comes at a price of $19.99 per month.
- The second plan called the Enhanced plan offers 60 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth, 4 GB RAM, and 2 IP addresses. A two-core processor is included in this plan. You will have to pay $29.99 per month for this plan.
- The biggest offering under VPS hosting is the Ultimate plan by Bluehost. It offers 120 GB storage, 3 TB bandwidth, 8 GB RAM, 2 IP addresses, and a four-core processor. It is charged at $59.99 per month.
All these plans include a free domain name for the first year and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The prices mentioned above are available only if the hosting is purchased for three years.
These prices are promotional and are available for the first three years only. Renewals are available at regular rates.
You shall not expect to receive VPS on Windows from Bluehost.
The introductory prices are slightly lower and the renewal prices.
Bluehost also offers cloud hosting in which your website’s resources are shared across numerous servers. In this type of hosting, you have the advantage of scaling your resources in real-time. It is possible as the limitation of using a single server for your website is removed in such a hosting service.
Cloud Hosting Plans offered by Bluehost
- The Starter plan offers hosting for a single website, 2 GB RAM, unmetered bandwidth, 100 GB storage, and a two-core CPU. It is charged at $6.95 per month.
- The Performance plan includes hosting for unlimited websites, 4 GB RAM, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited storage, and a four-core CPU. It comes at a price of $8.95 per month.
- The Business Pro plan also offers hosting for unlimited websites. It includes 6 GB RAM, six-core CPU, and unlimited storage and bandwidth. You can grab it for $15.95 per month.
All these plans include a free domain, free SSL, and 1-click resource scaling.
These prices are available on securing a deal for three years.
The introductory prices are slightly lower and the renewal prices.
Several dedicated server configurations are offered by Bluehost. These dedicated hosting plans ensure excellent performance, and ultimate control and security. All the plans include a minimum of four cores per server to provide you with a reliable service.
Dedicated Hosting Plans offered by Bluehost
- The Standard plan offers 500 GB mirrored storage, 5 TB Bandwidth, 4 GB RAM, and 3 IP addresses. You will receive 4 cores @2.3 GHz for your website performance. The plan is charged at $79.99 per month.
- The Enhanced plan includes 1 TB mirrored storage, 10 TB Bandwidth, 8 GB RAM, and 4 IP addresses. You will receive 4 cores @2.5 GHz for your website performance. The plan costs $99.99 per month.
- The Premium plan offers 1 TB mirrored storage, 15 TB Bandwidth, 16 GB RAM, and 5 IP addresses. You will receive 4 cores @3.3 GHz for your website performance. The plan is charged at $119.99 per month.
All these plans include a free domain name for the first year and a free SSL certificate as well. You will also receive a 30-day money-back guarantee with all the dedicated hosting plans.
These discounted prices are only available if three-year plans are purchased.
The prices mentioned above are promotional prices and valid only for the first three years. Renewals are available at regular rates.
The servers are provisioned instantly with an option to upgrade easily at any time.
The biggest reason to choose Bluehost over its competitors is its fantastic support team which is available 24/7. The highly experienced technicians are always available to help you with any technical issues.
The introductory prices are slightly lower and the renewal prices.
What makes Bluehost so special?
The experts have given their opinion about Bluehost but is it the ideal choice for your hosting needs? In an attempt to find that out, we decided to try the services offered by the web host and prepare a detailed report for you about their offerings.
What we found out attractive is the ease of use of their interface and the Bluehost pricing of several unique plans. We loved the add-ons including the $100 marketing credits and free domain.
We also liked how the web host has various data centers all over the world including (USA, India, UK, and China).
- Fast servers.
- Free domain & SSL certificate.
- Managed WordPress hosting.
- Budget-level pricing.
- Officially recommended by WordPress.org.
- Newbies-friendly - easy to use
- Offers regular backups, but they're not guaranteed.
- Higher renewal fees.
- Live chat support tends to be slow sometimes.
- No Datacenters in Europe.
Technical Features
Reputation and customer support at the forefront of the industry
In the technical world, it is important to offer high-quality customer service to solve the issues faced by the newbies customers. Bluehost cares for its customers and makes its customer care representatives available for you 24/7.
Bluehost is recommended by some of the most successful open-source projects including WordPress. The company utilizes advanced open-source technologies for providing its services.
Domains, messaging and backups
With all its shared hosting plans, Bluehost offers unlimited email accounts along with anti-spam protection, POP3 and IMAP support.
The web host also provides a custom domain manager to help you manage domain transfers and carry out the general administration.
The lost makes a backup of your website daily to provide you an option to restore your website to a previous version in the case of any contingency.
Easy upgrade for all products
With the growth of your website, Bluehost offers an easy upgrade to a dedicated server or a VPS. Of course, the Bluehost pricing for these upgrades will vary as per the choice made by you but you can be sure of receiving the worth of every single penny spent.
The host provides you with an easy to use dashboard and tools that simplify the website management process for you. It allows you to install the popular software and applications including WordPress and Magento in a single click.
Constant hardware updates
When new hardware enters the market like SSDs, it becomes essential for the web host to provide the necessary bandwidth to adopt these changes. Bluehost continuously updates its hardware to meet the changing technological demands.
Bluehost understands that all search engines consider the speed of a website very seriously. It is always on the lookout for making the hosting better to ensure that the websites of all its customers run at lightning speed.
You might feel Bluehost pricing heavy on your pocket in the beginning but with its regular use, you will realize that it saves you a lot of money, time, and effort involved in performing manual updates.
Performance and Security
Bluehost Uptime Guarantee & Speed Test Reports
Ensuring fast speed for your website is important to rank high in all the search engines. This, in turn, makes it important to choose the right web hosting service for your website.
We tested the performance of the Bluehost server for determining the speed it delivers. For this test, we created a WordPress website with the “Twenty Nineteen” theme and added several site pages and content for simulating the results.
Several speed tests were performed on this test website with the following tools:
- Load Impact
- Pingdom
- Bitcatcha
As per the above tests conducted, it was found that the test website loads faster than 94% of all the sites tested. For a server in New York, it loaded in less than two seconds. That is quite an impressive loading speed.
Along with the speed test, it is essential to test a host for its efficiency to handle the traffic load. For this test, we sent hundreds of visitors to our test site from several locations and used some of the best available tools for analyzing the host’s capacity.
It was found out that Bluehost can perform extremely well even under extreme traffic conditions. No major difference was observed in the page loading speed of the test site. As per our report, Bluehost is a high-performing web host that can be trusted for all your hosting requirements.
We also tested the service provider for any downtime by continuing using its services for three months. There was no downtime experienced during the test period.
Considering the powerful performance we received, we were happy with the Bluehost pricing and package options.
BlueHost uptime (July 2018): 100%
BlueHost uptime (June 2018): 99.99%
BlueHost uptime (March 2018): 99.98%
Bluehost Server Response Time
The server response time provided by a host determines the page loading time of a website. It can increase with a content-heavy website and decrease with a lightweight website. Adding videos and images to the site also affects the page loading time negatively.
We tested Bluehost for its server response time using Bitcatcha which can fetch you the worldwide server response time provided by your host.
Bitcatcha will determine your website’s loading speed from the eight diverse locations, namely New York, Los Angeles, Japan, Singapore, India, Australia, Brazil, and London.
The test conducted by us will provide you a clear picture of the performance of your website worldwide with this web host.
Bitcatcha gave our test site a rating of B+ for its server response time.
From these tests, we can say that Bluehost is an ideal choice for you if your target audience is in the United States as the web hosting server returned a response time of just a fraction of a second in the States. In all other locations, however, the server took more time to respond slowing down the test site’s loading speed.
So, we recommend you to choose another hosting provider for your website if all your target audience is outside the US. Ensure that your host can beat the Bluehost pricing, speed, and technical features.
Ease of use
Bluehost features a user-friendly corporate website. The host offers you a sleek and modern design through the user’s control panel. You will discover that the cPanel interface is extremely simple to work with. Even beginners can get hold of the platform within a few minutes. You just need to click on the icons to get started.
When you install WordPress or configure email hosting, you will be guided through the process with the self-explanatory buttons. A single click is all that it takes to install WordPress to your site. You can, therefore, easily set-up domain as per your requirements.
You will be surprised to know that the web host offers an application-rich dashboard that helps in the integration of numerous third-party services like Cloudflare and Google Apps directly into the cPanel.
This unique feature of integrating Google Apps to your Bluehost website attracts the benefits offered by Google to your hosting account as well. The third-party integration is very simple to undertake and does not require the knowledge of any technical know-how.
For online businesses, Bluehost offers easy to use eCommerce features that allow you to configure an online shop seamlessly with unlimited shopping carts options. A simple click on the “Install” button can help you get started with your online business.
Price
Talking about the Bluehost pricing compared to the features it offers and the quality it delivers, we found the rates quite genuine.
Some people might believe that the plans and pricing are not competitive but for us, the Bluehost pricing completely justifies the high-quality service it delivers to its customers. None of its competitors can match the reliability and support its offers.
You will find three options for your shared hosting needs. These prices are special introductory prices that apply only to new customers for the initial three years. For shorter plans, you will be charged higher.
Basic Plan: It comes with the hosting of 1 website, 50GB site storage, 5 email accounts with a storage capacity of 100MB each, and unlimited bandwidth for your website.
Bluehost pricing for the Basic plan: $3.95 a month
Plus Plan: It offers you the hosting of unlimited websites, unmetered site storage, 100 email accounts with a storage capacity of 500MB each, and unlimited bandwidth for your websites.
Bluehost pricing for the Plus plan: $5.95 a month
Choice Plus plan: The plan comes with unlimited website installations, unlimited storage, email account, and unlimited bandwidth as well. It is the biggest plan offered by the host.
Bluehost pricing for the Choice Plus plan: $5.95 a month
What is included in all the Bluehost shared hosting plans?
- Free domain
- 5 parked domains in the basic plan and unlimited parked domains in the other two.
- 25 subdomains in the basic plan and unlimited subdomains in the other two.
- Marketing offers worth $200 is included in the plus and choice plus plans.
- These two high-paying plans also include spam protection.
- The Choice Plus Plan comes with CodeGuard Basic.
- You will also receive domain privacy and protection in the biggest plan.
Bluehost offers no trial offer, but it does have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Reliability and support
Bluehost is managed by Endurance International Group, the mega hosting conglomerate. It has been in the industry since 2003 and offers an excellent 24/7/365 live customer support via chat, phone, email, and its extensive knowledge base.
The host is one of the leading service providers in the market. An uptime guarantee of 99.99% ensures to keep you covered in all the situations. The company also helps in the migration of your website but charges a hefty amount of $149.99. A limit of 5 websites and 20 email accounts has also been placed on the website migration.
Bluehost pricing for all its services is completely transparent and we didn’t find any hidden charges involved in running the test website. To top it all off, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee to let you enjoy their amazing hosting services without a doubt.
- Support forum available
- Good support center
- User Resources and Blog
- Live chat system!
Conclusion: Is Bluehost Right for You?
If you are a beginner in the world of blogging, Bluehost is the right choice for you. For a new customer locking in for 3 years, Bluehost pricing is great. Single-click installs for WordPress and robust support by the company executives helps in quickly setting up the site.
If you want to focus on the creative part of your website and don’t want to get bothered about the technical aspect, Bluehost will be a good companion. Lack of clunky interfaces, reliability, and ease of use makes it a suitable choice for many. The 30-day money-back guarantee is always there to keep you covered if you feel the host is not what you are looking for.
- Disk space: 50 GB ⇢ Unlimited
- Bandwidth (traffic): Unmetered
- Number of websites allowed: 1 ⇢ Unlimited
This detailed guide will make you aware of the Bluehost pricing, hosting plans, and the high-quality features offered by the web hosting platform. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced user, Bluehost understands your needs extremely well.
You will find plenty of options in their plans for businesses, WordPress users, and people looking for dedicated servers for their use. You can leave the technical aspect to the host itself as their interface is extremely easy to navigate.
Also, the customer support team is available 24/7 to help you with any aspect of your website. The advanced features that it offers make Bluehost pricing a bit more expensive than its competitors.
Plans from $7.99 $2.95 / month
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All Bluehost plans come with 30-day money-back guarantee
