Shared Hosting vs. WordPress Website Hosting
A website is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for businesses. The cost of shared hosting vs. WordPress hosting varies dramatically from $3 to $45/month. You should understand the pros and cons of these different options when choosing a website server.
Shared Hosting
For $3-$15/month, a website can be placed on “shared hosting.” At White Buffalo Websites, we offer shared hosting to our customers at no cost. We currently host over one hundred business and student websites through shared hosting.
It is important to read the fine print when looking at services that are advertised at a lower price. To purchase a website hosting for $3/month, you are often required to purchase five years of website hosting. You are free to leave this host before the five years are up but you won’t get your money back.
Most shared hosting plans come with a cPanel. cPanel allows you to publish websites, organize web files, and create email accounts. For example, cPanel makes it simple to set up email for employees and add additional websites to your plan (Add-ons Domains). Shared hosting plans work fine for WordPress and will usually offer a one-touch button in the cPanel to allow you to create a WordPress website.
An excellent low-cost shared hosting provider is SiteGround. We use SiteGround as our server to host WhiteBuffaloWebsites.com and other White Buffalo websites. Siteground has some features that are typically only offered on The free shared hosting offered by White Buffalo Websites is hosted on Hostgator, another major website hosting company.
Pros and Cons of Shared Hosting
Pros:
- cPanel with its myriad of options, most notably email
- Lower cost
Cons:
- Slower
- More down time
- Less reliable
- Less secure
- Requires a backup solution
Managed WordPress Hosting
As WordPress has come to dominate the internet, WordPress “optimized” or “managed” website hosts have sprung to life. Managed WordPress Hosting can be purchased for $23-$35/month. WordPress Optimized hosts work overtime to make sure websites work great for WordPress. I have moved websites from shared hosting to optimized hosting and have experienced a notable increase in website quality and speed.
For Managed WordPress Hosting I recommend Flywheel. Flywheel has plans that keep your hosting costs under $150 per year for smaller websites. Most Managed WordPress Hosting starts at $35 a month or $300 – $400 a year.
Why is speed important? If a website is slow visitors will become quickly frustrated and not stay long and Google Search will put slower websites lower in the search results. You can improve your traffic from searches easily by insuring your website runs faster.
A must-have feature on WordPress is One-Touch Restore. Even though WordPress is the best platform for making websites, it can crash unexpectedly if there are software conflicts. For peace of mind it is important to have the ability to restore your website quickly and without a developer.
Pros and Cons of WordPress Hosting
Pros:
- Speed, speed, speed!
- Daily backups and one touch restore
- Staging website included
- Improved website security
Cons
- Higher price
- Requires a separate email solution
Shared vs. WordPress Optimized
If a quality, high-speed website to be key to the success of your business, you should invest in Optimized WordPress Hosting. Shared hosting will be adequate if a website is less critical to your business.
I have experience on several hosting plans. You can read my hosting recommendations on this post: Hosting Recommendations.
Do you have questions about hosting your website? At White Buffalo Websites, we provide free shared hosting for our clients and students on Hostgator. For business websites we recommend Flywheel hosting. (Note that if you click on the Flywheel link we may receive an affiliate fee.)
If you have already purchased website hosting, we are happy to work with your website host.