If you have searched for website hosting services then you are likely to have heard of Bluehost. There is a lot of hype about it and you will likely have heard it from an internet marketer or maybe it was mentioned in a podcast.
The big question is if it is any good at all.
Hosting Plans
The hosting plans are simple. They have three hosting plans:
- Shared – costs $2.95 a month. Good option for a simple site like a blog or anything that doesn’t generate tremendous traffic.
- VPS – costs $19.99 a month. This is your option for moderate to heavy traffic sites. Provides you more control and flexibility.
- Dedicated – costs $79.99 a month. Everything is completely customizable and it comes with improved security. Great option for websites that have very high traffic.
- feel free to check out bluehost coupon for better deal on bluehost hosting plans.
Really Affordable Introductory Plan Price—Plan Pricing
About a few years ago if you checked out the company’s website hosting rates, you would think exactly like I did. The cost was too high and the quality of the service wasn’t worth it.
On top of that, the customer service wasn’t really top notch. So I really didn’t consider Bluehost as a good hosting service.
However, the load times and uptimes have been impressive after their overhaul so to speak. Since the quality of their hosting services has gone up, then I thought that it might be worth investigating their current rates.
Their hosting rates aren’t the cheapest ones around. However, I can say that the rates have gotten better. They’re a bit more reasonable compared to how they were a few years back.
I can say that the cost is justified considering the type of service I’m getting. The lowered price tag has definitely made Bluehost an excellent option if you are looking for a webhost for your sites.
If you are a frugal webmaster or if you are just a bit tight on the budget then you might want to consider the services of this host. Now, they also offer a pretty low introductory hosting rate of $2.95 a month for their basic Shared hosting plan. read bluehost review before taking any action.
Of course there’s a catch. If you sign up for that hosting plan, there is a lock-in period or contract length of 3 years.
The longer the contract length the cheaper the rates will become. Longer contract lengths can be a more affordable option for some people.
That means you have to factor whether you can stay with the company for that long or not. For instance, if you sign up for a 12 month term contract with the service costing $8.95 a month, you will have to pay $104.40 for that contract.
Now, if you instead sign up for a 36 month contract, you will be charged $6.95 per month and you end up paying $250 instead of paying $322.2.
There are definitely pros and cons with longer term contract agreements with a hosting company, especially Bluehost. If you’re in it for the long haul then that might be a good option.
That may change if you are just testing the waters and you’re not really sure you want to maintain your blog for the next 3 years. But if you’re site has been around and you think it will be around for a while then the 3 year contract term will represent a good deal of savings.
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Bluehost Downsides
Okay, I want this review to be as balanced as it should be. That’s the tone that we have set so far from the beginning of this review. That is why we have devoted an entire section of this review for the downsides of their service.
We have actually mentioned a few downsides already. For instance, we have already mentioned that Bluehost’s performance was dismal a few years back, server response rates being slower depending on the location, costs, and others.
We’ll just mention a few notable downsides here in this section. Remember that you need to know both sides of the story before you should decide on signing up for hosting with Bluehost.
Customer Support Issues
Is there a company that doesn’t have customer support issues? Well, sometimes they’re great and sometimes you feel like they just don’t know what they’re doing.
So, you end up calling several times until you talk to a representative who’s knowledgeable enough about your tech issue or billing issue or whatever.
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The run around doesn’t happen a lot but it can be frustrating when it does. However, they do handle regular inquiries really fast. And you don’t wait in queue that long.
To be honest, their customer service has definitely improved, comparing things from previous experiences. There’s definitely a lot of improvement that can still be made in this department.
One significant improvement that they have had is the tons of support material that they have created. They now have tutorial videos that will help you fix pretty much every common issue that you experience.
You just have to DIY things from there. On top of that, they also have an extensive knowledgebase that pretty much answers every inquiry that you have in mind.
Contract Lengths
As it was stated earlier, the hosting rates of this company are cheap but they’re not the most affordable ones around. If you want to take advantage of their cheapest rates then you need to sign up for their hosting plans that have the longer contract lengths.
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Well, what if you don’t intend to have your site that long? What if you find a different web host that you want to transfer to six or more months from now? It isn’t clear if you can get a refund or not.
Note that there are other webhosts that have contract lengths that only lasts for a few months. Pay attention to the hosting rates and the contract lengths.
Site Migration
Another downside of Bluehost is on site migration. A lot of webhosts out there gladly migrate your site from other servers to theirs for free. Well, it’s free given certain conditions like signing up for a long-term account.
Well, it’s a fairly quick process and you’re signing up for an account with the new host and usually for the long run. Nevertheless, there are few issues that you may encounter during the process.
With Bluehost, if you want to migrate your site you will have to pay for the service, which will cost you $149.99 and you can only move 5 websites and 20 email accounts.
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Is Bluehost the only web host that charges for site migrations? Nope. It’s a very intensive process that’s why we understand why web hosting companies charge for it.
Conclusion:
Bluehost one of the famous web hosting service provider. So if you are planning to purchase hosting from bluehost than you can go with them. Their services are good & cheap.