DreamHost is one of the largest, independently owned web hosting companies. Founded around 25 years ago, it now hosts over 1.5 million websites.
It provides excellent web hosting plans and top-notch customer service. WordPress works perfectly on it. Supported languages like PHP 7.4 are promptly updated. This is one of the best monthly web hosting providers around.
It has two shared monthly billed web hosting plans.
Shared Starter: supports hosting of one website, Unlimited traffic, Fast SSD Storage and Free SSL Certificate for $7.99 billed monthly. The first three months are discounted to $4.95 per month.
Hosting of 1 website
Free domain name with yearly plans
WordPress Pre-installed
New WP Website Builder
Unlimited Traffic
Fast SSD Storage
Free SSL Certificate
3 Year, 1 Year & Monthly Hosting Plans
Monthly hosting plans don't include a free domain name, but you can buy it from DreamHost for $6.99 or from any other 3rd party domain name registrar and connect it with DreamHost web hosting.
Shared Unlimited: adds hosting of Unlimited Websites (with Free SSL certificates) and Free Email hosting for $13.99 per month. The first 3 months are discounted to $8.95 per month.
There's an additional discount for annual payments. One year of hosting for $47.40, and that also includes a free domain name.
How to pick the best DreamHost Shared Hosting options:
Choose a Domain...
There are three options for a domain name:
Choose a domain later
Register a new domain
I already have a domain
If you already have a domain, it's easy to point it to your DreamHost hosting account, and they will walk you through the process after checkout. If you don't already have a domain name, you can pick the second option and register it with DreamHost.
If you pick the monthly payment option, the domain name is not free, but you can add it for $7.99, and since Free Whois Privacy Protection is included, that's a great price for a domain name. If you pick a 1-year or a 3-year web hosting option, the domain name is free.
Additional Options
The first three options, Pre-Install WordPress, DreamShield Protection and DreamHost Email are already pre-selected, but you can just keep the first one (if you use WordPress, of course) which is free, and uncheck the other ones. You can always add them later if you want.
Pre-Install WordPress - Free
If you're planning to use WordPress for your site, it will be automatically installed and set up for you. Now it also includes WP Website Builder for free.
DreamShield Protection - $3.00/mo
DreamShield is an add-on that you can enable through the panel, and use it to automatically scan your website weekly, looking for malicious code. You can add it anytime you want, so you can uncheck it for now and decide if you need it later.
DreamHost Email - $1.99/mo ($19.99/yr) per mailbox
Shared Starter plan doesn't come with Email hosting, so you can add it here, or you can choose a Shared Unlimited plan which includes it for free.
G Suite - Free 30-day trial
This is the standard Google Business Suite, and you can also add it later if you want to.
Summary
If you're looking for an excellent inexpensive month to month web hosting plan, for one website, and you don't need a custom email address, Shared Starter by DreamHost is the best choice for $7.99/month.
If you want to host multiple websites, or you need email hosting, Shared Unlimited for $13.99/month is the plan to get.
A2 Hosting is an independently owned web hosting company, started in 2001 in Ann Arbor, Michigan (A2 stands for Ann Arbor). It's one of the fastest web hosting providers, with data centers around the world.
It offers four shared, monthly billed web hosting plans, with fast SSD storage, Free SSL, PHP 7, SSH access, and a choice of global servers where you can host your website. All of the A2 Hosting plans include:
WordPress (1-click install)
Unlimited Free email addresses
Unlimited MySQL or MariaDB Databases
Free Let’s Encrypt SSL
Free Site Migration
CloudFlare Free CDN
cPanel Control Panel
STARTUP plan supports one website, 100 GB Disk Space and Unlimited Data Transfer for $10.99 billed monthly.
DRIVE plan adds the ability to host Unlimited Websites on the same plan and Unlimited Disk Space for $12.99.
TURBO BOOST plan adds Turbo servers which load pages up to 20X faster compared to standard hosting for $20.99.
TURBO MAX plan adds 5X More Resources to Turbo Boost plan for $25.99.
All the prices listed here are for monthly payments. There are additional discounts available if you choose to pay yearly. The same applies to almost all shared web hosting companies.
How to pick the best A2 Hosting options:
Choose a Domain...
Since A2 Hosting doesn't include a free domain registration with its web hosting plans, but charges $14.95 per year for the domain, plus an additional $9.95 per year for Whois Privacy Protection (which you absolutely need, unless you want your name, address, phone number and email to be publicly posted at Whois registry), the best option would be to register your domain name at 3rd party registrar like Namecheap which does include a Free Whois Protection, so for around $12/year you get both, instead of paying $24.90/year at A2 Hosting.
So, the best approach would be to first register your domain name at some other registrar, then, when you start buying your A2 Hosting, choose the option "I will use my existing domain and update my nameservers". Enter your domain name and click "Use".
Here you can choose your Billing Cycle (the longer billing cycles are heavily discounted, like at all hosts, but will renew at full rates).
Scroll down for additional options.
Customize Your Hosting
Here you can leave everything as is. You can choose between four data center locations where your website server will be located.
Arizona (US West Coast)
Michigan (US East Coast)
Amsterdam (Europe)
Singapore (Asia/India)
So, for example, if you expect most of your visitors to come from Europe, you could choose Amsterdam. If you're not sure, or if most of them will be from the US, or all over the world, you don't have to change anything.
At this point you don't need Dedicated IP, DropSuite Offsite Backups, Barracuda Spam Firewall or A2 Website Builder, so you can leave all the default values - None. You can always add them later if you change your mind.
You do need Let’s Encrypt SSL (Basic SSL Protection) but it's already selected and it's Free.
Additional Options
Auto-Install Application - If you you were planning to use WordPress for your website, you can install it right away, by choosing "WordPress - A2 Optimized".
Review & Checkout
Here you can review the selected options and see the total price. If everything is alright you can proceed to checkout.
There are no discounts for monthly hosting plans, so the price will always be the same. If you've chosen the longer billing cycle, you do get the discounted price, which renews at full price, but you'll have a year (or more) to decide if A2 Hosting is worth it, or if you want to switch to a new host.
And since you've registered your domain name at 3rd party registrar, you don't even have to initiate a domain transfer. You can keep your domain where it already is, and just point it to your new web hosting provider. (It's basically just entering your new hosts' name servers in your domain settings, which takes less than 30 seconds).
All of these plans include QuickInstall tool, which you can use to install blogs, forums, CMS (content management system), wikis, photo galleries, E-commerce stores and a lot of other types of websites. All of these websites run on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.
How to pick the best HostGator Shared Hosting options:
1. Choose a Domain
There are 2 options for a domain name HostGator offers:
Register a New Domain
I Already Own This Domain
Even though HostGator includes a free domain registration with annual payments, it charges $14.95 per year for Domain Privacy Protection (that you absolutely need for all your domain names, since it hides your personal data like your name, email, phone number and address), which is more than the cost of the domain registration (around $10) that you can get from a 3rd party registrar (where the domain whois privacy is free, of course).
That's why it's better that you don't get a domain name from HostGator even with an annual plan when it's "free", but to register it at a 3rd party domain name registrar, and choose the second option (on the right): "I Already Own This Domain".
2. Choose a Hosting Plan
Here you can choose a Package Type that you want (you can choose between Hatchling, Baby and Business plans), and Billing Cycle (between 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months and 36 months).
3. Create your HostGator Account
4. Enter your Billing Info
5. Add Additional Services
Secure your website with SiteLock Essentials ($23.88/year) and Backup Your Hard Work. (Powered By CodeGuard) ($32.95/year) are pre-selected and you can safely uncheck them. You can easily add them later if you change your mind.
6. Enter a Coupon Code
If you've chosen the monthly billing, you can enter the MONTHLY coupon code to get the first month for $0.01.
For all other plans, the coupon code MAX gives the maximum discount available on any plan.
7. Review Order Details
Here, you can review your order, check the price, check the HostGator terms and click on Checkout Now.
Kinsta is a high quality, premium WordPress hosting provider, with beautiful dashboard, free WordPress migrations, free daily backups, and 24/7 website security.
It uses Google Cloud Platform with its 24 global data centers, so it can handle huge traffic spikes, and a large number of visitors with ease.
That, along with four different types of caching, makes your WordPress websites load extremely fast.
The cheapest Starter Plan supports one WordPress install, 25,000 unique monthly visitors and 10 GB of disk space for $30.00 per month.
It also includes Free SSL, Free CDN, Free premium migration, Unlimited basic migrations, Automatic Database optimization, Automatic daily backups and a lot more.
You get billed month to month, by default, but you can also pay yearly, and get two months for free.
WP Engine is the world's most popular managed WordPress hosting platform. It's being used by 1.2 million websites, from small businesses and creative agencies, to well known enterprise brands. It offers three standard Managed WordPress hosting plans, all of which include:
24/7 support
30+ premium themes
Free automated migrations
Daily backups
Free SSL and SSH
Advanced security
One-click staging site
Startup Plan supports 1 website, 25,000 visits per month, 10 GB of storage and 50 GB of bandwidth, for $30.00 per month, when paid monthly. (annual payments get 2 months off)
Growth Plan supports 10 websites, 100,000 visits per month, 20 GB of storage and 200 GB of bandwidth, for $115.00 per month, for monthly payments.
Scale Plan supports 1 WordPress install, 400,000 visits per month, 50 GB of storage and 500 GB of bandwidth, for $290.00 per month.
There's also a custom plan, if you need even more resources.
Managed Hosting Plus plans are the same as the standard plans above, but on top of that, they add the ability to safely and automatically update all of your plugins. They add:
Automated plugin updates
Plugin updates tested with AI
Auto-rollbacks if issues detected
Choose which plugins are auto updated
Support for many custom plugins
Their monthly prices are: Startup $34 per month, Growth $125 per month and Scale $310 per month.
Secure Hosting plans are the same as Managed Hosting Plus plans, but also add an additional layer of protection, like the Protection from malicious traffic spikes (DDoS), and Security firewall for your traffic (WAF), ideal for eCommerce sites.
Their monthly prices are: Startup $53 per month, Growth $150 per month and Scale $350 per month.
Cloudways is a new type of managed cloud hosting platform. You choose the application you want, like WordPress, which will be installed and managed for you, and you get to choose where you want to host that application, between 5 cloud hosting providers: DigitalOcean, AWS, Vultr, Google Cloud and Linode.
It offers multiple monthly hosting plans. The cheapest plan is $10 per month and that already includes DigitalOcean hosting charges.
All Cloudways plans include:
24/7/365 Support
Free SSL
Free Migration
Unlimited Application Installation
Dedicated Firewalls
24/7 Real-time Monitoring
Automated Backups
Staging Environment
Optimized With Advanced Caches
Auto Healing
Regular Security Patching
HTTP/2 Enabled Servers
SSH and SFTP Access
This is a great way to choose where you want to host your website, upgrade easily when your website grows, and still have all the advantages of fully managed WordPress hosting.
Flywheel is an excellent managed WordPress hosting, which was bought by WP Engine in 2019. Its plans start from $15 which is cheaper than its parent company, so it's a good choice if you want managed WordPress hosting for a single website for $15/month with the Tiny plan. Of course if the other limitations suit your website.
All plans include:
PHP 7.4 Ready
Custom FlyCache
CDN (powered by Fastly)
Let’s Encrypt SSL
30+ StudioPress Themes
Genesis Framework
Auto-Healing Technology
Staging Sites
Nightly Backups
Free Migrations
24/7 Chat Support
Tiny Plan supports 1 WordPress website, 5,000 visits per month, 5 GB of storage and 20 GB of bandwidth, for $15.00 billed monthly.
Starter Plan supports 1 WordPress website, 25,000 visits per month, 10 GB of storage and 50 GB of bandwidth, for $30.00 billed monthly.
There are also larger Freelance, Agency and Custom plans, starting from $115/month.
DigitalOcean is one of the best VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosts. It offers multiple droplets (virtual machines) that you can provision in just 55 seconds. You can choose between Standard, General Purpose, CPU-Optimized, or Memory-Optimized configurations.
Standard droplets are the most popular, because they are the cheapest, and they come with a mix of memory and compute resources, best for small projects that can handle variable levels of CPU performance, like websites, blogs, web apps, microservices, small databases and dev/test environments.
The cheapest standard droplet, which includes 1 GB of RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB SSD disk and 1 TB transfer is $5/month.
A Virtual Private Server is a type of hosting that doesn't come with a control panel, web builder, Wordpress or any other software you get with shared hosting. It is a lot harder to setup than a standard shared hosting. You have to install your own Linux distribution, setup the web server and any other software you need. This is only for advanced users.
Namecheap is one of the largest domain name registrars, now also including web hosting services. It offers cheapest monthly hosting plans. All of them include:
Unmetered Bandwidth
Free website builder
Free automatic SSL installation
cPanel (Control Panel)
Free Email Accounts
MySQL Databases
PHP MyAdmin
Stellar: supports hosting of 3 websites, 20 GB SSD Disk Space, 30 Email Accounts and 50 MySQL Databases for $2.88 per month.
There's a discount for yearly payments, and the additional 45% discount on 1st year, so you can get it for $18.44 per year (renews at $33.88/year).
Stellar Plus: adds Hosting of Unlimited Websites, Unmetered SSD, Unlimited Email Accounts and AutoBackup for $4.88 per month.
Stellar Business: adds Cloud Storage (Evenly-distributed server loads, Data Replication and Zero Interruptions) for $8.88 per month.
All of the Namecheap's web hosting plans include the Softaculous Apps Marketplace. This includes over 100 free Apps like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Zen Cart, Cube Cart, SMF, photo gallery and other software.
Domain names are not included for free but you can also buy them from Namecheap for around $9 and connect them with your hosting.
SSL certificates from Namecheap are free for the first year and get automatically installed and are secured for up to 50 websites. The SSL renewal rate is 50% off the second year ($4.44) and renews at a standard rate ($8.88) on the third year.
If you want to use free Let's Encrypt certificates instead, you can use SSL For Free to generate the LetsEncrypt certificates and then install them using cPanel. The downside is that you have to renew each one manually every three months, so it's easier to just get the paid one from Namecheap and just add that cost to the cost of hosting. It will still be one of the cheapest deals for monthly hosting.
Q&A
What is monthly web hosting?
Monthly web hosting is a web hosting plan that you pay month to month, instead of annually. It's completely the same hosting, with the same features and functionality, the only difference is the billing cycle.
What is the standard monthly hosting fee?
It's usually about $10 per month, when paying month to month, but you can find some monthly hosting plans which support one WordPress website for cheaper than that.
How to get monthly web hosting billing?
When choosing a web hosting plan, most of the time the yearly or even a 3-year billing option is preselected. You need to change it to the monthly billing option, if it exists of course.
What are the benefits of monthly hosting?
There are no long term contracts or commitments, you can change hosts whenever you want, and you don't have to pay a large lump sum for hosting right away.
What are the drawbacks of monthly hosting?
The main drawback is the price. Monthly hosting tends to be more expensive, the month to month price is usually higher, than when you pay annually. On top of that, when paying yearly, there are often additional heavy discounts for the first year of hosting, so that makes the difference even greater. Another thing is, web hosting services often include a free domain name with their yearly plan, which are not available with their monthly plans. But since it's always the best practice to register your domain name separately from your hosting provider, at 3rd party domain name registrar, this isn't a big deal.
