WPLift is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Get Online Without Breaking the Bank: Best Monthly Web Hosting Plans for 2024
| EDITOR’S CHOICE | BEST WP HOSTING | BEST FOR ECOMMERCE |
| Hostinger | Kinsta | Bluehost |
| Price: From $11.99 p/m | Price: From $35 p/m | Price: From $32.99 p/m |
| Why we like it: Fast performance, low pricing, and beginner-friendly hosting management features make Hostinger the best on the block. | Why we like it: Kinsta’s unbeatable managed WordPress plans are optimized for maximum performance and security. | Why we like it: Bluehost offers the ultimate package of eCommerce essentials and high-performing servers, making it perfect for online stores. |
Looking for a new home for your website, only to find that all the best deals require a large, up-front payment that just doesn’t work with your budget?
Don’t worry, we’ve been there, which is why we set about to investigate the best monthly web hosting plans currently on the market.
All in all, we tested 17 leading providers to see how they fared in categories such as performance, security, user-friendliness, and, of course, cost.
Ultimately, we found just 7 web hosting companies with monthly billing options that we’d be happy to recommend to WPLift readers.
Below, we’ll share with you the pros and cons of these top-rated plans, along with helpful guidance on how to pick the best monthly plan for you.
The Pros and Cons of Monthly Hosting Plans
Monthly hosting plans come with unique advantages and disadvantages that are worth considering before you decide whether it’s the right option for you.
Pros:
1. More Affordable Upfront Costs
The last time we checked, there were more than 126 million web hosting companies worldwide. Faced with such an overwhelming amount of competition, top hosting providers look to entice new customers with special offers which, at first glance, seem too good to pass up.
“Web hosting for less than the price of a cup of coffee each month?” you say to yourself. “Great, sign me up!”
Article Continues Below
But wait, before you hand over your credit card, look a little closer at the actual offer, and you’ll likely find that all isn’t quite what it seems.
Typically, the lowest monthly rates for many web hosting plans are only available if you pay for 12, 24, or sometimes even 36 months in advance.
Ultimately, this means that what looked like a great offer ends up costing you an upfront payment that can be significantly more than you planned to spend.
For example, here’s Hostgator’s current offers for their shared hosting plans:
$3.75 per month looks like a great deal, but when you actually go to take them up on their offer, you find that it’s only available if you pay for three years of web hosting in advance, making the total cost $135.
While that’s still a pretty attractive deal, $135 is still a lot more than $3.75, and, let’s face it:
If you’re starting a new website or online business on a small budget, $135 can be a lot more than you want to spend upfront.
The best monthly hosting plans solve this problem by allowing you to spread the cost, paying a smaller, per-month fee while still enjoying the benefits of a high-quality hosting provider.
2. No Long-Term Contracts
Many leading hosting companies that offer monthly billing won’t tie you into a long-term contract.
If you decide that your chosen provider isn’t right for you, or if you decide to take your website down altogether, you can simply cancel the monthly payments through your hosting account and close it down.
Article Continues Below
Pay for a year or more in advance, and you’re locked into a long-term contract that may be harder to get out of, potentially leaving you stuck with a hosting plan that either isn’t fit for purpose or that you simply don’t need.
Cons:
1. Potential Downtime Due to Missed Payments
One of the advantages of long-term hosting contracts over monthly ones is that they essentially allow you to take a set-it-and-forget-it approach. Once you’ve paid up in advance, you never have to worry about your account until it’s due for renewal, or, at the very least, until something goes wrong.
With a monthly contract, you’re responsible for keeping on top of your payments every month. Miss one, and you’ll likely find that your provider suspends your account until you pay what you owe, ultimately taking your website offline, and doing irrefutable damage to your online brand.
2. Higher Long-Term Costs
Monthly plans may make it easier to manage the costs of your web hosting on an ongoing basis, but they typically work out much more expensive in the long run.
Take our top-rated monthly web hosting provider, Hostinger, for example.
Paying for their Premium plan on a month-by-month basis costs $11.99 per month. That’s $143.88 over the course of a 12-month period.
Alternatively, you could take advantage of the long-term discount rates and pay the equivalent of $3.19 for the 12-month plan, meaning you’d only pay $38.28 for the same period. That’s a saving of over $105.
So, if you’re fully committed to your new project and confident in its long-term success, it might be worth considering whether making a long-term investment in an affordable web hosting plan might make more sense.
How to Pick the Right Monthly Web Hosting
If you’re convinced that monthly hosting is the right route for you, here are a few things to consider to help you determine which plan to sign up for.
Article Continues Below
1. Cost
If you’re picking a monthly plan to keep your hosting costs within your budget, pricing is undoubtedly going to be a top priority for you.
Keep in mind what we said earlier about first-term discounts versus regular costs, and make sure that you know exactly how much your hosting will cost after any discounts expire.
You’ll also need to consider whether you’ll need to invest additional money in things like domain names, SSL certificates, and domain privacy.
2. Server Resources
One of the most important things you’ll need to consider when determining whether a hosting plan represents good value for money is whether it offers enough resources to meet the needs of your particular project.
Sure, that dirt-cheap Basic plan may be fine if you’re starting a WordPress blog with a small, niche audience. However, if you’re launching a large eCommerce store or multi-media site, or if you’re expecting large volumes of traffic right from the word go, you’re going to need a lot more processing power, bandwidth, and storage.
Most providers offer tiered plans with varying resources, so choose one that comfortably accommodates your needs with room for future growth.
3. Security
More than 2,200 cybersecurity attacks occur around the world every single day, making it imperative that you opt for a hosting plan with solid security features to keep your website, your business, and your customers safe.
Look for plans offering essential security features like firewalls, malware scanning, and automatic backups.
You’ll also need an SSL certificate to add an extra layer of trust and data encryption, though if your chosen provider doesn’t offer one, you can always learn how to get a free SSL certificate for your website.
4. Performance
If you ever needed proof that the speed and performance of your website matters, consider the fact that every second that your site takes to load could be costing you visitors and, ultimately, conversions.
According to data from Statista:
- 7% of users would consider leaving a website that takes 1 second to load
- 13% of users would consider leaving a website that takes 2 seconds to load
- 28% of users would consider leaving a website that takes 5 seconds to load.
That means that the difference between a page that takes 1 second and a page that takes 2 seconds is a 6% increase in the number of people hitting the back button on your website.
Meanwhile, research from Portent discovered that a website that loads in one second has a 3x higher conversion rate than a site that loads in 5 seconds.
With that in mind, it pays to prioritize performance when choosing a plan. Opt for providers with reliable servers, fast loading times, and at least a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
5. Reputation
Although we’ve gone to great lengths to ensure our recommended hosting plans are some of the best, we don’t expect you to simply take our word for it.
In fact, we actively encourage you to check out genuine user reviews on sites like Trustpilot and G2.
Look out for recurring patterns in the kind of criticisms and compliments levied at your preferred provider.
If a significant number of those reviews mention the same problem, such as poor customer support or technical issues, that’s a telling indicator that this is a big problem with the company rather than an isolated incident involving a single, disgruntled customer.
6. Customer Support
Hosting problems can happen to the best of us, and when they do, having reliable and responsive customer support on hand can prove to be worth its weight in gold.
As such, choose a provider with knowledgeable, responsive support staff available 24/7 through multiple channels, such as phone, email, and live chat. The faster you receive assistance, the quicker you can get back to focusing on what matters most:
Developing and Growing Your Site.
Top 7 Best Monthly Web Hosting Plans for 2024
1. Hostinger
Hostinger earns its place at the top of this list thanks to its impressive range of monthly hosting options suitable for everyone from absolute novices to experienced developers.
While beginners will have no problem making the most of user-friendly dashboards to manage their accounts and set-up applications like WordPress with the single click of a button, advanced users will appreciate pre-installed developer tools like PHPMyAdmin and SSH access, seamless integration with popular development frameworks like Laravel and Node.js, and built-in code editors for on-the-fly adjustments.
Combine this with the fact that Hostinger’s rates are on par with the cheapest monthly hosting plans found elsewhere in this guide, and it’s no wonder the company is fast becoming one of the most popular hosting providers around.
Pros:
- It comes with robust security features like two-factor authentication, advanced malware scanning, and a free lifetime SSL certificate
- It includes free domain-based email and email management tools
- It includes an in-built cache manager to improve performance.
Cons:
- It doesn’t offer telephone support
- The monthly plans require an additional one-off $4.99 setup fee.
Pricing:
Hostinger’s monthly hosting plans run from $11.99 p/m for 100 GB of storage up to $24.99 up for an unlimited cloud plan.
2. Kinsta
Powering 43.1% of all the world’s websites, WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System in the world), so it’s no wonder scores of hosting companies have penetrated the market by catering exclusively to this widely-used web builder. Of them all, it’s Kinsta that stands out as the best monthly WordPress web hosting provider thanks to its lightning-fast Google Cloud Platform infrastructure, state-of-the-art security measures, and excellent customer support
All that is in addition to seamless automatic backups, developer-friendly features, and highly-rated customer support.
Discover whether this leading hosting company is the right choice for you in our Kinsta hosting review.
Pros:
- It’s optimized for performance with best-in-class server technology and the ability to render your WordPress site as a spastic site to improve speed and security
- It offers useful security features like automatic backups, malware scanning, and DDoS protection
- It supports headless WordPress.
Cons:
- Kinsta caters to high-performance needs, reflected in its higher-than-average pricing
- The starter plan is limited to 1 WordPress installation.
Pricing:
Kinsta Starter plans are available in $35 p/m and $70 p/m options. Business Plans start at $115 p/m and Enterprise at $675 p/m.
3. Bluehost
Bluehost offers a diverse range of hosting solutions, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and more. Although there’s an abundance of hosting companies providing services tailored to online stores, Bluehost does it better than most, making them our pick for the best monthly eCommerce hosting.
Along with essential eCommerce features like a free SSL certificate and one-click installation of a WordPress / WooCommerce set-up, you also get a bundle of premium WooCommerce extensions that provide useful functionality such as bookings and appointments, gift cards and multi-channel inventory management, helping you get your new store off to a flying start.
Pros:
- Fully managed WordPress hosting with automatic updates
- It includes a free 1-year domain registration
- There’s 24/7 expert eCommerce support available via phone and live chat.
Cons:
- The 2 eCommerce plans are capped at 40 GB and 100 GB of storage, respectively. This may be a problem for large sites.
- Bluehost is notorious for its upselling tactics to be sure to check that you’re not paying for anything you don’t want before you complete your purchase.
Bluehost’s monthly eCommerce web hosting plans start at $32.99 p/m. Other shared and WordPress hosting plans run from $15.99 – $34.99 p/m.
4. Cloudways
Cloudways is an industry-leading managed cloud hosting provider with lower-than-average monthly billing options, making it a top choice for growing online brands and application developers.
Recently topping our list of 2024’s best VPS hosting providers, the company gives you the freedom to choose which cloud servers you use, with options including DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud.
All that is in addition to useful developer tools like Git integration, SSH and SFTP access, and 1-click staging and cloning.
Find out if this popular cloud hosting company is right for you in our detailed CloudWays review.
Pros:
- It includes in-built application management solutions for developers
- The affordable, pay-as-you-go pricing makes it a good option for budget-conscious businesses in need of high-performance cloud hosting
- It features built-in caching and performance-optimized technology for improved reliability and faster page load speeds.
Cons:
- Beginners may find Cloudways more complicated than other hosting providers
- No domain registration options are available.
Pricing:
Cloudways cloud hosting plans start from Standard plans and run from $11 p/m.
5. Siteground
If your only concern is getting the fastest, most secure monthly hosting, Siteground should certainly be on your radar.
This best-in-class provider offers a diverse range of hosting options, including shared hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated servers, and more. It utilizes cutting-edge technology like Litespeed server cashing and custom PHP optimization to ensure remarkably fast page load speeds.
Meanwhile, the multi-layered approach to security, including automatic updates, application firewalls, and round-the-clock intrusion detection keeps your site safe from even the most determined attackers.
Pros:
- WordPress plans come with a plugin that allows you to control your server environment for optimum performance
- It’s powered by premium Google Cloud servers with distributed SSD storage to improve reliability
- It features easy-to-use dashboard controls.
Cons:
- Unlike some competitors, SiteGround doesn’t offer free domain name registration with your hosting plan
- Siteground only offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. Most of its competitors offer a 30-day guarantee.
Need more information about Siteground before deciding if it’s the one for you? Find it in our complete Siteground review.
Pricing:
Siteground’s web hosting plans include shared and managed WordPress options starting at $24.99 p/m.
6. Scala Hosting
Scala Hosting provides a diverse array of hosting solutions, including shared hosting, reseller hosting, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting. It’s also an excellent option for those in search of high-performance Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting with competitive monthly billing prices.
The company excels in flexible, fully scalable cloud hosting, with the option to create a bespoke VPS server with different CPU, RAM, and storage allocations fine-tuned to your exact requirements.
Pros:
- It offers both managed and self-managed VPS hosting
- It includes free, automatic daily backups saved to a remote location for added protection
- The plans come with a free SSL certificate.
Cons:
- There’s no telephone support available
- Of the two VPS hosting plans on this list, Scala Hosting is the slowest.
Pricing:
Scala Hosting’s VPS hosting starts from $49.95 p/m.
7. Green Geeks
GreenGeeks is a solid option for anyone concerned with saving not just money, but also the planet.
A leader in the field of sustainable web hosting, the company utilizes eco-friendly technology to provide a range of WordPress, eCommerce, and VPS hosting options that are good for both the planet and for delivering excellent on-site experiences for your visitors.
What’s more, the GreenGeeks event plants a tree for every new hosting account they provision, helping you to reduce your business’s carbon footprint.
Pros:
- It uses Solid State RAID-10 storage to create a reliable redundant hosting infrastructure
- It features leading caching and performance-optimization tools, including a free CDN
- The hosting accounts are fully isolated from one another, ensuring no other website on your shared hosting server can impact your site.
Cons:
- It lacks staging options and other tools useful for developers
- The starter plans are limited to one website.
Pricing:
GreenGeeks web hosting plans start at $11.95 p/m. This includes shared, managed WordPress, and eCommerce plans.
Which are the Best Monthly Web Hosting Plans for 2024: Our Final Recommendations
After putting the seven companies listed above through their paces, we’re confident in declaring Hostinger the best monthly web hosting provider to choose from in 2024.
The combination of affordable month-by-month billing, solid security, and performance help to make it an excellent choice for both beginners and advanced users alike.
However, it’s not the only option out there. If you’re looking for a managed WordPress solution, Kinsta is the one to beat, while Bluehost’s excellent eCommerce plan makes it a worthwhile plan for anyone getting ready to start an online store.
Alternatively, if all those plans seem out of your price range right now, check out our guide to the best free WordPress hosting options to help you get started.
Related Articles
What do you guys think about the new plans from Cloudways that are dedicated to WordPress?
The new plans from Cloudways are great for WordPress users. They have fast and reliable hosting, with free SSL, CDN, backups, staging, and migration. They also have pay-as-you-go pricing.