Wondering about Bluehost pricing and which plan you should choose for your WordPress website?
Bluehost offers cheap WordPress hosting plans with unique features such as a WordPress-based website builder. But there are a lot of different plans, billing terms, add-ons, and such that might have you confused about which plan you should pick and what you should expect to pay.
In this post, we’re going to dig into Bluehost pricing terms, including some tips and recommendations for how to get more value from your purchase.
Here’s everything that we’ll cover:
- Which Bluehost plan is best (for most people)?
- Bluehost pricing explained in detail, including first-year vs renewal prices.
- Tips for getting better value from Bluehost, such as which add-ons are worth the money.
Let’s jump in!
Which Bluehost Hosting Plan Should You Choose?
Below, we’ll dig into Bluehost pricing in more detail. But if you’re in a rush, here’s our recommendation for the best plan for most WordPress users to choose.
Most people will get the most value from the Bluehost Plus plan (not Choice Plus).
While the Basic plan is cheaper, the advantage of the Plus plan is that it doesn’t cost much more but it gives you support for unlimited websites and storage.
In contrast, the Basic plan limits you to one website and 50 GB of storage, which isn’t a good tradeoff for most people.
At the same time, most people don’t need the Choice Plus or Pro plans, at least not when getting started.
For example, the only difference between the Plus and Choice Plus plans is automatic backups (for the first year), which you can achieve with a free plugin like UpdraftPlus if you’re on a budget. You also get free domain privacy – more on that later.
Bluehost Pricing Explained In More Detail
Now, let’s dig into Bluehost pricing in more detail.
In order to do that, we first need to explain the difference between promotional prices and renewal prices.
Like a lot of other hosts, Bluehost uses a promotional pricing strategy. This means that you’ll get a special discount when you make your first purchase, which can be anywhere from one month to three years depending on the plan and your preferences (more on this later).
However, once your first billing term renews, you’ll need to pay the regular renewal price rather than the special promotional price.
For this reason, you’ll want to factor in both the promo prices and the renewal prices if you’re planning to run your website for a long time. We’ll discuss this in more depth when we share the tips. But first, let’s dig into Bluehost pricing for all the WordPress plans…
Bluehost’s shared WordPress hosting plans are the best option for most people, considering Bluehost as they offer some of the cheapest prices that you’ll find in the WordPress hosting space.
All these plans also include the Bluehost Website Builder at no extra cost, which is based on WordPress.
As we mentioned earlier, most people will be best off choosing the Plus plan. While the Choice Plus plan might look attractive because it has the same promotional price, you should note that the renewal price is higher than the Plus plan.
Here’s the full Bluehost shared WordPress hosting pricing:
| Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | Pro | |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| 1 year (promo) | $2.95 | $5.45 | $5.45 | $13.95 |
| 3 years (promo) | $4.95 | $7.45 | $7.45 | $18.95 |
| 1 month (renewal) | $10.99 | $16.99 | $20.99 | $32.99 |
| 1 year (renewal) | $9.99 | $13.99 | $18.99 | $28.99 |
| 2 years (renewal) | $9.49 | $12.99 | $17.99 | $27.99 |
| 3 years (renewal) | $8.99 | $11.99 | $16.99 | $26.99 |
*You cannot pay monthly or for two years at your initial signup. You can use those billing terms when you renew, though.
WooCommerce Hosting
If you’re creating a WordPress eCommerce store with WooCommerce, Bluehost offers special WooCommerce hosting plans that come with pre-installed WooCommerce and free tools to make your store a success.
For example, if you use the Premium plan, you’ll get free access to expensive plugins like WooCommerce Subscriptions (usually $199) and WooCommerce Bookings (usually $199).
As another big bonus, Bluehost’s support team will help you configure and use WooCommerce, such as helping you add your products.
Here’s the full Bluehost WooCommerce hosting pricing:
| Standard | Premium | |
| Websites | 2 | Unlimited |
| 1 month (promo) | $19.95 | $24.95 |
| 1 year (promo) | $12.95 | $24.95 |
| 3 years (promo) | $15.95 | $32.95 |
| 1 month (renewal) | $29.95 | $49.95 |
| 1 year (renewal) | $24.95 | $39.95 |
| 3 years (renewal) | $24.95 | $39.95 |
Managed WordPress Hosting (WP Pro)
For people who need more than Bluehost’s shared plans, Bluehost also offers managed WordPress hosting, called WP Pro.
However, when you start getting into this price range, you might be better off paying for a host like WP Engine, as it offers better performance for a similar price.
The main advantage that Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting plans have over WP Engine is that Bluehost’s plans support unlimited websites, storage, and traffic, while WP Engine puts limits on all three metrics.
Here’s the Bluehost managed WordPress hosting pricing:
| Build | Grow | Scale | |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| 3 month (promo) | $27.95 | $37.95 | $57.95 |
| 6 month (promo) | $26.95 | $36.95 | $56.95 |
| 1 year (promo) | $24.95 | $34.95 | $54.95 |
| 2 years (promo) | $22.95 | $32.95 | $52.95 |
| 3 years (promo) | $19.95 | $29.95 | $49.95 |
| 1 month (renewal) | $29.99 | $39.99 | $59.99 |
As you can see, you get the biggest promo discount on the Build plan and there’s very little difference between promo prices and renewal prices on the highest-tier Scale plan.
Three Tips for Getting Better Value from Bluehost Pricing
Now that you know what Bluehost pricing is, let’s dig into some tips to help you get the most value from your Bluehost hosting plan purchase.
Consider Buying Your Domain Somewhere Else (Even If Bluehost Gives You a Free One)
When you purchase hosting from Bluehost, they’ll give you a free domain for the first year, which is pretty attractive.
However, depending on your plan, you might actually be better off skipping this free offer and buying your own domain name to use with your website. There are two reasons for this:
- You can find cheaper registrars. Bluehost only gives you the first year for free. After that, you’ll pay $17.99 per year to renew a .com domain name (other extensions might be different).
- Bluehost charges $11.88 per year for domain privacy if you’re on the Basic or Plus plans (the two highest-tier plans get free domain privacy). Domain privacy is a must-have feature and this already exceeds the cost to purchase a domain name. Most dedicated domain registrars offer domain privacy for free.
For example, Google Domains costs $12 per year and includes free domain privacy in that price.
NameSilo is even cheaper at $9.95 per year, also including free domain privacy.
Over the long term, buying your domain separately from one of these providers will save you money, especially when you factor in Bluehost’s price for domain privacy if you’re on the Basic or Plus plans.
Here are the costs for two years of domain ownership and domain privacy at all three options (including the free first year that Bluehost gives you):
| Domain Registrar | Price for Two Years w/ Privacy on Basic or Plus |
| Bluehost | $41.75 |
| Google Domains | $24 |
| NameSilo | $19.90 |
However, if you pay for the Choice Plus or Pro plans, Bluehost’s free domain still offers good value over two years because you get free domain privacy:
| Domain Registrar | Price for Two Years w/ Privacy on Choice Plus or Pro |
| Bluehost | $17.99 |
| Google Domains | $24 |
| NameSilo | $19.90 |
The one downside is that purchasing your domain separately does add some complexity because you’ll need to manually connect your domain to Bluehost. This isn’t that difficult though and Bluehost has documentation to help you do it.
Pay for Multiple Years Upfront (If Confident and You Can Afford It)
The best way to save money at Bluehost is to purchase multiple years upfront when you sign up.
Bluehost lets you pay for as many as three years of hosting right off the bat, which lets you lock in the promo price for the full three years. You won’t need to pay the “regular” price until you renew.
While the “per month” price on the three-year promo plan is actually a little higher than the “per month” price on the one-year promo plan, remember that you would need to pay full price after the first year.
Here’s a comparison that shows the three-year cost of paying for the three-year Choice plan upfront vs paying for the one-year plan (one year at the promo price and two years at the regular price):
| Choice Plan Term | Price for Three Years |
| One Year Billing | $401.16 |
| Three Year Billing | $268.20 |
As you can see, you’d pay around 50% more over three years when you opt for one-year billing over three-year billing.
Of course, there’s a tradeoff here. When you pay for multiple years upfront, you’re limiting your flexibility. For example, let’s say you want to change plans in the future or you decide to close down your website. Because you paid upfront, you’re locked into that plan.
You’ll need to decide if that tradeoff is worth it for your situation. If you have any doubts, you might want to just pay for a year instead of three years. Yes, you won’t get quite as good of a price, but you’ll have more flexibility if you want to change anything.
Don’t Feel Like You Need to Pay for the Addons and Upsells
When you check out at Bluehost, Bluehost will usually try to upsell you on some extra services. These services depend on the plan, but they typically include the following:
- Domain Privacy (if you’re buying the Basic or Plus plans – it’s free on the two highest-tier plans)
- CodeGuard Basic backups (if you’re buying the Basic or Plus plans – it’s free for the first year on the Choice Plus plan and free forever on the Pro plan)
- Bluehost SEO Tools
- SiteLock Security
- Single Domain SSL
The only two features from that list that you really need are domain privacy and SSL. However:
- On some plans, you can actually save money by buying your domain separately as we detailed above, which gets you free domain privacy. So you don’t necessarily need this from Bluehost.
- Bluehost already gives you a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt on all plans, which is all you need for security. You don’t need to purchase a premium SSL certificate beyond that.
The other add-ons do add important features for most sites such as security, SEO, and backups. However, you can get those features for free using plugins. Here are some examples:
If you don’t want to mess with plugins, you might find those Bluehost add-ons worth the money. But if you’re on a budget, you definitely don’t need them to build a successful site.
Try Bluehost Today
That wraps up our guide to Bluehost pricing.
At this point, you should hopefully know which plan you should choose, what you should expect to pay, and how you can get the most value from Bluehost’s pricing plans.
If you want to get started with Bluehost, you can click the button below:
Do you still have any questions about Bluehost pricing or which plan you should pick? Let us know in the comments!
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