Bluehost Review 2021[Why you Should Kickstart with Bluehost]

If you are looking for a web hosting service provider, then Bluehost will be among the searches. Bluehost has evolved since its early days. A look at old Bluehost reviews on sites like Quora and Reddit will paint a bad picture about their services.

2000000+

That is the number of websites currently hosted by Bluehost. This shows that its popularity has increased immensely over the years. This can partly be attributed to their cheap shared hosting plans as well as their dedication to WordPress site hosting.

WordPress.org’s recommendation of Bluehost as one of the best WordPress hosting providers has also contributed to their immense growth.

In this review, we will have an in-depth look at all the hosting plans offered, their pricing, features, the pros and cons of hosting with Bluehost as well as talk about frequently asked questions.

Let’s dive in.

Bluehost Review: Features

Some of the features of Bluehost hosting are;

• Recommended by WordPress.org
• Fast Web pages
• Built-in Security
• Blue Flash Launch Support
• Ecommerce Features
• 30 days money-back Guarantee
• Easy to use interface
• 24/7 Expert Support

As we review each hosting plan, we will also tackle the pricing. The discounts and coupons offered are not factored in in the prices included.

Let’s get started.

Different Bluehost hosting plans

 Shared hosting

Shared hosting is a type of hosting where numerous websites are hosted on a single server. This implies that all resources are shared among the hosted websites. It is most suitable for bloggers who don’t expect high traffic but want to build an online presence.

One of the advantages of shared hosting is it is cheap. However, your site’s performance is affected when there is a surge in visitors.

If you aim to get cheap hosting from Bluehost, then you should check out their shared hosting plans. However, to get the best, you have to sign up for either one-year plan, two-year plan or three-year plan depending on your needs since they don’t offer monthly plans.

Bluehost Shared Hosting Plans

• Basic Plan

Starts as low as $3.95 per month. This is the ideal plan for beginners and is common among bloggers.

This plan includes

1. Free domain
2. 50 GB storage
3. 100 MB email space
4. 5 email accounts
5. 25 sub-domains
6. basic site backup.

To renew the basic plan for 36 months, you will have to part with $7.99 per month.

• Plus Plan

Starts as low as $4.95 per month. In addition to the free domain, this plan also comes with

1. unlimited websites,
2. unlimited SSD storage
3. Unlimited email accounts
4. Unlimited email space
5. Unlimited add-on domains
6. Unlimited subdomains
7. marketing offers up to $200

                the renewal charges start at $10.99 per month.

• Choice Plus

 starts as low as $5.45 per month if you are paying for 36 months plan. It’s not popular among.

It comes with all the services provided for in the plus plan. In addition, you also get free domain privacy, site back up pro and $80 per year on extras.

The renewal charges are $14.99 per month.

•  Business Pro Plan

Starts as low as $13.95 per month. This plan provides you with all the services provided in the choice plus plan. In addition, you also get free private (non-shared) ssl certificate, membership to site back up pro as well as an IP dedicated to spam experts for any two domains.

To renew the business plan, you will have to part with $23.99 per month.

What Should You Consider When Choosing A Shared Hosting Plan?

A number of people will get stuck when it comes to choosing the best plan for their business. Here are a few things to consider

• Number of websites to host

If your aim is to host one website, then you can go for the basic plan. The higher the plan, the more websites you can host.

• Storage

The storage space provided ranges from 50GB to unlimited. While 50 GB is enough, it can easily add up if you add videos and images frequently to your site.  To maximize, optimize your images so as to occupy the least space possible.

• Email accounts and email storage

If you need more than 5 email accounts, then you should consider higher-tier plans. Same can be said of the 100MB of email storage space which can run out very quickly.

• Domain protection

This is only available to choice plus and the business pro plan customers.

• Spam protection tools

If want to protect your site from spam, then avoid the basic plan.

• Site back-up pro

This is only available to choice plus and the business pro plan customers.

Who Will Benefit from This Shared Hosting?

Shared hosting is on the most popular type and to get the best out of Bluehost shared hosting plans, you should either

1. Have 10000 visitors or less to your website per month. This is due to the fact that the resources are shared hence can affect your website in case of high number of visitors.
2. Are looking for a long-term commitment.  Since Bluehost doesn’t offer monthly subscriptions, you should only focus sign up if you are willing to stay for at least a year. If not, try other providers like HostGator.

If your website has grown to more than 10000 visitors per month, then you should start thinking of switching to VPS hosting.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

If your website has started growing, you expect a surge in traffic or have specific issues that hinder you from using shared hosting, then VPS hosting can work for you.

Bluehost VPS hosting packages

Bluehost has 3 VPS packages to choose from depending on your needs.

1. The Standard package

 starts at USD18.99 per month, and it includes

• 2 CPU cores,
• 30GB SSD storage,
• 2GB RAM,
• 1TB bandwidth,
• 1 IP address

• Enhanced

Starts at $29.99 per month.  It offers the following

•             2 CPU cores,

•             60GB SSD storage,

•             4GB RAM,

•             2TB bandwidth,

•             2 IP address

• Ultimate

starts at USD59.99 per month and the package includes

• 4 CPU cores
• 8GB of RAM
• 128GB of SSD storage
• 3TB bandwidth
• 2 IP addresses

In addition, each Bluehost VPS hosting plan features the following.

• free domain for 1 year
• free SSL certificate,
• enhanced control panel
• optional add-ons to improve the security and additional features

VPS hosting is suitable for people who need special server configuration. People with medium websites can sign up for this.

Dedicated hosting

This is hosting aimed at providing privacy, security, ultimate performance and control because the servers are not shared. In simple terms, you have your own server with all resources available to you alone. It is ideal for large websites experiencing large traffic volumes.

Bluehost dedicated hosting plans

Bluehost provides 3 plans to choose from. With each plan Bluehost offers a free domain name for 1 year, a free SSL certificate, extreme speed, and storage upgrades.

1. Standard Plan

 starts at $79.99 and includes the following features

• 4 CPU cores (@ 2.3 GHz)
• 500GB (Mirrored) storage
• 4 GB RAM
• 5TB Bandwidth
• 3 IP Addresses

Enhanced Plan

 starts at $99.99 per month and has the following features

• 4 CPU cores @ 2.5 GHz
• 1TB (Mirrored) storage
• 8 GB RAM
• 10 TB bandwidth
• 4 IP Addresses

Premium plan

Pricing starts at $119.99 per month and has the following features

• 4 CPU cores @ 3.3 GHz
• 1TB (Mirrored) Storage
• 16 GB RAM
• 15TB Bandwidth
• 5 IP Addresses

Bluehost managed hosting

This is a hosting service suitable for high end WordPress sites and online ecommerce stores. It is also known as WP Pro or Bluehost optimized hosting WordPress.

In managed hosting, the service provider handles everything involving the website. This includes the maintaining the servers and updating applications to keep your website fast and secure.

Bluehost offers managed hosting in three levels; build, grow, and scale.  All the levels feature the following

• 99.9% uptime
• auto-scalability to meet traffic demands
• a suite of marketing tools
• free site migration
• free live support
• multi-tiered security
• free SSL Encryption

Apart from these, each plan has its own pricing and additional features.

• Build Plan

This tier pricing starts at $ 29.99 per month if you choose 36 months. Some of the added   features are:

• 20GB of web storage
• 200+ edge servers
• daily scheduled backups
• malware detection and Removal
• Domain Privacy and Protection
• Jetpack personal- provides access to free WordPress themes and added tools.

This plan is suitable for people expecting less than 50000 visitors to their website per month.

• Grow Plan

The grow pricing plan starts at $39.95. it builds on what is available for the Build plan. It also adds the following

• SEO tools
• 10GB of video compression
• live ticket support
• jetpack premium- provides access to additional WordPress tools.

   this level is suitable for websites expecting less than 500000 visitors per month.

• Scale Plan

Scale plan ricing starts at $49.99 per month.  In addition to what the grow plan has, scale plan also has the following features

• 80GB of web storage
• unlimited backups and restore
• PayPal integration
• unlimited Video Compression
• jetpack professional- useful in enabling online store features like PayPal integration, elastic search and jetpack ads network

Who Should Choose Wp Pro?

Wp pro is suitable for people having large websites, with unexpected surges in traffic as well as those running online stores.

Bluehost WooCommerce hosting

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin for building online stores for those selling products or services.

It adds all the important features of an online store. These include but not limited to;

• shopping cart functionality
• add secure payments
• extensions (add-ons) for more features
• monitor shipping
• apply taxes correctly
• manage inventory

when you sign up for Bluehost WooCommerce hosting, they will automatically install the plugin with inbuilt ssl and jetpack for secure payments.

This hosting has 2 plans

1.  Standard plan

This starts at $15.95 per month for a 36-month term. The package includes an

• online Store (website and blog)
• unlimited products
• Jetpack free installed
• Storefront theme installed
• payment Processing (One-Click Install)
• 1year CodeGuard Backup Basic
• Premium plan

starts at $24.95 per month. This plan offers customization features to enable you grow your online store.  In addition to all features offered in the standard plan, this package also offers: online bookings & appointment scheduling

• subscriptions
• product customization capabilities
• Free Domain Privacy and Protection
• CodeGuard Backup Basic

Both plans support added features like ability to collect customer reviews etc. with Bluehost WooCommerce hosting, you have access to a wide range of plugins to help improve the performance of your online store or ecommerce business.

Bluehost Pros and Cons

Pros

• Free domain

All Bluehost plans come with a free domain. The best part is Bluehost lets you start your blog without a domain. This gives you time to choose the best domain name for your blog. this is also accompanied by free unlimited email accounts.

• Free ssl certificate

Google are use SSL certificate as a ranking factor nowadays.  Ssl is used to encrypt information between your website and visitors. Bluehost provides a free ssl certificate to ensure that you don’t lose out on search engine rankings. If your ssl certificate is not working, contact them through the live chat to fix it.

• Reliable

Bluehost boasts of hosting more than 2 million websites around the world.  Bluehost is also one of the recommended WordPress hosting providers by wordpress.org.  this implies that it is one the reputable webhosting providers in the planet!

• Faster page loads

Every blogger understands the importance of page loading speed. Visitors are likely to leave your site if it takes a lot of time to load. This has a negative impact on your search engine results ranking and its not good for you either. Bluehost has a reputation of having the fastest page loading speed. This makes it stand among the best.

• Low introductory pricing

Bluehost offers low prices for new customers. They have discounts for new customers compared to the hefty price of $7.99 /month for regular customers. If you include a free domain name, free sssl certificate and the uptime Bluehost offers, then you have good value for your money.

• Beginner friendly

Bluehost is one of the best hosting providers for beginners. First, they provide on-click install and easy to use cPanel. All icons, websites and email addresses can be accessed from this panel. Furthermore, you can customize (rearrange) the icons according to your preferences.

• Uptime and server response time

As a blogger, uptime is a factor you must consider when choosing a hosting plan. The uptime should be at least 99.9%. you don’t want your website to disappear when your content goes viral due to a surge in the number of visitors.

 Although almost all hosting service providers encounter this, Bluehost goes an extra mile. They provide an uptime of 99.98% as well as solve any arising problems within a very short time.

• Fast customer support

One of the pillars of a great company is its customer care services. It’s infuriating to wait for support, especially if you need it urgently. Bluehost has a team of executives available all the time for live chat in case of any problems.  Their response time is less than 4 minutes! Bluehost has a knowledge base readily available anytime you need it.

 They also provide phone and email support in case you are not satisfied with their responses. The customer support is always available 24 *7.

• Excellent security options and features

Apart from the free ssl certificate provided, Bluehost provides access to other security options and features if you need them. They include;

1. Cloudflare’s Content delivery network (CDN)
2. Spam expert’s add-on
3. Server backups and domain privacy
4. Code guard- offers daily backups which helps to roll back your previous versions in case your site is hacked.
5. Site lock- helps prevent malware.
6. Postini from google. Protects your mail from spam as well as prevent suspicious stuff.

• Free WordPress website transfer

Are you stuck with a hosting provider you don’t like? If yes, you might consider transferring your WORDPRESS website to Bluehost at no extra cost. This is only applicable for within the first 30 days after sign up.

• Generous money back guarantee.

Most hosting providers offer money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with Bluehost webhosting, then you can claim back your money within 30 days of sign up with no hidden charges or fees. If you choose to cancel after 30 days have lapsed, you will get a partial refund. However, if you had bought a domain, they will charge you for it.

• Generous extra offers

What would you do if someone offered you $100 in ad spent? Yes, Bluehost gives every new customer $100 worth of Google Ads and $100 worth of Bing Ads to get you started. If used well, it can help you increase your online presence.

Cons

While Bluehost has so many good features, it has a few disadvantages which you might consider.

They include

• Higher renewal rates

We have talked about the low subscription fee for beginners. However, this is not the case if you stay for a long time or you opt for a shorter period.  To enjoy the maximum discounts during sign up, you must sign up for at least 36 months. The renewal fee is more than double.

• No windows hosting or option to choose the operating system

Bluehost uses Linux only. If you are looking for a windows hosting or any other operating system, then Bluehost won’t serve you.

• Server location and Target market

The server location of your website should be as closer to the target market as possible. Bluehost servers are located in Utah, USA. If your target market is not us, then the loading time of your website might be affected.

• No free automatic back ups

Bluehost doesn’t offer free automatic backups and thus you must be prepared to manually back up your website. To get free backups, you must subscribe to their automatic back up add-on.

• Upselling tactics can be annoying

Bluehost tries to upsell you on a number of add-ons. If you are not keen, you might find you have already subscribed to what you don’t need. The reason being these upsells are usually in terms of pop-ups. In addition, there are add-ons that are normally provided free by other hosting providers, but Bluehost will charge you to access and use them.

Final thoughts

Bluehost is up among the best web hosting providers for start ups and small businesses. With a number of options to choose from, you can easily find a plan that fits your business. And if you are using WordPress, then this is the best option for you.

The fact that Bluehost is cheap for beginners, user friendly and allows you to grow your business makes them stand out.

If you feel that Bluehost is the best for you, then click here to sign up.

Also Read: Hostpinnacle Review: is it a game changing web host[2021]

Bluehost frequently asked questions

Does Bluehost support speak all languages?

No. they only speak English.

Which Bluehost plan should I choose?

Well, this entirely depends on you and your needs. If you only have one site, then the basic plan will work perfect for you. If you are thinking of having multiple sites, then we recommend the plus plan as you can host unlimited websites and resources.

What payment options does Bluehost offer?

Bluehost offers a wide range of payment options. You can either pay through PayPal, credit card, money orders or paychecks (US citizens).

Does Bluehost let you pay monthly?

Bluehost doesn’t have monthly payment plans. You can only choose between 12 months, 24 months and 36 months. To get the best returns on your investment, choose 36 months to enjoy maximum discount.

Who is Bluehost perfect for?

According to us, Bluehost is perfect for:

• Beginner- this is because it is cheap, user friendly and easy to set up even with no experience.
• Small and large site owners with a tight budget- if you have a small WordPress site, you can easily transfer it to Bluehost for free because the plans are cheap and their service is great.  As your website grows, you can move it to managed hosting or other suitable hosting providers.

Does Bluehost have a website builder?

No. they don’t have a website builder. However, they encourage users to use WordPress or Weebly to build websites. Bluehost is recommended by WordPress for WordPress websites.

Do I have to create my domain name with Bluehost?

No. Bluehost offers an option to use existing domain. You can buy domain from other domain providers like Namecheap and GoDaddy.

Can I create a subdomain in Bluehost?

Yes. All you have to do is go to your cPanel and create a subdomain.

Should I purchase the add-ons from Bluehost?

No. you don’t have to purchase them when signing up, but you can always add them when you require them.

Will I get free CDN with Bluehost?

Bluehost only integrates with Cloudfare’s free CDN. It doesn’t have any free CDN to offer its customers.

Can Bluehost handle high traffic?

Yes. Bluehost can handle large amounts of traffic. However, if your website starts to use more resources, Bluehost will notify you to upgrade your plans.

Does Bluehost have a domain privacy policy?

Yes. Bluehost domain privacy policy allows you to keep your personal information private.