We had someone ask about website hosting recently. He had a website for his small business and was considering the options for hosting. Some were $2/month, some were $20/month, and some were $200/month and everywhere in between. Each had their list of features and technical specifications but he didn’t know what to look for. Not being a technical person himself, he felt lost and unsure. He said he didn’t mind putting money into the business but he needed to understand what he was investing in; a wise stance.
It’s easy to get lost in the different types of hosting and the technical jargon but we want to make one thing clear: with hosting, you get what you pay for. There are exceptions to this rule and of course there are better deals out there and worse ones but generally speaking, the quality of hosting service you receive is going to be very closely tied to what you pay for. Quality hosting is really important to the functionality and longevity of your website so if you are going to cut corners, we recommend doing it elsewhere.
Generally speaking, we can break down the price tiers of web hosting like this:
- Tier 5 ($1-$10/month)
- Tier 4 ($10-$20/month)
- Tier 3 ($20-$50/month)
- Tier 2 ($50-$100/month)
- Tier 1 ($100+/month)
Tier 5 ($1-$10/month) is economy hosting. This is the bottom shelf and it is the option many small businesses choose. The price point is great but it has its problems. This type of hosting is called Shared Hosting and it basically means your website is sharing a single machine with many other websites. That is why the price is so low. That also means the security and performance of your site is going to be tied to the security and performance of all the other sites on that server. If one of them is not built well and starts taking up more resources or opens up a security vulnerability, it is very likely that your site will be affected. We do not recommend this tier to anyone. You will save a few dollars a month and your site might be fine for a long time but the possibility of something going wrong is very high and the money you save will not be worth the headache caused by Tier 5 hosting.
Tier 4 ($10-$20/month) is also affordable and very similar to Tier 5 but it’s usually better quality and you will be able to avoid many of the downfalls of that tier. This is the tier we recommend to a small business that is really trying to be conscious of their budget. It is still likely going to be shared hosting and there are still problems here. You won’t get the greatest performance or the best security but the sites you’re sharing with will be better, the servers will be better, and probably will have better maintenance and support available. If you have a simple website that doesn’t have a lot of functionality and doesn’t get a lot of traffic, this is probably good enough for your purposes.
Tier 3 ($20-$50/month) is the sweet spot. There are a broad range of hosting options available at this price point and you start to get more premium features. Here you may see cloud hosting or VPS *virtual private server” hosting instead of shared hosting. This can offer you much better performance and security. You may also start to see other features like automatic backups, better support options, staging environments for development, and analytics or productivity tools included. You will also probably start to see a lot better support and communication channels with the provider at this tier. This is the tier where the additional features and quality offered really surpass the increase in price. This is the best value, it offers the most features per dollar spent. Tier 3 is generally what we recommend for most small to medium business websites.
Tier 2 ($50-$100/month) is premium hosting. This is going to have all the benefits and features of Tier 3, just more. More bandwidth, more traffic, more tools, more support, better performance, better security, etc. This is a good tier for scaling businesses that are really trying to grow, are getting a lot of traffic, who really need the best performance out of their website, and who don’t want to risk any issues or downtime.
Tier 1 ($100+/month) is dedicated hosting. This is usually needed for high capacity websites that have tons of traffic and require tons of processing power. At this point you don’t have a website, you have a web application. To that end, you will start to see more specific feature options at this level dedicated to your particular needs. This will be a tailored solution specifically for you and your business.
Hosting is a really important aspect of your website and business and it shouldn’t be overlooked. You get what you pay for with hosting so make sure you are getting the right tier of service. We have broken the different options down into 5 tiers of service with 5 being the cheapest and 1 being the most expensive. Generally speaking for small to medium sized businesses, we recommend that sweet spot at Tier 3 to get the most bang for your buck, avoid a lot of the headaches that come with cheaper options, and also keep the price reasonable.
If you need more help deciding on a hosting provider, reach out, we’re more than happy to answer your questions.
