Bluehost is one of the most popular names in the web hosting industry. Danny Ashworth and Matt Heaton in Provo, Utah, are the founders of this company.
Currently, the staff force is over 750, and they are available 24×7. Bluehost is officially endorsed by WordPress.org, and they also have the very convenient one-click install feature included in their plans. That’s what draws so many users to them.
If you notice that WordPress has specifically recommended a company, you must check it out, knowing it will be worth it.
Especially for the fact that the internet has more than half the websites powered by WordPress.
When a company is endorsed by WordPress, it speaks volumes about its service. However, there are a few who would like to know whether they deserve this popularity.
Are they on the list of The Best Web Host in the business? Let’s find out!
Contents
Quick History
A team of techies and savvy developers got together and began Bluehost in 1996. They probably never thought that their small start-up would grow to be one of the largest web host service providers. As we speak, Bluehost power over 2,000,000 sites worldwide.
Not only does WordPress recommend using them but also John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, and many others who are well-known online entrepreneurs.
Bluehost is one of the most famous online hosts that is every successful entrepreneurs’ go-to web hosting provider.
This is given that Bluehost (in my opinion) has a biased advantage.
Unlike most web hosts, Bluehost is unique, not because of their exceptional service but the unprecedented growth and size of the company allows them to make their web hosting services available to all at an affordable price.
Let’s looks at the plans they provide, and this will help you match it to your budget;
| Plans | Website | Website Space | Included Domains | Email Accounts | Email Storage | Regular Price/mo | Discounted Price/mo |
| Basic | 1 | 50 GB | 1 | 5 | 10 MB Per Account | $7.99 | $2.95 |
| Plus | Unlimited | Unlimited | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | $10.99 | $5.95 |
| Choice Plus | Unlimited | Unlimited | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | $14.99 | $5.95 |
Bluehost is found at the top of the list of the best web hosts, along with GreenGeeks and InMotion. Years ago, we had published our review on Bluehost; back then, it was our favourite, and nothing has changed since.
They started in 1996, but they aren’t ancient. Over the years, they have reinvented and upgraded themselves, offering their customers the best service and features money can buy!
Today, I’ll give you a sneak-peak into my account so you can have better clarity of the features they offer; you will learn more about what they offer and what they don’t.
Bluehost provides its customers with various tools, resources and bonuses for WordPress (WP) customers.
Let’s take a look at some quick facts;
- Unmetered bandwidth is offered with their accounts.
- The plans look cheap; however, they might not be so cheap. If you get shared hosting, you can begin with a minimum monthly charge of $2.95, that is, if you manage to land a deal similar to this. Or else you will have to stretch your budget to a monthly fee of $7.99 with the Starter package. Considering the service, it is very reasonable. I must also add all WordPress plans are expensive. Their monthly package starts at $12.49.
- The number of email accounts you will get with the Starter package is 100. The email accounts you get with the Business Pro and Plus plans are unlimited.
- If you market bonuses and offers, you will receive $200.
- It is simple to control and configure your site with the enhanced cPanel.
Bluehost offers its customers 5 hosting plans
- Dedicated Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Shared Hosting
- Cloud Sites
- WordPress Hosting
Majority of my clientele prefer Shared Hosting as it meets all their requirement. Suppose you are creating a new website, and you have no clue what to expect in terms of traffic, then opting for a plan other than a shared plan is simply extravagant.
If you take a dedicated hosting plan, it means you will be leasing a physical server. With VPS hosting, you lease out a server.
However, you are sharing it with someone else. The functions of the server are just like dedicated. VPS is a combination of Dedicated and Shared plans.
On the other hand, WordPress hosting is optimized for WP Customers. Below are the different types of plans they offer;
- Basic Plan: The basic plan starts at a monthly fee of $2.95. You will notice a spike in the regular plan with a possibility to increase up to a monthly price of $7.99.
- Plus Plan: This plan is available at a monthly cost of $10.99.
- Choice Plus: The Choice Plus is available for $14.99.
- Pro Plan: It will cost you $23.99.
WordPress always has some or the other offers and discounts available. If you manage to get a discounted price for the plans, you would probably end up with a good deal!
The basic plan offers a single website, space of 50 GB, and the bandwidth is unlimited. In addition, they provide you with;
- Domain – 1
- Parked domains – 5
- Subdomains – 25
- Email Accounts – 5
- Storage – 100 MB each
With the remaining plans, i.e., the Pro plan, Choice Plus and Plus, they give you unlimited websites, the bandwidth and space are unmetered.
The domains and the sub-domains are unlimited as well. Storage and email accounts are unlimited, and if you decide to market them, they offer you $200.
The package also includes Spam Experts and Global CDN. Over and above it all, you receive additional benefits of $24 annually.
The top-of-the-line Pro plan includes additional annual benefits of up to $180. It offered improved performance and dedicated IP; this is essential for SEO.
VPS Hosting
- Standard: For the first month, you pay $18.99, and after the 1st month, it increases to $29.99
- Enhanced: For the first month, you pay $29.99, and after the 1st month increases to $59.99
- Ultimate: For the first month, you pay $59.99, and after the 1st month increases to $119.99
The above prices are more or less according to the industry standards. The Standard and the Enhanced plans provide speeds of 2CPU cores, and the Ultimate plan throws in 3-4 CPU cores.
The Standard plan offers SAN storage of 30 GB, and at the Ultimate plan, you get up to 120GB. RAM is anywhere from 2 GB to 8 GB.
The standard plan offers a bandwidth of 1 TB, while with the Ultimate plan, you will get 3 Tb. Every plan offers one domain.
With the Standard Plan, you get 1 IP address, while the others offer two. All the plans offer a refund policy and 24×7 customer support.
Dedicated Hosting
- Standard: For the first month, you pay $79.99 and after the first month up to $119.99.
- Enhanced: For the first month, you pay $99.99 and after the first month up to $159.99.
- Premium: For the first month, you pay $119.99 and after the first month up to $209.99.
The Enhanced and Standard plan offers you a CPU of 4×2.5 GHz. The Premium package offers a CPU of 4×3.3 GHz.
The storage ranges from 500 GB to 1 TB; the Standard plan offers RAM that begins from 4 GB, and it goes up to 16 GB with the Premium plans.
The Standard plan offers a bandwidth of 5 TB, the Enhanced plan – 10 TB and the Premium plan – 15 TB.
Every domain has a domain included. With the Standard Plan, you get 3 IP addresses, Enhanced plan – 4 and Premium plan – 5. All the plans have a return policy in place and also 24×7 customer service.
WordPress Hosting
- Basic Plan: The Basic plan is available at $2.95, provided you subscribe for 36 months.
- Plus Plan: The Plus plan is available for a monthly fee of $5.45 with a subscription of 36 months.
- Choice Plan: The Choice Plan begins with a monthly fee of $5.45 with a subscription of 36 months.
All the plans are shared hosting, and price-wise they are similar. Towards the late half of 2018, a latest category was introduced by Bluehost called WordPress Pro.
WordPress Pro
In comparison to our regular WordPress hosting, WordPress Pro is very expensive. WordPress Pro is a huge deal at Bluehost and is also the most favoured service that the company offers. The company has hosted over one million sites so far and counting.
The Pro plan works on VPS of high performance and provides better site speeds.
The build level features include 100 Premium themes for free, marketing centers, malware detection, daily backups, removes added security and the Basic Jetpack Site Analytics.
The Grow Package offers Jetpack Pro. They provide a business review tool that allows your customers to leave positive Bing, Yahoo, Google and Yelp reviews directly from the site for the business.
If you would like to increase your SEO rankings, you can implement the tips you receive from the SEO tool.
The Marketing Centre has this feature integrated so you can track the stats of your progress in search engines.
The high-level Scale package offers you Elastic search and PayPal integration. Also, Scale and Grow packages offer Live support.
They provide hands-on assistance in terms of design general questions and functionality from WP experts that are available 24×7.
All their plans throw in Positive Wildcard SSL, refund policy and 24×7 customer support. They also include regular backups, auto plugin updates and staging environments to helps you create and test your WP site prior to publishing it.
Unlimited Video Compression is a feature that not many people use. Your videos can now be uploaded without any web optimization. Bluehost handles it for you.
Since I have never done streaming through them, I searched for some reviews about the same but sadly failed.
I contacted the customer support team, and I was happy to learn they have absolutely no restrictions on the number of videos to stream.
While all the above features discussed are fantastic, but I’m sure some of you must still wonder, why should I invest so much for WP hosting? Bluehost has an important place in the WP community, and they also have a team of core developers and staff.
I can safely say that Bluehost can, without a doubt, provide first-class customer support and even troubleshoot complex issues that are unique for WordPress.
I wouldn’t say Bluehost is the best or your only option in the market. SiteGround is also an excellent host that is one of the major competitors of Bluehost, and they have plans that are cheaper too.
Free WordPress Migration
Many a time, we hesitate to switch hosts as site migration seems to be a major challenge. We have gone through it many times, and yet I would say I am not fond of it.
Lucky for us, Bluehost will handle the entire process for WordPress sites. As soon as you signup, it could be any plan, and they will migrate your site for free.
When you visit Bluehost Marketplace, you will see Site Migration, and you must fill the form for the same.
A WP plugin is developed by Bluehost that will assist you in passing the concluding steps.
Once you complete the process, you will see a link that will take you to the new site that allows you to check if things are fine and working correctly.
If you are satisfied with it, you can go ahead and update the settings of the DNS along with the registrar and just like that, it’s done!
Launch Support
You could be a newbie to WordPress or Bluehost, it doesn’t matter. Bluehost always cares for their customers, new or old. So, keeping that in mind, they have developed a new feature known as the Blue Flash Launch Support.
The feature comes to you with no additional cost at all. It acts as a professional consultant on the telephone with a WP expert.
Blue Flash takes you through a tour of your dashboard, and this helps you to identify the various options and features that can be used for posting, all this at a single glance.
During the orientation phase, you can clarify all your doubts and queries. I understand WordPress can get intimidating for new users, so I find this feature a major time saver and starting off gets way easier.
While on the call, you can swiftly set your account, you can select a suitable theme to suit your business requirements. The theme has been shortlisted in advance according to your specified need.
The specialist that you’re speaking with will also help you pick out appropriate plugins. You can now take advantage and benefit from all the multiple features that WordPress has designed to match your needs.
Blue Flash has a team of experts that are available 24×7, 365 days. So, where you are based, you can start right away with your WordPress website.
Once you are all done with Blue Flash’s free support and you have a requirement for regular WP live support, you can sign up for a monthly fee of $99.
Domain Name Email Address
If you believe in trust, building brand awareness and establishing relationships in the business, then I must say, domain name email address is essential to get you there.
When you buy a plan from Bluehost, you are given the option to signup for a domain name email address. So, if you go in for the basic plan, you will receive email essentials like calendars and email, email storage of 15 GB, and Outlook Web Access.
The Business Plus package includes all of the above features along with MS Office Online and MS Teams; they also throw in OneDrive of 1 TB.
Business Pro package provides MS Office only for desktop, Publisher + Access for Desktop, tools for invoicing and booking and Outlook Custom Manager.
Auto software updates are available with all plans. You can now benefit from the recovery and security service provided through MS Office 365.
A straightforward interface makes it simple to handle the account with one login. They guarantee their customers an uptime of 99.99%, and you will receive support any time of the day or night.
You are permitted to use various devices in order to access all these tools and programs. So no matter what your location is, you can manage the account by simply logging in, so you can begin and monitor the work of your project.
Doman Name Email packages begin with a couple of dollars every month. It is an excellent low-priced plan with significant value that can prove very beneficial to you.
E-commerce Features
Setting up an online store can be very challenging; however, with the help of Bluehost, it is a simple process, as they offer various shopping carts; OS Commerce, Agora, Cube, and Zen. All the transactions have SSL security. The SSL certificate is offered free along with OpenPGP/GPG Encryption.
Bluehost launched their new service – WooCommerce. It is created on WP and is an alternate that is very popular compared to Shopify. In addition, it doesn’t have a vendor lock-in.
Installing WooCommerce is a cakewalk; its single-click installation makes it easy to use. You can also add payment processing (single-click install), daily backups, calendar booking that’s in-built, and various shipping options.
The plans begin at a monthly fee of $12.95, and it could increase depending on the add-on service you need.
With the shared hosting, storage space being unlimited beginning at the Plus level means you can add plenty of products to your online shop.
Your cost will remain predictable and steady with unmetered bandwidth, even if it has been several months that the traffic of your site has been huge. It could probably be the holiday season, and your business is expanding.
Store owners find the monthly $200 marketing credits that are free, very helpful. You can make use of it to promote the store through Facebook, Google, Twitter and Bing.
All said and done, Bluehost is not popular for e-commerce; we know a few sites that make it faster and easier to set up an online store.
However, Bluehost is a cheap choice, and they give you access to plenty of great features that boost your sales online.
Security Features
I must point out, Bluehost excels in this segment. They take the security of their client’s sites very seriously.
Keeping that in mind, they offer anti-spam protection in three layers; Apache Spam Assassin, Spam Hammer and Spam Experts.
Your inbox is protected as well, and it is simple to set filters. All your directories will be password protected.
If you need to block access to your site, you can do so by using the blacklist IP address option. You will have access to SSH (Secure Shell); it is an excellent feature. You have access to configuration files securely and individually.
You can also integrate with Cloudflare with the single-click feature. With this, you can increase the speed of your WordPress website, and it offers fantastic security features.
Cloudflare is popularly known for protecting sites from DDoS attacks. I have been through plenty of customer reviews about it, and they all have the same thing to say. You will also receive plenty of upgrade options.
Refund Policy
All the plans that Bluehost has are covered with a good refund policy, a guarantee of 30-days full money back.
So, it means that once you begin to use the plan and, for some reason, find it to be a mismatch to your business needs, you can make it known to the company.
All you need to do is initiate a request for the same within the initial 30 days of purchase and you will get the entire amount back.
However, if you chose to cancel service after the stipulated 30-days, you can do so, but don’t expect a prorated refund.
Well, some hosts do offer a prorated refund to their customers, but not Bluehost. Domain fees will not be refunded.
We have never tried getting a refund, so we really cannot help you with how simple it will be. We have read a couple of reviews online about the same, and many customers have said the process is not very complex and you get the refund soon.
User-friendly
Setting up and managing your website is a very simple process, all thanks to Bluehost. The cPanel interface is enhanced, making it straightforward to use. You can reach your destination with a single click on the specific icon.
You can now have your email address and websites in one main location; this makes it easy to handle everything at the same time.
If you were not happy with the layout of your control panel, you could customize it the way you want it to be. This will allow you to access your favourite features swiftly without wasting time or searching through unwanted icons. Keep only what you need to use on a daily basis.
Customer Service
This is the segment where Bluehost has received mixed reviews. We have noticed many customers say many positive things and even share their experiences in terms of the fast response times, helpfulness and the customer support executives being very friendly.
On the other hand, there is a whole load of clients saying they were never able to get help or resolve their issues even after making multiple phone calls. The one thing that doesn’t sit right with us is the excessive upselling.
Bluehost loves to sell its customers upgrades and add-ons. There are a couple of areas you might need add-ons to enjoy full functionality. Now, this can be a big problem, especially if you’re working with a low budget.
Who can use Bluehost?
Bluehost is apt for various types of users;
- Bluehost is apt for customers that are in need of a web host that has a good reputation, and that is very reliable. (Founded in 1996, it has been in the business for a long time and established trust with its clients.)
- WP clients who want access to various features by paying a tad extra for these services and also for a team of committed WordPress experts.
- Entrepreneurs of small and large businesses. Bluehost will help you if you are in search of shared hosting for general-purpose, even if you are on a tight budget. Just be careful of the upselling.
Sites Hosted
Bluehost is very popular for its shared hosting service; it is also known for web hosting sites with high volume traffic. I’ve mentioned a couple of examples below;
- https://pod.io – A social network with 5 million users
- https://www.velvetjobs.com – A job search website
- https://cmsdetect.com – An excellent tool for identifying the CMS of websites
There are plenty more names; however, I picked the names that are commonly known to many.
We would like to summarise the review with a couple of Pros and Cons. There are many things we simply love about Bluehost, and some not so much.
Truth be told, nothing is perfect; there will always be a few things that won’t sit right. Some of them are mentioned below;
| Pros | Cons |
| Bluehost, with most of its plans, offers unlimited bandwidth, email address, domain hosting and disk storage. | Many add-ons that are available cannot be ignored; you will need them in order to enjoy the full functionality. |
| As soon as you buy a plan, you are offered a free domain name for a year. | We have read mixed reviews about the customer support team. |
| The cPanel is enhanced, making it straightforward to use and provides quick access to features. | The excessive upselling by the company can be very frustrating and annoying. |
| Bluehost offers its clients excellent security features. | The WordPress hosting plans are very impressive, but I must add they are super expensive when compared to the plans provided by their competitors; InMotion has a starter plan at a monthly fee of $2.95. When you compare it to the WP plan by Bluehost, it is half the amount. |
| They also provide multiple databases like MySQL, PHP, CGI-BIN, PostgreSQL, Ruby on the rail, Pearl, Python and more. | |
| You also have access to plenty of website scripts for free that include; blog support, social network-scripts, message forum, mailing list, Drupal, Joomla and Tikiwiki. | |
| They have excellent e-commerce features with SSL security and various shopping carts. | |
| Bluehost is very fast, and if you integrate it with Cloudflare, you will get better performance. | |
| For customers that are not on a low budget, the WP hosting on Bluehost is the best, a must-try. |
Conclusion
There are loads of amazing extras and features included with every plan, and each plan is diversified to offer flexibility to customers with various budgets.
So, no matter what your needs or budget, be sure that Bluehost delivers what it offers with the packages.
Every business has seen happy and not so happy customers. And Bluehost is no stranger to this; they have received some not-so-happy feedback from their customer.
But from where we are looking at it, that ratio is very low. The majority of Bluehost’s clientele is extremely happy with their service.
Bluehost has held a very strong reputation in the business for over 20 years! Bluehost is a company I would most certainly recommend to all, especially if you are searching for a web hosting service with a good reputation.
With scalable and economic plans, they allow you to customize a solution, and in a few minutes, your website will be all set up and ready to go. You can also check our CloudWays review.
I would like to conclude by saying, Bluehost is totally worth your money. We would like to hear from you, so please leave your comments and experiences; cheers!