Bluehost Pricing: Your Guide on Hosting Plans and Fees

Bluehost, our recommended web host for WordPress sites, offers a range of hosting types and plans. Starting prices range from $3.99 to $144.19 per month (for a 36-month term). These introductory prices make Bluehost cheap to start, but you need to budget for the long-term since you can easily get trapped by higher standard prices when your plan renews.

I’ve focused on highlighting the starting prices, renewal rates, and different subscription options throughout, as well as other paid extras to consider, like domain names and cPanel access.

How Much Does Bluehost Cost?

Bluehost’s introductory prices start at $3.99 per month (for a 36-month term), offering the best deal if you opt for the longest subscription length. You can choose between shared hosting, WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting plans.

Renewal prices will vary, depending on the initial subscription length. For example, with a 36-month term, the $3.99 per month Starter plan increases to $9.99 per month once it’s time to renew. However, if you choose the same plan but opt for a 12-month term, it’ll cost you $4.99 per month to start, before increasing to $11.99 per month. So, the biggest savings are up for grabs with a 36-month term.

Which Bluehost Plan Should You Choose?

If you’re not sure which Bluehost plan to pick, consider your website and business needs, budget, and long-term goals. To help you choose, take a look at our recommendations:

• The Hobbyist: For personal sites and blogs, look at Bluehost’s shared hosting plans for the lowest entry prices
• The Local Business: For pre-installed sales tools, AI site creation, and additional storage, I’d recommend the eCommerce Premium plan so you can let Bluehost handle the backend, while you focus on promoting your store
• The Scaling Store: For sites with larger volumes of traffic and a need for maximum power, you’ll want to invest in a VPS or dedicated hosting plan

You can pay for your Bluehost hosting plan with major credit or debit cards (including Visa, Mastercard, and American Express), Google Pay, or PayPal.

Bluehost’s Pricing: Hosting Plans Explained

Bluehost’s shared hosting and WordPress hosting plans are the cheapest option, but there are a variety of hosting types and plans to choose from. I’ll break down the pricing and key features for each in the dedicated sections below.

Shared and WordPress Hosting

Bluehost has three shared hosting plans, ranging from $3.99 to $14.99 per month (for a 36-month term). These are the same for WordPress hosting. As the cheapest hosting option, you’ll be sharing resources with other website owners, making it ideal for personal projects or new businesses looking to get a site live quickly.

The starting plan includes 10 websites, 10GB NVMe storage, free SSL, access to global data centers, and capacity for up to 40k visitors per month. As you upgrade, these limits will increase.

You can also choose from four “high performance” hosting plans: Pro, Premium, Enhanced, and Elite. These plans offer up to 10 times more CPU power. Pricing for these ranges from $9.99 to $19.99 per month (for a 48-month term).

WooCommerce Hosting

For online stores using WooCommerce, Bluehost’s two WooCommerce hosting plans range from $14.99 to $21.99 per month (for a 36-month term). You’ll get additional ecommerce features, such as inventory management, gift cards, and shipping labels, and these plans support up to 400k visits per month.

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Should you use an ecommerce builder or WooCommerce hosting?

From a price and convenience standpoint, it’s cheaper to pay for an ecommerce website builder, like Shopify. Shopify’s Basic plan costs $348 for an annual subscription (or $29 per month), and you’ll get hosting, sales features, security, and marketing features included.

With Bluehost, the eCommerce Premium plan is the most comparable, but you’ll be paying $407.88 for an annual subscription ($33.99 per month). You’ll also need to budget for your domain name, security, and plugins separately.

That said, Bluehost’s hosting plans give you more flexibility and control, whereas an ecommerce builder locks you into its ecosystem, making it difficult to move platforms later if you want to.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

VPS Hosting

If you don’t want to share hosting resources with other websites, Bluehost has four self-managed VPS plans and three managed VPS plans, with pricing ranging from $4.99 to $97.99 per month (for a 36-month term). Expect full root access, expert support, DDoS protection, and unmetered bandwidth.

Bluehost’s four self-managed VPS hosting plans give you total control but cPanel isn’t included in the price:

Bluehost’s managed VPS hosting plans are more expensive, but they combine hosting and cPanel into one price. The cPanel license costs $15 per month and is included in the figures below:

Dedicated Hosting

As a step up from VPS Hosting, Bluehost’s dedicated hosting plans are the most expensive option, costing between $144.19 and $315.19 per month (for a 36-month term). You’re paying for advanced control over your server and resources, with up to 21 CPU cores, 128GB RAM, and 3,000GB NVMe storage, depending on your chosen plan.

Additional Bluehost Costs

Bluehost’s cheap introductory prices aren’t the full picture, since you’ll likely need to pay for optional (but essential) extras at checkout, such as security and domain names. These will vary depending on your plan’s built-in features:

• Email – get a one-month free trial with all plans, then $2.99 per month
• Security
  • SiteLock Essentials (daily malware scanning and monitoring) – $2.99 per month
  • Codeguard (automatically saves data and restores your site) – $2.99 per month
• Domain names – included for free for 1st year of your subscription (a .com name will then cost $12.99 per year, which is pretty standard in the market)
  • Domain privacy + protection add-on: $11.88 for one year (renews at $15)
• Extra features
  • Yoast SEO – $2.99 per month
  • Google Workspace – $3.50 per month
• Migration cost – $149.99 for one website (but you can migrate your WordPress site for free)

As an example, let’s use the shared Starter plan to explore how quickly Bluehost subscription costs can creep up. If I choose an annual contract with domain privacy and SiteLock Essentials included, this is what I’ll be paying each year:

How To Save Money With Bluehost

Hosting with Bluehost can add up quickly, with upfront costs ranging from $100+ to $5,000+, depending on your chosen hosting type and plan. Here are a few ways you can keep your costs low:

• Commit to a longer subscription – if you pay for a 36-month term, you can save up to 60% on shared and WordPress hosting plans, up to 32% on VPS plans, and up to 25% on dedicated hosting plans (though you’re forced to lock into the 36-month contract for the best deals)
• Turn off auto-renewal – otherwise you risk getting trapped by Bluehost, with your plan costing more than it did initially (e.g., from $3.99 to $9.99 per month)
• Only pay for the add-ons you need – Bluehost’s checkout can be overwhelming, with lots of “recommended” extras automatically added to your bill, so make sure to double check these add-ons before you pay (I’ve listed the available add-ons in the previous section)

Bluehost Pricing: A Good Value Web Host?

Bluehost’s plans range from $3.99 to $141.19 per month (for a 36-month term), making them very affordable to start but you need to lock into a long-term subscription for the best deal. As a result, Bluehost isn’t as good value for money as other web hosts, like Hostinger. Hostinger offers long-term value, whereas Bluehost’s steep renewal rates weaken it in our financial testing.

That said, Bluehost offers good bundling with its plans, providing lots of built-in features, with optional extras, to protect the profit margins of SMBs. And, it’s our top choice for WordPress sites, delivering quality tools to support beginners and advanced users.

Written By

Emma Ryan Deputy Editor

Emma is Deputy Editor of MVF’s B2B brands, specializing in website builders, ecommerce, marketing, and vibe coding. Emma combines her wealth of knowledge and years of hands-on testing with a passion for helping small businesses and website owners navigate the highs and lows of being online. Her work has been featured in Newsweek, Digiday, TechRound, and Industry Today.

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