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Want to jump straight to the answer? The best shared hosting company for most people is Hostinger or DreamHost.

Shared web hosting is the perfect solution for new websites. As an entry-level service, it’s also ideal for simple websites or anyone with a tight budget.

The best hosts don’t feel like they’re shared.  That means uptime, speed, and support are so good you won’t even notice you’re sharing a server with other sites.

Compare the Top 9 Best Shared Hosting Companies

• Hostinger — Best web hosting for tight budgets
• DreamHost — Best shared hosting that leaves room to grow
• Bluehost — Best for creating your first website
• A2 Hosting — Best shared host for sites with a need for speed
• InMotion — Best for 24/7/365 support
• HostGator — Best for building your first ecommerce store
• SiteGround — Best shared host for when your audience gets big
• iPage — Most affordable shared hosting for a customizable online store
• GoDaddy — Best shared hosting for bundling domain and email

Good shared hosting is about more than just getting a good deal. You want to make sure you have room to grow and the tools you need to build your site.

Read on for in-depth reviews of the best web hosts on the market today. I’ll tell you in plain language the basics you need to know about each one.

After the reviews, I also include a framework to help you assess which one is best for your needs. Whether you’re launching a new site from scratch or looking to change hosting providers, there’s a solution for you here.

And if you’re not sure exactly what shared hosting is, I’ve included a brief explanation, too.

Hostinger – Best Web Hosting for Tight Budgets

Hostinger offers one of the most affordable hosting services I’ve seen.

In fact, their plans start at $1.99 per month for their Single Shared Hosting plan. Their most expensive plan is their Business Shared Hosting Plan that’s just $4.99 per month.

Yes, you read that right. That’s rock bottom pricing.

The catch? These are promotional rates. When you renew, the price jumps up—but it’s still just $3.99 each month for the single shared hosting.

To lock in the lowest price, you have to sign up for 48 months, which stretches out your discount as long as possible. And when you renew, it’s still going to cost less than most other shared hosting providers.

Alongside that unbeatable pricing, Hostinger promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee and their site speed is more than serviceable.

Here’s a peek at Hostinger’s plans, with pricing for a four-year upfront commitment:

Single Shared Hosting – $1.39/month

• 1 website
• 30 GB SSD storage
• ~10,000 monthly visits
• 1 email account
• 2 Databases
• 100 GB bandwidth

Premium Shared Hosting – $3.49/month

• 100 websites
• 100 GB SSD Storage
• ~25,000 monthly visits
• Unlimited databases
• Free domain
• Free email
• Google Ads credit
• Unlimited bandwidth

Business Shared Hosting – $4.99/month

• 100 websites
• 200 GB SSD storage
• ~1,000,000 monthly visits
• Unlimited databases
• Free domain
• Free email
• Google Ads credit
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Daily backups

All plans come with managed WordPress, which is an excellent inclusion if you want to use WordPress as your CMS. That means even with these low, low prices, you get one-click WordPress installation, the WP Starter site building wizard, auto-updates, and a lot more.

If you’re looking for a decent shared web host on a tight budget, Hostinger is a fantastic option.

DreamHost – Best Shared Hosting That Leaves Room to Grow

DreamHost offers cost-effective shared hosting without sacrificing performance.

There are actually three big reasons why DreamHost stands out to us:

• Reasonable monthly rates. You can get a good price for shared hosting without signing a contract. With a monthly rate that starts at $5.99 per month, DreamHost is much less expensive than other providers who only give you a good deal with a long-term commitment.
• Unlimited traffic. They give you the option to take on more traffic without charging you more for bandwidth. That means if you have an article go viral and a ton of traffic floods into your site, you won’t get punished for it on your next bill. That can be great if you’re planning to be the next Tim Ferriss or James Altucher.
• Plenty of plans. They offer a ton of different plans beyond their shared hosting. That means if you ever get to a point where you’re ready to upgrade, they offer VPS hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, managed WordPress, and more. It just depends on what you want.

DreamHost’s interface is user-friendly and their plans are quite affordable, coming in two flavors:

Shared Starter – Starting at $2.59 per month

• Hosting for 1 website
• 5 subdomains
• Email starting at $1.67 per month
• 50 GB of site storage

Shared Unlimited – Starting at $5.95 per month

• Hosting for unlimited websites
• Unlimited subdomains
• Email included
• Unlimited site storage

The Shared Starter plan is the best option for brand-new websites. You get plenty of site storage and five subdomains. The biggest downside is that email accounts from your domain aren’t included, but you can add that option in checkout.

Personally, I recommend the Shared Unlimited plan. It comes with added benefits I like, such as email accounts bound to your domain, unlimited subdomains, and unlimited SSD storage.

Both plans come with WordPress pre-installed, a WP site builder, and a free SSL certificate.

DreamHost guarantees a 100% uptime rate. If they fail to meet that promise, you’ll receive compensation for every hour of downtime, which is up to 10% of your next pre-paid renewal fee.

They also offer a 97-day money-back guarantee. In my experience, 30 days seems to be the industry standard, so DreamHost really stands behind their product by tripling that period.

For those of you who already have a WordPress site, the DreamHost experts will migrate the site to your new account for a $99 fee. If you fall into this category, I strongly recommend taking advantage of this service.

No matter what, go with DreamHost if you’ve got lofty goals for your site’s future.

Bluehost – Best for Creating Your First Website

Bluehost is a favorite of ours at Quick Sprout, ranking high on our lists for best web host, best VPS host, and best dedicated host.

While there are many reasons we like them, the reason we often recommend them is that they’re the perfect option for beginners. With their one-click WordPress install, intuitive dashboard, and award-winning 24/7 customer support, they’ll hold your hand through the entire setup process.

That means zero development or web design knowledge is needed. Just sign up and go. You’ll have a website up in less than 20 minutes. That’s why we highly recommend them if you’re creating your very first website. And if you need more help, be sure to check out our article all on how to create a website.

Bluehost offers four different plans:

Basic – Starts at $2.75 per month

• 1 website
• Unmetered bandwidth
• 50 GB of SSD storage
• 1 domain included
• 25 sub domains

Plus – Starts at $5.45 per month

• Unlimited websites
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Unlimited SSD storage
• Unlimited domains
• Spam experts
• Office 365 Mailbox (free for 30 days)

Choice Plus – Starts at $5.45 per month

• Unlimited websites
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Unlimited SSD storage
• Unlimited domains
• Spam experts
• Domain privacy
• Site backup

Pro – Starts at $13.95 per month

• Unlimited websites
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Unlimited SSD storage
• Unlimited domains
• 2 spam experts
• Domain privacy
• Site backup
• Dedicated IP

My pick for most folks is the Choice Plus plan. With a starting price point the same as the Plus plan, it’s worth paying a few extra bucks per month when it comes time to renew to keep site backups and domain privacy.

But if the extra spam protection and dedicated IP is enough for you, the Pro plan is a great value at the price point, too.

Bluehost is also highly scalable. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to switch plans easily.

So, if your site is brand new and you’re not planning to prioritize traffic for a couple of years, then you can definitely get away with the Basic plan for the time being.

Bluehost’s pricing plans are straightforward, but they will charge you for add-ons.

To get the best possible rate, you need to lock in your plan for 36 months. That’s another reason why I lean toward Choice Plus over the Plus and Basic packages.

Even if you’re paying a little extra for resources that are going unused right now, it’s worth it for that time in the future when your site eventually scales.

It will only end up costing you an extra $30 per year to go with Choice Plus over Basic for the first three years. That’s a great price for a reliable shared hosting service.

Try Bluehost on for size today with their 30-day money back guarantee.

A2 Hosting – Best Shared Host for Sites With a Need for Speed

A2 Hosting is one of the fastest shared hosting services available on the market today.

That’s all due to their powerful servers that offer the best loading speeds and uptime rates. If you’re looking to deliver content swiftly to your audience, this is the hosting plan for you.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of their four shared hosting plans:

Startup – $2.99/month

• 1 website
• 100 GB SSD storage
• Free site migration

Drive – $5.99/month

• Unlimited websites
• Unlimited SSD Storage
• Free site migration
• Free automatic backups

Turbo Boost – $6.99/month

• Unlimited websites
• Unlimited NVMe Storage
• Free site migration
• Free automatic backups

Turbo Max – $12.99/month

• Unlimited websites
• Unlimited NVMe Storage
• Free site migration
• Free automatic backups

For those of you who have a need for speed, the Turbo plan will be best for you. It’s probably the fastest shared hosting plan offered by any provider on our list. A2 is already known for its speed, and Turbo is their top-of-the-line shared plan.

While it ends up being $20.99/month when you renew, it’s still cheaper than some of the other high-end plans we’ve looked at. Overall, A2 Hosting is priced in the middle range compared to the competition.

You can also check out my full A2 Hosting review for more on their other features and plans.

Furthermore, A2 Hosting offers free site migrations on all of their shared plans. Other providers charge an added fee for this service.

They have excellent customer support and a money-back guarantee, which are helpful bonuses.

Tap into A2 Hosting’s turbo-charged shared servers today to feel the thrill of speedy loading times.

InMotion – Best Shared Hosting for 24/7/365 Customer Support

InMotion Hosting is a fantastic option for anyone who loves—or knows they’ll rely heavily on—quality customer support.

Seriously. Take a look at any reviews from them. Nine times out of ten they’re going to mention their support—and for good reason.

InMotion boasts an incredibly responsive customer support team that’s available at all hours of the day. You can reach them via chat, phone, email, or through your customer portal.

They can help you in case your site experiences any issues like cyberattacks or if it crashes. They’ll even help you migrate your site if you need it.  

They also have a fantastic knowledge base in case you want to take care of things yourself. You’ll be able to learn about anything from transferring a current domain to setting up Mac Mail, Outlook, or email on your phone.

InMotion has three shared hosting plans for you to choose from.

Lite – $2.79/month

• 1 website
• 10 GB SSD storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Free email address
• Free SSL

Launch – $5.99/month

• 2 websites
• 50 GB SSD storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• 10 email addresses
• Free SSL

Power – $5.99/month

• 50 websites
• 100 GB SSD storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• 50 email addresses
• Free SSL

Pro – $13.99/month

• 100 websites
• 200 GB SSD storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited email
• Free SSL

Unlike other plans we’ve seen, InMotion’s entry-level plan offers hosting for more than one website, unlimited disk space, and unlimited email. This is a great value for the price.

The Launch plan is the best option for beginners. Power is made for small business websites, and the Pro plan is made for developers and growing businesses.

Like we said before, though, compared to some of the other providers on our list, InMotion really stands out when it comes to their customer support. This is definitely something to keep in mind as a new website owner.

For those of you who decide to go with the Pro plan, you’ll get a 99.9% uptime guarantee. If InMotion fails to deliver on that promise, you’ll get credits toward free hosting.

Speaking of credits, InMotion’s Launch Plan—and all the other plans higher than it—come with $150 in free advertising credits, which can be very useful for a new website. It’s a great way to gain some exposure through popular search engines

Go into your web hosting knowing that you have a helping hand all the way by choosing InMotion.

HostGator – Best Shared Hosting for Building Your First Ecommerce Store

HostGator gives you everything you need to create an online store and start selling products. Their ecommerce site builder is simple and intuitive and they also sweeten the deal with $150 Google Ads credit to help get your marketing off on the right foot.

For further customization, they give you cPanel access, which isn’t always an offering among shared hosting providers. That means you can customize your online store to your heart’s desire by installing plugins and tweaking settings.

Their plans are as follows:

Hatchling Plan – $2.64 per month

• Single domain
• WordPress installs
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
• $200 marketing offer
• Free email address

Baby Plan – $3.38 per month

• Unlimited domains
• WordPress installs
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
• $200 marketing offer
• Free email address

Business Plan – $5.08 per month

• Free upgrade to positive SSL
• Free dedicated IP
• Free SEO tools
• Unlimited domains
• WordPress installs
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
• $200 marketing offer
• Free email address

Note: HostGator often offers flash sales—so the price might actually be even lower when you visit their page than what we have here.

Both the Baby and Business plan come with unlimited domains, while the Hatchling plan is for a single domain.

The Business plan comes with added benefits like a free dedicated IP, free SEO tools, and a free upgrade to Positive SSL.

I love the value they offer. The new customer rates are definitely on the lower end of the spectrum, but the renewal rates aren’t too expensive. Plus, you can lock in the introductory rate for three years.

If you’re considering HostGator, I’d recommend the Business Plan. Yes, even for beginners.

It’s not often that I pick the top-tier pricing as the go-to plan for everyone. But, with HostGator, I think that the value for that plan is the best. The add-ons that come with the Business Plan are worth the higher pricing. Ultimately, it’s still less than $15 per month, even after you renew.

In addition to 24/7 server monitoring, 24/7 live chat and phone support, HostGator also has more than 500 video tutorials and nearly 700 help articles if you want to learn how to do things on your own. They also offer pretty solid cloud hosting.

Get your web store started on the right foot by choosing HostGator for your hosting.

SiteGround – Best Host for When Your Audience Grows Big

SiteGround is a great choice for growing websites because each plan gives you different options depending on your monthly visitor load.

They also offer unmetered traffic with every single plan. That means you don’t have to worry about how big your audience gets or how many people you have coming to your website. You can get a spike in traffic and not see your resources throttled or your price jump at your next bill.

Beyond that, SiteGround makes it easy to scale up to a bigger, better plan if your site’s newly massive audience becomes the new normal.

Here’s a brief overview of SiteGround’s three shared hosting plans:

StartUp – $3.99/month

• 1 website
• 10 GB of web space
• ~10,000 monthly visitors
• Unmetered traffic
• Free SSL
• Daily backup
• Free CDN
• Free email
• Managed WordPress
• Unlimited Databases

GrowBig – $6.69/month

• Unlimited websites
• 20 GB of web space
• ~25,000 monthly visitors
• Unmetered traffic
• Free SSL
• Daily backup
• Free CDN
• Free email
• Managed WordPress
• Unlimited Databases
• On-demand backup copies

GoGeek – $10.69/month

• Unlimited websites
• 40 GB of web space
• ~100,000 monthly visitors
• Unmetered traffic
• Free SSL
• Daily backup
• Free CDN
• Free email
• Managed WordPress
• Unlimited Databases
• On-demand backup copies
• Priority support

If your website is brand new, you probably won’t be getting 10,000 monthly visitors for quite some time. But with that said, I’d still recommend the GrowBig plan over the StartUp option.

The GrowBig plan comes with on-demand backups and a free site transfer. That’s an important feature for those of you who are switching to SiteGround from another hosting provider.

The StartUp plan is for small, simple websites that are expecting tons of website site traffic. I’m sure the majority of you won’t fall into this category, but if your needs are super simple, it’s a still-solid offering from SiteGround.

GoGeek comes with three levels of super-caching, advanced priority support, white-label and client management services, and pre-installed Git. All three plans come with 100% renewable energy match, too!

There’s a plan for everyone in SiteGround’s shared hosting, so get started with them today to be ready for when your site blows up in popularity.

iPage – Most Affordable Shared Hosting for a Customizable Online Store

iPage offers a very straightforward pricing plan with just one plan for shared web hosting.

For real, it’s dead simple: Their plan costs $1.99 per month when you sign up and $7.99 per month when you renew. Overall, this definitely puts them in the running for the best cheap web hosting.

But iPage’s standout features are a highly intuitive ecommerce store builder that comes with $200 worth of ad credits to use on Google or Bing. That’s more than even HostGator gives you.

They also offer a ton of unlimited features like disk space, bandwidth, and domains. It’s easily the best deal when it comes to creating an online store.

Even though they offer low prices, iPage has great features like:

• Unlimited disk space
• Scalable bandwidth
• Unlimited domains
• Free SSL certificate
• Free domain for one year
• Free ecommerce integration
• 24/7 phone and live chat support

That’s a lot of “frees” and “unlimiteds” for such a low-cost plan.

Overall, iPage is best for smaller websites and stores. Think stores where you’re only selling 1-5 products.

Be aware, they do charge extras for things like site transfers, but that’s expected for a low-cost web host.

Get with iPage to host your ecommerce store on the cheap.

GoDaddy – Best Shared Hosting for Bundling Domain and Email

GoDaddy is a popular and well-known brand in the hosting industry. They’re an excellent option if you’re looking to bundle a great email service and domain with your hosting. In fact, that’s why we included them in our best domain registrars, too.

Their email service is especially great if you already use Microsoft for your email provider. It’s worth noting that Microsoft 365 is only offered for free in the first year—though you can cancel your automatic renewal at any time.

GoDaddy offers three shared hosting plans. Each one is made for different types of websites.

Economy – $2.99 per month

• 1 website
• Unmetered bandwidth
• 100 GB storage
• Free Microsoft 365 email in your first year
• Free domain with annual plan

Deluxe – $7.99 per month

• Unlimited websites
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Unlimited storage
• Free Microsoft 365 email in your first year
• Free domain with annual plan

Ultimate – $12.99 per month

• Unlimited websites
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Unlimited storage
• Free Microsoft 365 email in your first year
• Free domain with annual plan
• 2x processing power and memory
• Free SSL certificate in your first year.

As you can see, all of the GoDaddy plans are affordable. There’s something for everyone on this list, and it’s very straightforward.

If you’re starting a simple blog from scratch, you can get away with the Economy plan.

You always have the option to level-up if you need more resources. GoDaddy will actually send you an alert if you’re getting close to exceeding things like your memory or CPU. That way you can stay on top of things. Read my full Godaddy hosting review here to get a deeper view into what makes them work.

For those of you who have a small business and expect heavy site traffic, you’ll be better off with the Ultimate plan. They’ll give your site the processing power you need to succeed.

Knock out hosting, a domain, and email service in one fell swoop by going with GoDaddy.

What Is Shared Web Hosting?

Since the majority of you are probably new website owners, let me take a moment to explain exactly what shared hosting is and how it works.

With a shared hosting plan, your website will be hosted on the same server as other websites. This means that you’ll be sharing (hence the name) server resources with those other sites as well.

That’s the reason why shared hosting is so cost-effective compared to VPS hosting or dedicated hosting plans.

Shared hosting is like renting a bedroom in a house with other roommates. You have your own room, but you’re sharing supplies and resources in the house. If one of your roommates has a bunch of friends over and they eat all of the food or use all of the soap, there won’t be anything left for you.

This is the major downside of shared hosting. If another site on the same server has tons of traffic, it can slow down the loading speed on your website.

Shared hosting is an entry-level service offered by most web hosting providers.

How to Find the Best Shared Hosting for You

So how do you find the best shared hosting?

When it comes to any type of hosting, the two most important factors are always going to be:

• Reliable Uptime Rates. This is how often your website actually stays up and doesn’t go down for unplanned reasons. Very important because if your website is down, you won’t make any money or reach any readers.
• Fast Loading Speeds. This is how quickly your site loads its pages and it’s important for your visitors’ experience on your website (think of how often you’ve exited a site because the page was taking just a little too long to load).

These are vitally important no matter what type of hosting you’re looking for—so we’re not going to spend much time talking about this.

Why? Most web hosts are fairly similar in this regard. They need good uptime and speed in order to be any good to begin with. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for VPS hosting, shared hosting, or dedicated hosting. You need solid uptime and speed.

So, reliable uptime and speed don’t necessarily help us decide what the best web host is for common needs, other than eliminating hosting options that flat-out don’t make the cut.

That’s why we’re going to take a look at the other factors we believe are very important when considering shared web hosting.

Below are the criteria that we used when creating this list. Use it for your own research to help guide your ultimate decision:

Set-It-and-Forget-It Web Hosting

If it’s your first time building a website, it’s easy to be intimidated and frustrated by the process.

That’s why you want to find a provider that makes web hosting a breeze for you. In fact, it should be something you don’t really have to think about at all once you set it up.

That’s why we love options like Bluehost so much. They make it incredibly easy for beginners to create a website, especially with features like one-click WordPress installation.

InMotion’s Launch plan is also another beginner-friendly hosting solution that we highly recommend. They’ll walk you through the entire setup process and, by the end of it, you’ll feel like a pro with your very own website.

If you do want to get more hands-on with your host a bit more, you’ll want to find a host that gives you an easy-to-use and easy-to-navigate platform. This is another area where Bluehost shines.

High-Traffic Hosting Capacity

In the ideal world, you’ll get a ton of traffic to your website right off the bat—but the reality is it likely will take you a while to get there.

When you do arrive, though, you’ll want to make sure that your web host can manage your heightened traffic load.

Luckily, all of the shared hosting providers on this list can manage a decent amount of traffic —some of them do so better than others, though.

For example, web hosts like Bluehost and HostGator give you unmetered bandwidth. That means you won’t get penalized (in terms of a poor visitor experience or additional fees) when you have a flood of traffic coming to your site all at once.

As we mentioned before, though, shared hosting is a fairly entry-level hosting solution. If you see your website easily attracting at least 200,000 monthly visitors, you’ll want to upgrade to VPS, cloud hosting, or a dedicated server to handle this routine strain on resources.

This is also an area where you’ll want to take a look at the uptime assurances of each web host. Most all of them will offer you uptime in the neighborhood of 99.99%.

Some, such as Hostinger, will refund you for any time your website goes down due to a spike in traffic. Though you want your website up as much as possible, it’s good to see a web host put some skin in the game in order to assure you that they’ll work to keep your site up and running—and they’ll compensate you generously if they can’t.

Customer Service at a Moment’s Notice

Customer support is something that is sneakily important when it comes to web hosting.

After all, you don’t ever want to need it. But, when you do, you’ll want it to be the most helpful and comprehensive support you can get—especially if your website is making money for you.

When researching your shared web hosts, take a look at what each host offers for customer support.

Some questions to consider:

• Can you reach them via phone? What are their hours of operation?
• Are they available 24/7/365?
• Can you call them even if you don’t live in the United States?
• Do they offer live chat, email, phone, and ticketing options?

Customer support isn’t just about calling someone up when something goes wrong, either. It can also come in the form of tutorials, guides, or user forums to help answer any questions you have.

It could also be the tools available to build and support your website. For example, iPage offers an easy-to-set-up ecommerce integration that works great if you’re creating an online store.

Plans for When You’re Ready to Upgrade Your Website

Shared hosting is often seen as the entry point for a lot of websites. It’s an easy way to get a site live even if you have no experience with building a site or using a web host.

If you have bigger goals for your website, like becoming a wildly popular destination, creating an ecommerce store, attaining boatloads of leads, or a combination of all these things, you’re going to eventually want to upgrade your host.

VPS hosting is a common step up from shared hosting, as it provides servers with more resources to work with.

If you eventually get to the point where you’re drawing in millions of readers each month, you might want to consider getting a dedicated host.

Virtually all of the hosts on this list offer an easy way to take the next step up from shared hosting.

For example, Bluehost offers both VPS and dedicated hosting for when you’re ready to really level up your website. DreamHost offers cloud hosting, as well as managed WordPress hosting.

Each one of these hosts has a dedicated customer support team that’ll help you easily upgrade your hosting service—and, often, you don’t have to worry about a lengthy and painful migration process because it’s still from the same company. Double win!

What Type of Website Do You Want to Build?

The right web host for you also largely depends on what you’ll actually be using the website for.

If you just want to build a single website for a portfolio or information about your business, each of the hosts on this list can easily handle that for you.

But if you want to, say, open an online store, we highly recommend you use a host such as iPage. They give you a free online store, PayPal integration, and tons of other ecommerce features.

GoDaddy also offers an online store builder along with their hosting and domain plans. You’ll be able to easily create a great-looking store on their site with just a few clicks.

If you want to get into blogging, DreamHost and Bluehost are great solutions. They offer great WordPress integrations to help get your blog up and running and attract tons of new readers.

Consider what you want to do with your website and see what each host has to offer for your goals.

The Top Shared Hosting Plans in Summary

All shared web hosting services are not created equal. Some providers offer better plans than others. When comparing packages side-by-side, you should consider speed, power, performance, support, and scalability.

The best shared hosting plans typically offer great deals for new websites. Just make sure you choose a plan that can accommodate your traffic. You’ll likely need to upgrade your web hosting down the road, but you can put that off for a while if you choose the right starter plan today.