Bluehost Shared Hosting Comparison 2022 – Basic or Plus or Choice-Plus or Pro

Since the launch of the internet on January 1, 1983 and hence the evolution of World Wide Web, companies have been developing ways to reach new customers from the newly emerged medium. Online advertising took off and people haven’t looked back since then.

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Shared web hosting is one of the most inexpensive ways for businesses or people to create a web presence. Bluehost is one of these excellent shared web hosting platforms that allows individuals and businesses alike to create their virtual online real estate.

It’s a resourceful and versatile web hosting option that allows you to create single or multiple websites quickly & easily.

Bluehost shared hosting offers a variety of packages enriched with plentiful features that you don’t often find on other hosting platforms.

You can have a website up and running in minutes and within the budget reach of most people. If that’s what you need, keep reading to take an in-depth look at what Bluehost can offer you and how the four shared hosting options differ between them.

About Bluehost

Bluehost is a web hosting company from Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. The company was founded in 2003 and it’s now owned by Endurance International Group (EIG) which is the owner of many other web media and hosting companies such as Hostgator, HostMonster, FastDomain, Ipage etc. The platform is one of the top 20 largest web hosting infrastructures in the world.

The company hosts over 2 million websites right now and is the number one choice recommended by the official WordPress organization (wordpress.org).

Advantages of All Bluehost Shared Hosting Packages

As mentioned before, Bluehost is a versatile platform offering you a variety of packages. But there are many other advantages to using this platform. Take a look at the following advantages Bluehost can offer you when you buy any of their shared hosting packages.

1. Many options to Suit Your Needs

You can select from four different affordable packages that are customized to suit your company’s or individual needs. Simply pick the package you need and you’ll have access to a variety of easy to use website building tools.

2. Backups

No matter what package you select, Bluehost offers backup and security protection for every website you develop. The platform ensures daily, weekly and monthly backups of your entire account.

Nowadays, the chances of having your website hacked are very high. Millions of websites are hacked every year and all their content and data get lost or corrupted.

Having regular backups of your website is of utmost importance. The best way to take a complete backup of your whole website and account is by using the backup feature offered by your hosting provider.

With Bluehost, you will have automatic regular backups with no extra cost to you.

3. Security

Your sensitive data is also taken care of as the Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate secures each connection between your website and your visitors.

Information such as transactions and personal information are safeguarded during transit. The SSL Certificate is what makes your website work as HTTPs instead of the unsecure HTTP. Moreover, if your website runs on HTTPs it will have SEO benefits as well.

4. Resource Protection

One of the problems encountered by website owners when using shared hosting is slow response and speed of their site. This is mainly because the host server resources (processor CPU, RAM memory, storage etc) are shared by many other websites.

Now, the problem starts when some of the websites on the same server as yours use excessive resources because maybe they have huge traffic or because they are running heavy applications and scripts.

Bluehost can pinpoint websites that use excessive resources and temporarily moves them to an isolated server. This means that your own website will be running smoothly with better performance.

5. SSD Storage

SSD stands for Solid State Drive. This is a type of hard disk storage which is multiple times faster than regular mechanic hard disks.

Web hosts that use SSD Storage provide much better performance and response to their hosted websites. Believe me, when I changed my own host from normal hard disk storage to SSD storage the speed increase was like day and night.

6. Technical Support working 24×7

If you are a website owner, the last things you want to deal with are technical problems and hosting related issues. Having 24×7 technical support will help you focus on what matters most: To grow your website’s traffic and acquire more business.

Pricing and Payment Terms

One important aspect you need to consider about Bluehost is their payment terms. They don’t offer month-to-month payments.

The lowest number of months in a contract is a 12-month plan which you need to pre-pay. However, they offer 30-days unconditional money back guarantee. You can cancel your plan within 30-days with full refund.

Here are the payment plans they have:

• 12-month plan
• 24-month plan
• 36-month plan (lowest rate coming down to $2.95/mo on their Basic hosting option)

Also, the prices shown on the website of Bluehost are valid for the initial contract term and the “month” price you see above is for the 36-month contract.

For example, if you buy the 36-month contract of Choice Plus package, the cost comes down to $5.45/mo. This is however valid only for the first 36-months. If you renew, the pricing will be as below:

The above shows the prices after the initial contract.

Comparison of Bluehost Options

Just to be complete here, Bluehost offers 3 categories of hosting infrastructure:

• Shared Hosting: This is what we will be discussing in this article.
• VPS (Virtual Private Server).
• Dedicated Server.

Probably you have come to this article to get some help and clarifications between the four different plans of the shared hosting category of Bluehost. Next up in the article I’ll try to compare these different plans so that you can have a better idea which plan will be the best fit for you.

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Bluehost Basic vs. Bluehost Plus

Pricing

Let’s starts with the price comparison between the two options (see below):

As you can see, the Basic plan is almost half price compared to Plus. The price shown on the website for both plans is the 36-month contract which gives you the lowest per-month cost (although as I have said before, you have to pre-pay for the whole contract duration).

Here are the total costs for each contract duration:

Basic Plan Pricing

• 12-Month Price: $59.40 (comes down to $4.95 per month)
• 24-Month Price: $94.80 (comes down to $3.95 per month)
• 36-Month Price: $106.20 (comes down to $2.95 per month)

Plus Plan Pricing

• 12-Month Price: $89.40 (comes down to $7.45 per month)
• 24-Month Price: $166.80 (comes down to $6.95 per month)
• 36-Month Price: $196.20 (comes down to $5.45 per month)

Although Bluehost offers 30-Day money back guarantee, I don’t recommend signing up to the 24- or 36-month contracts.

I suggest opting for the 12-month contract so that you won’t be locked in long-term hosting. Two and three years in the online world are like ages, so don’t fall into the trap to sign-up to such long duration plans.

Ideal Use Cases

Let’s now see for whom each package will be a good fit:

Bluehost Basic:

If you want to test the Bluehost waters you can opt for the basic package. For an affordable price, you can create one website with one domain.

This plan is ideal for people who just want a basic and simple website just to showcase their services/products as a company for example.

The 50GB SSD storage will be more than enough to sufficiently host a basic static HTML website or even a basic WordPress site.

This package doesn’t offer CloudFare CDN but you can sign up for it and integrate a free CDN onto your website at a later stage.

If you’re only planning on using one website for your company, the Bluehost Basic package will be best suited for you.

Bluehost Plus:

If you’re looking for a package with no restrictions on the number of websites or Domains to be hosted, and also no restriction on the SSD storage and bandwidth, the Bluehost Plus package would be more advantageous to you.

If you buy the 12-month contract (as I suggested above), the Bluehost Plus package will cost you around $30 more than the Basic but you will have much more freedom to build your web presence.

If you are an entrepreneur who likes testing and building websites or making money online, then the Plus option will be ideal for you. You can host either WordPress or static HTML sites without worrying about limits.

Bluehost Plus vs. Choice Plus

Pricing

Let’s see the price options between Plus and Choice Plus contracts:

At first glance, you will notice that the cost is exactly the same between Plus and Choice Plus. This is valid however only for the initial contract period. At subsequent renewals, the cost of Choice Plus will be higher.

Here are the charges for each plan option:

Plus Pricing

• 12-Month Price: $89.40 (comes down to $7.45 per month)
• 24-Month Price: $166.80 (comes down to $6.95 per month)
• 36-Month Price: $196.20 (comes down to $5.45 per month)

Choice Plus Pricing

• 12-Month Price: $89.40 (comes down to $7.45 per month)
• 24-Month Price: $166.80 (comes down to $6.95 per month)
• 36-Month Price: $196.20 (comes down to $5.45 per month)

Choice Plus is the way to go regarding pricing if you compare it with the Plus option. With the same cost, you get also extra CodeGuard Backup and Domain Privacy for free.

Features Comparison

There are two main differences between Plus and Choice Plus (everything else regarding hosting features are the same):

• Choice Plus includes Codeguard website backup service.
• Choice Plus includes Domain Privacy registration.

Codeguard creates daily backup of your website and keeps a separate version each day. If your website gets corrupted, hacked, infected from malware or broken for any reason, you can go back and easily restore the website from previous backups.

Domain Privacy registration allows you to remain anonymous regarding the owner of your domain name. Instead of your name in public domain records, the name of your registrar will be shown.

For the above two extra features provided by Choice Plus, I would certainly recommend it over the Plus plan. Especially for the initial payment contract (which is the same cost), subscribing to the Choice Plus instead of Plus is a no-brainer.

Ideal Use Cases

Let’s now see for whom each package will be a good fit:

Bluehost Plus:

If you’re a developing company and you’re planning on expanding your business you’re probably going to need more than one website. Opting for the Bluehost Plus package will give you many added benefits.

As mentioned before you get all the features of Bluehost Basic but with a few added extras. With all the websites you create you’ll need all the storage you can get. That’s why with the unlimited website development, you also receive unlimited SSD storage.

You also get $200 worth of marketing offers when you sign up for the Bluehost Plus package. The Plus package includes one Office 365 mailbox which is free for 30 days. The advantage of getting a free mailbox is that Office 365 allows you to access emails, files and office programs anywhere in the world as it’s fully cloud-based.

Bluehost Choice Plus:

Choice Plus can offer you all of the above with the two added features I have mentioned before. You get domain privacy as well as site back up plans through CodeGuard Basic.

Actually, the Choice Plus is my recommended option for anybody who is serious about their website. If your website makes you money or is important for your business, then having a solid backup feature is super important. This is provided by Codeguard.

Having your website hacked or infected with malware is very likely these days. With daily backups, you will not have the headache of lost data or broken website with the Choice Plus contract.

Bluehost Choice Plus vs. Pro

Pricing

Let’s starts with the price comparison between the two options (see below):

As you can see, there is huge difference in price between Choice Plus and Pro plans. Let’s see the costing for each contract:

Choice Plus Pricing

• 12-Month Price: $89.40 (comes down to $7.45 per month)
• 24-Month Price: $166.80 (comes down to $6.95 per month)
• 36-Month Price: $196.20 (comes down to $5.45 per month)

Pro Pricing

• 12-Month Price: $227.40 (comes down to $18.95 per month)
• 24-Month Price: $382.80 (comes down to $15.95 per month)
• 36-Month Price: $502.20 (comes down to $13.95 per month)

The only notable difference between Pro and Choice Plus is that you get a dedicated IP address on the Pro hosting option.

However, you can opt for the Choice Plus plan and buy a dedicated IP address at an additional monthly cost of $5.99/month. This will still be cheaper instead of registering to the Pro plan.

My recommendation here is obviously the Choice Plus option instead of the Pro plan.

Features Comparison

As noted above, the additional features offered by the Pro package compared to Choice Plus include a dedicated IP and also Higher Performance.

As explained by Bluehost, the Pro plan will be hosting your website in a server with smaller number of websites therefore theoretically will have more resources available.

However, the huge price difference between the two plans does not justify the dedicated IP address and theoretical higher performance of Pro package in my opinion.

My recommendation again is the Choice Plus option instead of the Pro plan.

Ideal Use Cases

Let’s now see for whom each package will be a good fit:

Bluehost Choice Plus:

The Bluehost Choice Plus has the benefits of both the Basic and the Plus packages but now you’re able to have complete privacy over your domains and also backup and restore options. You’re able to prevent identity theft, phishing attacks and spam to all your developed websites.

The CodeGuard basic is a back up feature that stores all your data so you’re able to recover files, tables and databases quickly & hassle-free.

If you’re looking for a feature-rich and more advanced web hosting package, then Choice Plus is the best option.

It is ideal to host the website(s) of a serious company or a serious entrepreneur who wants to make money from their websites.

Bluehost Pro:

The only reason in my opinion to buy the Pro plan is the dedicated IP address or maybe to have the potential of higher performance.

Higher performance and speed can be achieved however with other ways such as Cloudflare CDN, caching options on the website etc.

Final Thoughts

After studying all the Bluehost Shared Hosting options, I recommend with no doubt the Choice Plus package. It offers great value for money, rich hosting features, high security and backup options etc.

Here is My Recommended Bluehost Plan

It’s vital you pick a package that aligns with your needs, but with many satisfied customers, the Choice Plus package is often the winning option. If you have any questions or advice for others, please leave your thoughts in the comments below.