Best cheap web hosting

server racks in a data centre

When you look for the best web hosting for your business, budget and costs will always be a huge factor. If you're on a tight budget, the best cheap web hosting can offer you a great middle-ground between the risks of the best free web hosting and the higher costs of certain hosting plans across different types.

While some very cheap hosts exist in this market, that area is a false economy, providing you with limited disk space, poor performance, and a lack of reliability. You need to balance your need to save money with the need to fulfil your business requirements.

Choose a host that offers top performance, support, and all the features and tools you require. We've compiled the very best cheap web hosting services below, and believe that our selections offer above-average uptime, great customer service, useful and comprehensive features, and fair pricing plans.

One integral point to remember before you buy is that many hosts will advertise a low introductory price for the first year, but will raise this for following years. Bear this in mind when looking around, and making your final decision. Read on, and find the best cheap web hosting provider for your website!

The 3 best cheap web hosting providers

Hostinger: the best web hosting provider

Hostinger's cheapest shared hosting plan, Single Shared Hosting, costs 99p a month for the first term, and £2.99 a month after, with restrictions. However, its Business Shared Hosting plan is only £3.99 a month and £8.99 a month on renewal, and has next to no restrictions across hosting parameters.

tsoHost: leading UK host with top cloud hosting plans

tsoHost's Economy cloud hosting plan costs £3.99 a month, and stays at this price after the first year. It includes a free domain name; 100GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth; 100 1GB mailboxes; a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee; cPanel; one-click app installer; and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

GoDaddy: veteran host's competitive shared hosting

Web hosting and domain registration giant GoDaddy's Economy plan is £3.99 a month for the first term before increasing to £6.99, and includes 100GB of storage, unmetered bandwidth, free Microsoft 365 email for the first year, a one-click installer, and the industry-standard cPanel control panel.

What is the best cheap web hosting available?

Our top choice for the best cheap web hosting is Hostinger, with the web host also our top choice for best web hosting, best VPS hosting, best cloud hosting, best VPS cloud hosting, and best WordPress hosting. Single Web Hosting costs 99p a month, and £3.99 a month after the first term. However, Business Shared hosting plan has no restrictions, and is only £4.99 a month and £13.99 on renewal.

UK-based host tsoHost ranks second thanks to its reasonably priced cloud hosting packages, with its Economy plan (£3.99 a month) staying at this price after the first year. This plan includes a free domain name, 100GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, 100 1GB mailboxes, a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, a cPanel control panel, a one-click app installer, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

GoDaddy's Economy plan is worth mentioning too, starting at £3.99 a month for the first term before increasing to £6.99. This plan from the web hosting and domain registration veteran includes 100GB of storage, unmetered bandwidth, free Microsoft 365 email for the first year, a one-click installer, and the industry-standard cPanel control panel.

We also recommend HostGator, Domain.com, InterServer, IONOS by 1&1, iPage, One.com, and 123 Reg among our best cheap web hosting options, with all providing different hosting packages at competitive rates.

The best cheap web hosting providers, compared

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Web hosting providerCheapest hosting planDisk spaceBandwidthSubdomains
Hostinger99p a month (Single Web
Hosting)
10GB100GB2
tsoHost£3.99 a month (Economy)100GBUnlimitedUnlimited
GoDaddy£1 a month (Economy)100GBUnlimitedUnlimited
HostGator£2.30 a month (Hatchling)UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Domain.com£3.13 a month (Basic)UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
InterServer£2.05 a month (Standard
Web Hosting)
UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
IONOS by 1&1£1 a month (Plus)
(first year price)
10GBUnlimited10,000
iPage£1.66 a month (Go)UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
One.com99p a month (Enthusiast)50GBUnlimitedUnlimited
123 Reg£3.99 a month (Standard)100GBUnlimited25

The best cheap web hosting available

1. Hostinger

Hostinger logo

(Image credit: Hostinger)

A good range of cheap plans

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: 10GB
  • Bandwidth: 100GB
  • Subdomains: 2

REASONS TO BUY

  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free domain name
  • Great introductory price

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Twice as expensive after the initial term

Score: 3.5/5

Hostinger’s cheapest plan, Single Web Hosting, costs just 99p a month for the first term. After that, you’ll pay £2.99 a month. If you pay 48 months in advance, the first four years come to just £47.52 in total.

But this ultra-cheap plan has severe limitations. You’re given just 100GB per month, 30GB of disk space, and one email address. No automatic backups of your website are taken, but you do get a free SSL certificate, 24/7/365 support, and a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

Though it’s more expensive at £3.99 a month (£8.99 on renewal), the Business Web Hosting plan from Hostinger has all restrictions removed, so you can have unlimited websites, email accounts, and traffic.

Read our comprehensive Hostinger review and our interview with CMO Daugirdas Jankus.

2. tsoHost

tsoHost logo

(Image credit: tsoHost)

UK cloud hosting on the cheap

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: 100GB
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • Transparent pricing
  • Free domain name
  • 99.9 percent uptime

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Lacks 24/7 customer support

Score: 4/5

tsoHost is a top British hosting company that offers everything from cloud hosting to customized dedicated servers. Its inexpensive cloud hosting packages are a good choice for a UK company looking to get off the ground.

tsoHost’s Economy plan costs £3.99 a month. This is a discounted price for paying annually, and it should be noted that there’s no increase in price after the first year.

With this plan, you get a free domain name, 100GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 100 1GB mailboxes. Other highlights are a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, cPanel control panel, one-click app installer, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

If you need more from the service, there are three more expensive plans that you can upgrade to. As tsoHost offers cloud hosting instead of shared hosting, it’s easy to scale your service up or down as you see fit.

3. GoDaddy

GoDaddy logo

(Image credit: GoDaddy)

Economy hosting that leaves room to grow

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: 100GB
  • Bandwidth: Unmetered
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • 99.9 percent uptime guarantee
  • Fast speeds

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Average pricing
  • Free email is only for one year

Score: 4/5

The GoDaddy Economy plan costs £1 a month for the first term before increasing to £6.99 for subsequent terms. For this, you get 100GB of storage, unmetered bandwidth, and free Microsoft 365 email for the first year.

All plans include a one-click installer for over 150 popular apps, like WordPress and Joomla, and you get the industry-standard cPanel control panel at no extra cost. On the Economy plan, though, you can only host one website.

GoDaddy makes it easy to upgrade to its more powerful plans via a one-click purchase. Therefore, you could choose GoDaddy Economy at first and later expand to GoDaddy’s £9.99 a month Ultimate plan when you have more traffic. Finally, at the moment the company is offering its managed WordPress hosting for 70% off via coupon code GDD1mwp.

Read our GoDaddy web hosting review, our comparison pitting Bluehost vs GoDaddy, and our GoDaddy website builder review.

4. HostGator

HostGator logo

(Image credit: HostGator)

An unlimited plan at a fair price

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: Unlimited
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • Free domain name and SSL certificate
  • No limit on storage or bandwidth
  • 45-day money-back guarantee

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Add-ons not detailed in purchase
  • Steep increase after first term

Score: 3.5/5

HostGator is a top option if you like “unlimited everything” plans. With the cheapest plan, Hatchling, you get support for a single domain, a free WordPress website transfer, unmetered bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, and a free domain name. Disk space, subdomains, FTP account, MySQL databases, and email addresses are unlimited too.

You get all this for an introductory price of £2.30 a month if you sign up for three years. After the intro period, you’ll pay £6.95 a month, which is still reasonable. Besides the good pricing you get a generous 45-day money-back guarantee and a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

HostGator is a little frustrating however, because its website only shows low introductory prices, and hides prices you’ll pay when you renew in the fine print. For example, when you sign up for a shared hosting plan, it automatically adds a service called SiteLock that scans your website for malware daily. It’s listed as £2.50 a month, but a small disclaimer states that after 12 months, you’ll be billed £29.99 for each following year. We prefer hosts to be clearer with their pricing.

The company routinely updates its web hosting and website builders deals online, and if you use the coupon code SNAPPY, you can access a range of savings on VPS hosting, shared hosting, the Gator Website Builders, and WordPress hosting.

Read our HostGator review, and our comparison of Bluehost vs HostGator.

5. Domain.com

Domain.com logo

(Image credit: Domain.com)

An excellent price for a fully-featured web hosting plan

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: Unlimited
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • Free domain name
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Solid price

REASONS TO AVOID

  • No cPanel on the Basic plan

Score: 3/5

Domain.com's most popular web hosting plan is also its cheapest—the Basic plan costs just £3.13 a month, whether you purchase a one-year, two-year, or three-year plan. However, hidden away in the fine print is the renewal price: £4.17 a month.

It’s not a huge price increase compared to many on this list, and indeed, the renewal price is still excellent value for money, but we feel that Domain.com should make this information more prominent during the checkout process.

The Basic plan includes support for one website, 10 MySQL databases, and an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt. You get unlimited disk space and bandwidth too, subject to terms and conditions.

Read our Domain.com review.

6. InterServer

InterServer logo

(Image credit: InterServer)

A fast, unlimited plan that never goes up in price

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: Unlimited
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • Price is locked in forever
  • Fully-featured unlimited plan
  • Fast servers

REASONS TO AVOID

  • No free domain

Score: 3/5

InterServer is a web hosting company that offers standard web hosting, active server page hosting, VPS hosting, cloud storage, and dedicated servers. At £2.05 a month, it’s one of the cheapest hosts on our list, and we do like that the price you pay to sign up for is locked in forever, and the plan is quite well featured.

You get unlimited disk space, email accounts, bandwidth, FTP accounts, and email forwarders. There’s more: you also get free SSL certificates, RAID and Cloudflare caching, automatic malware scanning, weekly backups, and a free website migration.

With the one-click installer, you can easily install over 450 popular cloud apps, including software like WordPress, Joomla, osCommerce, Magneto, phpBB, YetiForce, and ownCloud. If you’re looking for a cheap web host that has transparent pricing and doesn’t cut any corners, InterServer is a good bet.

Read our InterServer review.

7. IONOS by 1&1

1&1 IONOS' logo

(Image credit: 1&1 IONOS)

A great price on a capable service

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: 10GB
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: 10,000

REASONS TO BUY

  • Great price
  • Good DDoS protection
  • Free domain for one year

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Only 10GB disk space

Score: 3/5

IONOS by 1&1 advertises its Plus plan as £1 a month, but this is a gimmick, as after the first year, you pay £8 a month. For a cheaper ongoing price, you can choose the £2 a month Standard plan.

It’s got 100GB of storage, 10 email accounts, and support for just one website, but it’s easy enough to upgrade if you need to expand, and unlike that plan, the Standard plan only increases to £5 a month after the first year.

With IONOS, you’re not locked into a long contract, so it’s easier to make these business decisions on the fly based on your current requirements. Other features include automatic daily backups and site scans, DDoS protection, a one-click installer for over 70 applications, 10 MySQL databases, a free domain for a year, 10 email accounts, a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, and 24/7 customer service.

Learn about IONOS' MyWebsite website builder in our 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite review.

8. iPage

iPage logo

(Image credit: iPage)

Enticingly low introductory price on an unlimited plan

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: Unlimited
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • Free domain name
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • SSL certificate

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Much higher price after initial term

Score: 3/5

iPage is a cheap hosting product that’s owned by Endurance International Group (EIG). This huge conglomerate also owns HostGator and Domain.com, and as one of the largest web hosting providers on the internet, EIG can offer great deals.

If you choose a three-year plan with iPage, you’ll pay £1.66 a month for the first three years. After that, the price balloons to £6.68 a month, so factor that into your buying decision. With this plan, you get a free domain name, SSL certificate, and domain transfer. Disk space, bandwidth, and domains are all unlimited, subject to fair use.

Certain services, like daily automatic backups, domain privacy, and WordPress optimisation, cost extra. A wide range of ecommerce solutions are available for setting up a shop, and there’s 24/7 phone and chat support.

9. One.com

One.com logo

(Image credit: One.com)

Low introductory price, but not many features

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: 50GB
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited

REASONS TO BUY

  • Outstanding prices
  • Hosted on fast SSDs

REASONS TO AVOID

  • Only 50GB storage space
  • Prices double after the initial term

Score: 3/5

If you’re looking for the best price with a well-known web host, Denmark-based One.com is a reasonable choice. Its plans start at just 99p a month, with a renewal price of £4.99 a month after the first term.

With this cheap plan, you get 50GB of SSD storage, unlimited traffic, automated backups, 100 email accounts, and 75 Google Ads credit. Features such as one-click WordPress installation are reserved for One.com’s more expensive plans. One.com has over 1.5 million active users, and there are five pricier plans that you can upgrade to if you need more webspace.

10. 123 Reg

123Reg logo

(Image credit: 123Reg)

Attractive hosting solutions with the option to upgrade

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Disk space: 100GB
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Subdomains: 25

REASONS TO BUY

  • Over 125 one-click applications
  • 30-day money-back guarantee

REASONS TO AVOID

  • 40 percent price increase after year one
  • 5GB mailbox size

Score: 3/5

123 Reg is a well-known brand in the UK that started as a domain name registrar and moved into web hosting. Now it offers a range of reasonably-priced hosting plans. The cheapest one is the Starter plan, which is £3.99 a month for the first year, paid annually. After the first year, prices are bumped 40 percent.

With the Starter plan, you get a free domain, one mailbox, 100GB of web space, unlimited bandwidth, and 10 1GB MySQL databases. Email mailbox size is only 5GB, which is a little tight compared to the competition.

123 Reg has three more expensive plans if you find yourself needing more webspace, email mailboxes, or CPU power. This makes it easy to expand in the future.

What to look for in a cheap web host

When looking for a cheap hosting provider for your site, it’s important to bear quality in mind, as most major hosts have a range of cost-effective plans, but not all provide the same level of value.

The best web hosting providers offer excellent support, reliable uptime guarantees, and fast server response times as well. A cheap shared hosting plan won’t offer the same server speeds or support as the most expensive dedicated hosting.

It's also worth remembering most hosts will cap maximum storage and bandwidth on cheaper plans, so you must make sure you choose the plan that works for your business.

What's the difference between free and cheap web hosting?

Some web hosts offer limited versions of their services for free, but these are usually meant to help customers get a sense of hosting before signing up. Free web hosting rarely ever offers the same number of features as paid hosting, and imposes many restrictions to cap usage for economic feasibility.

Only go for free web hosting if you want to test-run things before launch, or if you require a site for personal use. Professionals and business owners should always consider paid hosting.

Further reading on web hosting and website builders

If you're looking for further savings across web hosting, check out our buying guide for the best unlimited web hosting, and the best VPS hosting. If you’re still unclear about why you need hosting, you can find out more in our article asking what is web hosting?

Do you want your site to focus on European and UK customers? Ensure your chosen host is among the best European web hosting providers. Finally, if you've got a WordPress website or are looking to create one with one of the best WordPress website builders, the best WordPress hosting is ideal and is provided by many of the best web hosts.

Richard Sutherland

Richard brings more than 20 years of computer science, full-stack development and business operations experience to ITPro. A graduate in Computer Science and former IT support manager at Samsung, Richard has taught courses in Java, PHP and Perl, and developed software for both private businesses and state organisations. A prolific author in B2B and B2C tech, Richard has written material for Samsung, TechRadar Pro, and now ITPro.