Shared Web Hosting - The Lowest Cost Hosting Option (Besides Free) for Your Website

Deciding Between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

If you're a small business owner and you need to launch a new website then you'll need a place to host your website, however, choosing a hosting company can be a confusing process. Many small businesses get lured into free or low cost hosting but keep in mind that hosting is your online livelihood so don't cut corners with choosing a host. Choosing a free or the cheapest host is not the smartest decision because if the hosting is free or cheap that means the company is cutting corners on having skilled support staff, updated hardware and software, etc... which means your site will frequently go down and worse yet you could completely lose your website and all the data with it due to hardware failure and a failure of the cheap hosting company to have an adequate backup system in place. On the other hand, if you have a small brochure type website for your company then it doesn't make good business sense to go out and lease a dedicated server for hundreds of dollars a month. This is where shared hosting comes into play and is the right choice for a lot of businesses, especially new small businesses that don't expect a ton of traffic to start but still want reliable hosting for their website and email.

What is Shared Hosting?

Companies that provide shared hosting services divide the resources of a server between many clients. If you buy or lease a dedicated server your data, software, etc... will exclusively reside on the server. Since you are the only one using the server you will pay a premium price for using the entire server. With shared hosting, you split the cost of the server with other companies that are also using the server. So for example, you may lease a dedicated server for a few hundred dollars per month, whereas with shared hosting you and 50 other companies may split the cost of the server and only pay $5 or $10 per month.

How Much Does Shared Hosting Cost?

Prices for shared hosting generally range between $5 and $25 per month depending on the amount of storage space, bandwidth, and support you get and/or need.