How Much Does Website Hosting Cost? 2026 Prices and Renewals

TL;DR: Basic website hosting from the big hosts costs about $2.49 to $6.99 a month at sign-up in 2026, but only when you prepay one to four years. After that it renews at roughly $10 to $18 a month, and the domain, email and the website itself are usually extra (Hostinger, Bluehost, SiteGround, checked October 28, 2026). If you’d rather skip the empty server and get the finished site, WebZum builds your whole business website in about five minutes and hosts it for you. You see it free first, then it’s $19/mo (Basic) or $34/mo (Professional, with your own domain), month to month, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on every plan.

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Disclosure: WebZum publishes this blog and makes a website builder that includes hosting. Host prices and rules below come from each company’s own pricing pages and help articles, linked inline.

Verified October 28, 2026. Prices are US list prices before tax and can change.

How much does website hosting cost per month?

For a small business site on shared hosting, the sticker price is a few dollars a month. The catch is the term: the low number only applies when you pay for years up front, and the renewal price is two to six times higher.

Here’s what three of the best-known hosts listed on October 28, 2026:

Sources: Hostinger web hosting, SiteGround web hosting and current rates, Bluehost web hosting.

Hostinger spells it out: “All plans are paid upfront. The monthly rate reflects the total plan price divided by the number of months in your plan.” So the $2.49 plan is really a $119.52 charge on day one (Hostinger).

Why does hosting cost more after the first year?

Because the sign-up price is a discount on your first term only. SiteGround says its advertised prices “apply to prepaid purchases of a 12-month hosting plan. Special prices are applicable for the first invoice. For all subsequent renewals regular prices apply” (SiteGround). Its regular StartUp rate is $17.99 a month on a 12-month term, six times the $2.99 sign-up price (SiteGround KB, updated October 12, 2026).

The shorter your term, the more you pay per month. Bluehost’s own renewal price list shows Starter at $15.99 a month on a monthly term, $11.99 on a 12-month term and $9.99 on a 36-month term. Business is $20.99, $15.99 and $13.99 (Bluehost renewal price list).

So if you want to pay month to month, Bluehost’s plain hosting lands at $15.99 to $20.99 a month, and SiteGround lists StartUp at $24.99 on a one-month term (SiteGround KB). That’s before anyone has built you a website.

What else do you pay for besides hosting?

Hosting is the space your site lives in. A working business site needs a few more lines on the bill.

• Your domain, after year one. Most hosts give you a domain free for the first year, then it renews at their regular rate. At Bluehost, a .com is $12.99 for the first year and $23.99 a year to renew, and domain privacy is $15.00 a year (Bluehost domain price list; Bluehost .com). Hostinger’s .com is $0.01 for the first year, but only “when you choose a 3-year term” (Hostinger domains).
• Business email. Hostinger Premium includes two mailboxes per website “free for 1 year” (Hostinger). Bluehost’s Pro Email trial “will automatically renew at the regular rate of $2.50/mo.” (Bluehost). Google Workspace Business Starter is $7 per user per month at standard pricing, with a half-price intro for new customers’ first 12 months (Google Workspace pricing).
• SSL (the padlock). This should be free now. Let’s Encrypt says anyone with a domain “can use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a trusted certificate at zero cost” (Let’s Encrypt), and Bluehost, Hostinger and SiteGround all list free SSL on their basic plans. If someone quotes you $50 a year for SSL on a simple site, ask why.
• Backups and support. Bluehost Starter includes weekly backups, and its plan sheet says “Phone Support Not Included” until Business (Bluehost). Hostinger Premium has weekly backups; its Unlimited plan has daily ones (Hostinger).
• The website itself. Hosting is an empty unit with a key. Someone still has to install WordPress or a builder, pick a theme, write every page and keep it updated. That’s the part that costs real money or real hours. Our small business website cost breakdown covers that side.

What does a host need to run WordPress?

If you go the classic route, WordPress recommends a host that supports “PHP version 8.3 or greater,” “MariaDB version 10.11 or greater OR MySQL version 8.0 or greater,” and “HTTPS support” (WordPress.org requirements). Every big shared host covers that. What they don’t cover is your time: WordPress core, themes and plugins all need updates, and each plugin is one more thing that can break.

WebZum sites skip that layer entirely. They’re static pages with no PHP, no WordPress and no plugins, so there’s nothing for you to install, patch or update.

What does hosting look like on a WebZum site?

We checked two of our own demo sites on October 28, 2026 to see what “hosting included” actually means. Blue Mesa Auto Repair and Mossback Plumbing are WebZum demos, not customer sites.

1. It’s already online. Each site was built from a few answers in about four to five minutes (we measured roughly 298 seconds for Blue Mesa and 254 for Mossback) and went straight onto a WebZum web address. No hosting account, no control panel, no “point your nameservers” step.
2. It loads over HTTPS. Both demo addresses served a valid certificate, with the padlock, and nobody had to set it up.
3. It’s served from a global network. The pages are pre-built files delivered through Amazon CloudFront, a content delivery network that sends each page from a location near the visitor. We requested each homepage five times from Seattle, and every one of the 10 responses started arriving in under 200 milliseconds.
4. The search files are already there. Both sites had a sitemap.xml, a robots.txt that lets Google’s and the AI assistants’ crawlers read the site, plus llms.txt and ai.txt files. Every WebZum site ships with business schema markup too, so Google can tell what you do and where.
5. Changes don’t need a developer. On Blue Mesa we typed “we fix car ac too, can u add a page for that.” The editor built an AC Repair page and added it to the menu in under a minute after one click. If you don’t like a change, you type “undo that.”

Speed matters for the people you want to call you. Google’s guidance is that the main content of a page should load in 2.5 seconds or less for at least 75% of visits (web.dev). Starting with a ~200 ms server response leaves a lot of room to hit that on a phone.

Hosting vs WebZum: what does each cost over 36 months?

Here’s the math at today’s US list prices, for one small business site. The host rows are hosting plus the domain renewals we could confirm; they don’t include building the site, email, or tax.

Sources: WebZum, Bluehost hosting, Bluehost .com pricing, SiteGround current rates, Hostinger (checked October 28, 2026).

Plain hosting is cheaper on paper, and we won’t pretend otherwise. You’re paying for an empty, well-run space. WebZum costs more because you’re paying for the finished shop: a multi-page site written for your business, original AI photos, a visitor chatbot that takes callback requests, fast pages, no plugins to babysit, and our team behind it. There’s no prepaying years in advance, no renewal jump in year two, and no hidden fees.

If you add the cheapest DIY builder or a few hours of someone’s time to the hosting rows, the gap closes fast. If you add a designer, it flips.

When is a regular web host the better pick?

Pick a host like Bluehost, Hostinger or SiteGround if you want to run WordPress yourself, need full control over plugins and server settings, plan to host several sites on one plan, or already have someone who builds and maintains sites for you. Pick a host’s bigger plan or a dedicated ecommerce platform if you’re running a large online store.

Pick WebZum if you mostly need customers to find you, trust you and call, and you’d rather review a finished site than build one on an empty server.

How do I get a WebZum site with hosting included?

1. Go to webzum.com/free-website and type what your business does, or paste your Google link.
2. Answer a few quick questions. The build takes about five minutes.
3. Your site goes live on a WebZum address for a free 30-day preview. Change anything by typing it into the chat box, like “add a page for drain cleaning” or “we’re closed Thanksgiving, put that up top.”
4. Pick Basic ($19/mo) or Professional ($34/mo, with your own domain) when you want to keep it. Hosting is part of both.

More reading: what a small business website costs in 2026, a hidden-fees checklist for website builders, the cheapest website builders and what you actually pay monthly, Hostinger’s AI website builder, price and renewals, Squarespace pricing and its catches, and our side-by-side page, WebZum vs Hostinger.

FAQ

How much does website hosting cost?

Basic shared hosting costs about $2.49 to $6.99 a month at sign-up from Hostinger, SiteGround and Bluehost, but only when you prepay 12 to 48 months. It renews at roughly $10 to $18 a month on those terms, and more if you pay month to month (Bluehost Starter is $15.99 on a monthly term). Domain renewals, email and building the site are extra (host pricing pages, checked October 28, 2026).

How much is website hosting for a small business?

For a typical local service business with one site, hosting alone runs about $120 to $470 over three years at today’s US list prices, plus domain renewals. The bigger cost is the website on top of it. A plan that includes both, like WebZum at $19 or $34 a month, puts the whole thing on one bill.

Is SSL included with web hosting?

On most hosts, yes. Bluehost, Hostinger and SiteGround list free SSL on their basic plans, and Let’s Encrypt issues trusted certificates “at zero cost” (Let’s Encrypt). Our WebZum demo sites load over HTTPS on their WebZum address with nothing to set up.

Why did my hosting bill go up?

Your first term was a sign-up discount. After it ends, hosts renew at their regular rate. SiteGround’s StartUp goes from $2.99 to $17.99 a month, and Bluehost Starter from $3.99 to $9.99 on a 36-month term (SiteGround; Bluehost).

Do I need separate hosting if I use a website builder?

Not with an all-in-one builder. WebZum hosts every site it builds, so you don’t buy or manage a hosting account. You only need a host if you’re running WordPress or uploading your own site files.

Does WebZum include hosting and a domain?

Hosting is included on both plans. Basic ($19/mo) runs on a WebZum address. Professional ($34/mo) connects your own domain, and WebZum covers domain registration up to $20 a year. Every plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Curious what your site would look like already hosted and live? Get your free WebZum preview. It takes about five minutes.