The True Costs of Hosting a Website With a Shared Hosting Plan

Shared hosting plans can cost as little as 80p a month from certain hosting providers. Which makes them very appealing to anyone who wants to save money on hosting services. However, there’s an underlying true cost to these web hosting plans that your web host doesn’t want you to know about!

There’s no beating the monthly costs of shared hosting. Quite frankly, 80p a month is an absolute bargain! For many, though, that is the only upside to shared hosting – and even that doesn’t last long!

A shared web hosting plan is cheap, fast to set up and you might even get a free domain name. If you’re looking to host a small website or low-traffic blog that won’t see much traffic in its lifetime then shared hosting will be fine. However, if the ultimate goal is to grow that website into a hugely successful site with millions of visitors a year, shared hosting is only going to slow you and the site down. Not to mention the site speed, security and user experience issues! Oh, and the limited customisation options!

Shared web hosts often claim that the sites they host have 99.99% uptime, and speeds that can rival the best web hosting companies in the world, but this simply isn’t the case. Most web hosts offer very little room to grow and constant upsells that simply are not sustainable. All of which means that the 80p you started out paying quickly grows as your website does, and more often than not, your website performance will still be limited.

If you are looking to host a large website that sees a lot of traffic, or a site that has the potential to grow into this, you need to rethink your hosting options. Choosing the right plan for your websites is vitally important. The plan you choose should have:

• Plenty of storage space to grow/ have additional space for other sites you build in the future
• Robust security
• Great site speed
• Root Access
• Scalability options

There are many different hosting types so choosing the right option for your websites will need some thought. Here’s a breakdown of all of the hosting options you have to choose from:

Cloud hosting is a much more powerful resource than shared hosting. This is because your website is hosted on multiple servers all sharing resources. Hosting costs are a bit more, but the speeds are great. Your website speed will be much faster, the server resources your site has allow it to grow and you don’t have to share the resources with anyone.

Having said that, you still won’t have root access to do much on the server side of the site. This can be quite frustrating if you want to do updates or install software, for example. Plus, your website will still be on the same servers as others. So the security of your site is still at risk from others on the same servers. And, if the websites you share servers with have a big traffic spike, your website may be affected.

WordPress hosting can be shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS or dedicated, so doesn’t really belong on this list. However, as it is a hosting option that many people will recognise, we thought we’d include it here.

WordPress hosting relies on the fact that the hosting environment is perfectly set up to run WordPress websites as smoothly as possible. While many hosting providers offer these and make bold claims about website speed being faster on a WordPress hosting package than any other type, this isn’t always strictly true. In fact our customers say that their WordPress websites run faster after they have switched to a VPS hosting plan from Nimbus.

To host a website built on WordPress with Nimbus is really easy. You’ll enjoy one of our VPS hosting plans, and we’ll set up managed WordPress plans to suit your sites and make them run smoother than ever!

Virtual private server hosting provides a secure hosting environment and gives you access to everything you need to control the server and set it up exactly the way you like it. There are also managed hosting options with VPS hosting that take care of that sort of thing for you and provide an easy-to-use control panel. This is what Nimbus specialises in.

If you have multiple sites or one very large website, VPS hosting is a fantastic option. It is a virtual private server which ensures privacy and security and your sites won’t be affected by other sites on the same server. Plus, it is a cheaper option than dedicated server resources. Explore our web hosting services to find out why hosting with Nimbus makes so much sense if you have multiple sites or plan on it in the future.

Dedicated servers offer the best security in the hosting business. This is because your sites are completely alone on a physical server. You and anyone who helps you manage the server space are the only people who have access to it.

With your own dedicated server, your websites have a huge amount of space to grow into, so website visitors will enjoy lightning-fast speeds! A single server is typically enough for a significant number of websites, so if you’re looking at hosting options for your agency that hosts 10-50 websites, perhaps this isn’t the option for you. However, if you’re a huge company looking to host multiple massive sites, having your own server from a trusted hosting company, might be the way to go!

Nimbus does offer dedicated hosting services, and we can manage the server space for you to allow you to focus on making the most of the server space and growing these sites even more!

As we provide VPS and dedicated hosting services, we’d love you to choose Nimbus as your hosting partner. However, we know that these hosting services are not for everyone. So, when you’re choosing a hosting service, have a think about the future goals of your client’s websites. Are the sites going to grow and quickly fill up any server they share? If that’s the case, a VPS or dedicated server from Nimbus may be a good choice.

Is this the first website of many? In that case, a VPS hosting package from Nimbus is likely also a good shout for you, especially if you’re building shops or affiliate marketing sites. However, if this is the only website you plan on building, and it won’t see too much traffic, then perhaps shared hosting is right for that site.

As much as we’d love you to become a customer of Nimbus and enjoy our amazing managed VPS hosting packages and the best customer service in the hosting business, we know our services are not for everyone. However, if you plan on growing a website empire or working with multiple clients on lots of websites, then Nimbus is the best choice for you!

To find out more about our VPS hosting services, or to book a tour of our platform, please get in touch.