Budget
The cheapest hosting that won't cause you problems
Every hosting company advertises a headline price — often around a couple of euro a month — and that price is real, but it's rarely the whole story. Here's what to check before you're tempted purely by the number on the homepage.
Read the renewal price, not just the intro price
The advertised rate is almost always a first-term promotional price, usually requiring you to pay upfront for one to three years. When that term ends, renewal pricing is typically noticeably higher — sometimes two to three times the intro rate, though the exact multiple varies by provider and I'd recommend checking the specific renewal terms before committing, since these change and aren't always prominently displayed at signup. Budget for the renewal price, not the one you see first.
What "unlimited" usually doesn't mean
Plans advertising unlimited or unmetered storage and bandwidth almost always carry an acceptable use policy limiting what you can actually do with it — generally aimed at stopping the plan being used as a personal file server or video host rather than for an actual website's needs. For a normal small site, this essentially never becomes an issue. Worth a quick read of the provider's acceptable use policy if you're planning anything storage-heavy.
Where the cheapest tier commonly cuts corners
- Fewer resources per site — the entry tier often limits you to one website per account, which matters if you might want a second site later.
- Backups as a paid add-on rather than included — check this specifically, since restoring a hacked or broken site without a recent backup can be a genuinely bad day.
- Slower shared server tiers — cheaper plans sometimes place you on more crowded shared infrastructure. For a low-traffic brochure site this rarely matters in practice; for anything expecting real traffic it's worth checking reviews on real-world speed.
- Support quality — some budget providers gate live chat or phone support behind higher tiers, leaving you with ticket-only support on the cheapest plan.
When paying a little more is worth it
If backups, more than one website, or faster support matter to you, the next tier up from the absolute cheapest plan is usually where hosting stops being a compromise. It's rarely a large jump in price — often only a euro or two more per month — for a meaningfully better set of features.
The one thing worth checking regardless of price
Whatever plan you land on, confirm two things before you buy: a free SSL certificate is included (not an add-on), and there's a clear, working path to cancel or downgrade later. Both are standard with reputable hosts, but they're worth confirming rather than assuming.