Review BlueHost Web Hosting Pricing Structure

Probably the first thing that most people review and look for when shopping for a new web hosting company is to find the pricing information. The second thing that they review is the feature set that comes along with the price tag (To find a good discussion on the Bluehost feature set, visit the Bluehost Features Review website). The people who are reviewing hosting plans and shopping for a web hosting provider tend to have already had some experience in website building. Because many of the people we interviewed indicated that they had already had a free blog or a free website but have outgrown them. Subsequently, they needed something a bit more functional. So these people are technically savvy enough to understand the basics of web design, web hosting and/or some of the challenges that come along with web site design. Having your own web hosting enables you to have much more control over your website than a free hosting and you are not at the mercy of the free hoster's whim to delete your webpages at will. Although the people looking for a paying web hosting company will tend to be somewhat technically inclined, they too,  will need the support from their new selected company.  It is only natural to review the support capabilities of the new hosting company to ensure that the company is up to the challenge.  So that if you should ever need to solicit the support from your new hosting company, such as Bluehost, you won't be disappointed.  In order to ease the transition from the free hosting site to the new hosting provider, it is recommended that you contact tech support for help.

We will discuss the price, feature and support aspects of web hosting in more details in the following paragraphs. We will focus on BlueHost.com as the web hosting provider and provide examples of our bluehost review that are based on these parameters.

Review How BlueHost Sets Its Prices

Blue Host is one of the few hosting providers who is upfront and clear about its pricing. Bluehost is very specific in identifying what it charges so that a potentially new customer has a clear understanding of how much the hosting service will cost. Bluehost has a tiered pricing structure for its most popular web hosting plan -- The Professional Hosting Package. Depending on your selection for a 1-year or a 2-year hosting plan, the cost would vary accordingly. Here is how the prices for the bluehost hosting plan will break out:

BlueHost advertises that its Best Deal is the 24-month hosting plan where it charges $166.80 for two years. This comes out to about $6.95/month. Essentially, You would be in a contract with Bluehost for 2 years. Here are the details.

• 1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.
• No set up fees [$30 Savings]
• Less than $0.23 cents a day!
• $166.80 due at sign-up; [24 month account x $6.95 mo.]

For a 12 Month hosting plan, BlueHost charges a price of $7.95 a month. Here are the details of the bluehost review price breakdown:

• 1 FREE Domain Registration good for the life of your hosting package.
• No set up fee [$30 Savings]
• Less than $0.27 cents a day!
• $95.40 due at sign-up; [12 month account x $7.95 mo.]

• $8.95 A Month
• [+] $30 One Time Set Up Fee
• [+] $10 Annual Domain Registration Fee
   
• $93.70 Total due at sign-up [6 mo. x $8.95 mo.($53.70) + $30 Setup + $10 Registration]

• $9.95 A Month
• [+] $30 One Time Set Up Fee
• [+] $10 Annual Domain Registration Fee
   
• $69.85 Total due at sign-up [3 mo. x $9.95 mo.($29.85) + $30 Setup + $10 Registration]

• Additional Domain Names = $10.00 each year
   
• Dedicated IP = $30.00 each year [$2.50 mo.]
   
• SSL Certificates = $45.00 each year
   
• Expired Account Reactivations = $30.00
   
• Postini Mail Filtering = $1.00/mo per e-mail address [prorated]
   

BlueHost offers only one Web Hosting plan (i.e. the Bluehost Professional Hosting Package). However, Bluehost provides four different ways to pay for it. All Hosting plans are paid in full during the signup process. Blue Host is very clear that it has a 30-day refund policy where the customer will receive his/her payment in full, if the contract is cancelled prior to 30 days. However, if there were any setup fees required in the contract, Bluehost deems that those fees would be non-refundable.
 

Example: For a two-year (24-month) hosting contract, the customer would have paid $166.80 at sign up. If the customer cancels in the first 30 days of service, then the customer would be reimbursed for the full amount of $166.80

However, hosting accounts that are canceled after 30 Days of service are subject to a prorated refund at the monthly rate.

Example: For a two-year (24-month) hosting contract, the customer would have paid $166.80 at sign up. This cost breaks down to $6.95 per month. If the customer cancels two months into the contract then the customer would be refunded the prorated amount of $152.90 since he/she still had 22 months of service left.

When a customer cancels a 12-month or 24-month hosting contract with Blue Host prior to the contract end date, the customer will also be liable for a $10 charge to help BlueHost recover the cost of domain registration. Since Blue Host provides the domain registration for free on the 12-month and 24-month accounts, any premature cancellation will result in the $10 charge to offset the cost of the yearly domain registration.  However, the customer will be able to keep ownership of the domain until it expires and is free to renew the registration with Bluehost or any other registrar.  Note that some of the other hosting providers would keep the domain in their name, thereby forcing the customer to relinquish the domain or to think twice before abandoning the web hoster for fear of losing the domain. Blue Host, in this sense, is behaving very responsibly. It is very admirable that Blue Host does not try to stronghold the customer by holding the domain hostage!

There are lots of web hosting reviews available on the internet that provides evaluation of Blue Host performance and details its capabilities and features.  One of the more objective and informative reviews that we've come across is the newsmonster Bluehost hosting review.  To the best of our knowledge, Blue Host has never utilized gimmicks such as providing a promo code or coupon code for their hosting package.  One reason is that the prices from BlueHost.com has always been very competitive in the industry and it has not had the need to attract new customers by utilizing tactics such as these promo codes.  Instead, Blue Host manages to attract new customers because of its low price and high featured hosting package and manages to keep its customers for many years by providing them good service and excellent technical support.