Best web hosting
Hosting is the category where the advertised price is least likely to be the price you renew at: introductory terms of one to four years are the norm. Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on the date beside it. The ordering is cheapest entry price first — a basis you can check rather than a ranking you have to trust.
What “best” means on this page
“Best” is not a mood — it is whichever axis you actually care about, measured. Our record can say which tool is cheapest to start, whose free plan is real, who bills local currency and whose prices just moved; it cannot say which tool fits your work, which is what the full comparisons are for. Cheapest never means best — it means cheapest. Each verdict below names its axis, and every tool links to its own site so you can check us against the source. No vendor paid for any position.
Entry at $2.5/mo — the lowest published paid plan in this set. Cheap is a fact, not a verdict; the profile below says what you get for it.
site ↗pricing ↗A plan priced at zero on the vendor’s own page — trials not counted. What each one caps differs; the profiles say.
Showed us different money in different countries on the same day — measured, not assumed. The profiles carry the figures.
A change only counts once a second clean read agrees. The change log →
Tool by tool
Vultrsite ↗pricing ↗
Cloud compute and storage sold in many regions, aimed at developers who want per-hour pricing. Paid plans start at $2.5/mo (Cloud Compute, Regular Performance — 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB (IPv6 only)); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 7 paid tiers, topping out at $160/mo (Managed Databases — Memory Optimized, 16 GB / 2 vCPUs).
10Website ↗pricing ↗
Managed WordPress hosting with AI site building on top. Paid plans start at $2.5/mo (Agency Pro); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $80/mo (Agency core). It bills by country — entry $20/mo in the eurozone, from our same-day reads.
DreamHostsite ↗pricing ↗
A hosting company offering shared, VPS and managed WordPress plans. Paid plans start at $2.89/mo (Web Hosting Launch); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 4 paid tiers, topping out at $14.99/mo (DreamPress 1). Its published prices moved on 2026-10-03 — the change log holds the rows.
ScalaHostingsite ↗pricing ↗
A hosting company selling managed VPS with its own control panel instead of cPanel. Paid plans start at $2.95/mo (Mini); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 4 paid tiers, topping out at $14.95/mo (Entry Cloud). We read the same $2.95/mo in every market we check, so this vendor does not price by country.
Bluehostsite ↗pricing ↗
A shared hosting company long recommended for entry-level WordPress sites. Paid plans start at $3.99/mo (Starter); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $14.99/mo (eCommerce Essentials). We read the same $3.99/mo in every market we check, so this vendor does not price by country.
DigitalOceansite ↗pricing ↗
Cloud infrastructure aimed at developers and small teams, priced simply against the larger clouds. Paid plans start at $4/mo (Droplets); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 7 paid tiers, topping out at $15/mo (Managed Databases). Its published prices moved on 2026-09-24 — the change log holds the rows.
Hostingersite ↗pricing ↗
A low-cost shared and cloud hosting provider aimed at first-time site owners. Paid plans start at $10.99/mo (Premium); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $25.99/mo (Cloud Startup). Its published prices moved on 2026-09-20 — the change log holds the rows.
Cloudwayssite ↗pricing ↗
Managed cloud hosting that runs your site on infrastructure from providers like DigitalOcean or AWS without you administering the server. Paid plans start at $11/mo (Micro (Standard)); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 8 paid tiers, topping out at $99/mo (Large (Premium)).
SiteGroundsite ↗pricing ↗
A shared and managed hosting company, widely used for WordPress sites. Paid plans start at $17.99/mo (StartUp); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $44.99/mo (GoGeek). It bills by country — entry £13.99/mo to a UK reader, from our same-day reads.
Pressablesite ↗pricing ↗
Paid plans start at $25/mo (Signature 1); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 8 paid tiers, topping out at $675/mo (Signature 8).
WP Enginesite ↗pricing ↗
Managed WordPress hosting for businesses and agencies, with staging, security and developer workflows built in. Paid plans start at $30/mo (Startup); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 5 paid tiers, topping out at $400/mo (Core Hosting). It bills by country — entry £25/mo to a UK reader and €27/mo in the eurozone, from our same-day reads. Its published prices moved on 2026-10-07 — the change log holds the rows.
Kinstasite ↗pricing ↗
Managed WordPress hosting on Google Cloud, aimed at businesses that want performance and support rather than the cheapest plan. Paid plans start at $35/mo (Single 20GB); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 10 paid tiers, topping out at $450/mo (WP 40). Its published prices moved on 2026-09-10 — the change log holds the rows.
Side by side
| Tool | Paid from | Free plan | Currency | Read | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vultr | $2.5/mo | Yes | USD | 2026-09-06 | page |
| 10Web | $2.5/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
| DreamHost | $2.89/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
| ScalaHosting | $2.95/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
| Bluehost | $3.99/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-06 | page |
| DigitalOcean | $4/mo | Yes | USD | 2026-09-06 | page |
| Hostinger | $10.99/mo | — | USD | 2026-09-07 | page |
| Cloudways | $11/mo | — | USD | 2026-08-27 | page |
| SiteGround | $17.99/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
| Pressable | $25/mo | — | USD | 2026-09-01 | page |
| WP Engine | $30/mo | — | USD | 2026-08-31 | page |
| Kinsta | $35/mo | — | USD | 2026-08-27 | page |
How to choose in this category
- Match the tier to the sites and storage you actually use — the levels here divide on resources, not features.
- Introductory terms in this set run one to four years; a lower monthly figure often buys a longer lock-in.
- Every row links the host’s own pricing page. Open it and read the renewal line before you commit to a term.
Questions the record can answer
How much do hosting tools cost?
Between $2.5/mo and $35/mo. The lowest entry price we hold for any of the 12 hosting tools we track is Vultr, at $2.5/mo; the highest is Kinsta, at $35/mo. Both are the vendor's own published list price, read on 2026-10-13. Cheapest is not best; it is cheapest, and it is the one axis a price record can settle on its own.
Which hosting tools publish a plan priced at zero?
2 of the 12 we track: Vultr (Vultr Storage Gateway — Standalone) and DigitalOcean (App Platform) — the entry each zero price sits on is named beside it. A free trial is not counted here: a trial is a deadline, not a price.
Do hosting tools charge in my own currency?
Some do. We read every pricing page from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany on the same day, and 3 of the 12 hosting tools we track showed us a different currency in at least two of those three markets: DreamHost, SiteGround and WP Engine. The rest billed the same money to all three.
Have any hosting tools changed their prices recently?
Yes — 5 confirmed changes in this category, most recently WP Engine on 2026-10-07. A change is confirmed only when the vendor's own page showed us one set of figures and then another; the old reading stays in the record rather than being overwritten.
How many hosting tools does Wicketry track?
14 in this category, last read on 2026-10-13. 12 of them publish a plan ladder we can put in the table; we also track A2 Hosting and Hetzner, but hold no named ladder for them in US dollars yet, so they are absent rather than converted or guessed.