Bluehost Review: Why Would you pick for your website? [Updated 2021]

When you are looking for web hosting providers, you would surely come across the name of Bluehost. It is one of the biggest ones available currently, and even WordPress recommends it. The main reason it is popular is the vast amount of support and documentation involved, low price, and reliable performance.

Owing to all of this, the bloggers take the help of Bluehost very seriously and focus on utilizing it more often. In fact, it is very useful for beginners due to its easy-to-navigate structure and usable features. More specifically, this is a good choice for those who want to take their WordPress website online.

In this review, you would learn more extensively about Bluehost as a service and its various characteristics. After that, you can make your decision about whether to use it for your website experience or not.

What is Bluehost? 

Bluehost is a web hosting company under the Endurance International Group. It was founded in 2003 by Matt Heaton, and it is currently run by Suhaib Zaheer ever since 2017. Among the 20 web hosts available, it is one of the biggest. In fact, Bluehost alone hosts around 2 million or more domains altogether. The servers it works on are stored in a facility in Oren, Utah, over an area of 50,000 square feet. Not to mention, more than 750 employees work in this facility in total. 

Many factors make it a very usable service provider. The platform allows ‘live chat’ support 24/7, $2.95 per month starting price for plans, etc. Also, it provides a free domain name and SSL certificate to the users who subscribe for one year. So, small businesses and bloggers prefer using this more frequently.

Why join the Bluehost? 

There are lots of reasons why you should join Bluehost. Sure, it did perform much better before compared to now, but it is still a dependable service provider, and the speed of Bluehost is still very usable.

Not to mention, you would receive high security as well and get many options for it. And most of these options available are very robust. Users would also get many user-friendly applications to implement. Plus, the money-back guarantee is another reason to try this service out.

Furthermore, you would get a lot of hosting packages depending on why you need to use Bluehost. Whether you are having a big corporation or a small business, you can choose a suitable package and they come in tier levels, so you would get the chance to select the most suitable price for you.

If you want to transfer your one WordPress website from a separate host, you can do it for free. However, you need to pay $149.99 for migrating 20 email accounts and 5 other website types. You can use different payment methods, too, like PayPal, and select credit cards.

You can do so easily and get a free domain for your first year as for signing up. After that, the price would renew for $15.99 each year.

Sure, the renewal rates are not very affordable compared to the starting month rates. But, Bluehost still makes up for it in variety and overall performance.

Pros and Cons of Bluehost

While there are benefits to using Bluehost, there are certain drawbacks as well.

The advantages of Bluehost shared hosting are:

• The first year is affordable- When a user subscribes to this platform, the joining price is not too high. However, the renewal rates are high later, so keep that in mind.
• Big storage space- One of the best advantages of Bluehost is the fact that the storage it allows is quite big. This is specific to all the shared hosting plans the platform provides its users.
• Solid uptime– While the SLA or Bluehost does not give a minimum amount of uptime, it is still satisfactory. During our testing, the uptime factor of Bluehost was respectable enough.
• Unmetered bandwidth- Many of the web hosting servers limit the traffic each of the websites gets. But with Bluehost, you would not face that problem.
• Good for medium tasks– You can use Bluehost adequately for regular websites like one for a bakery or art shop. Their servers can hold a limited amount of traffic.
• Free domain- When you subscribe to any of the plans under Bluehost, you would also receive a free domain name. You can keep it for a year.
• Safe service– In terms of security, Bluehost has many good features.
• cPanel- This factor of Bluehost has a high-quality build and is very simple to use. Not to mention, the speed of access is very quick as well.
• WordPress hosting- While this hosting plan is very expensive than the other plans, you would get a great experience with it.
• Free website scripts- Bluehost provides users with many already-present website scripts. This means you have more options to choose from, and they are available free of cost, as well. Some of them include blog support, social networking scripts, message forums, mailing lists, and more.
• Databases- Bluehost allows for several databases, too. Some of them are PHP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, Python, and more.
• Customer service- The customer service department was good when we tested it. However, there have been complaints, and some people are not satisfied with the performance.

The disadvantages of Bluehost shared hosting are:

• Speed issues- While testing the Bluehost web hosting server, we noticed that the speed was mediocre. So, you can use it without a lot of issues, but there are other better alternatives available.
• Constant upsells– One of the major cons of this service is that you would continuously notice many upsell pitches. Those who are on a stern budget can find this aggravating to some extent.
• Back up could be better- Users would not experience good backup quality when using Bluehost. However, this is specific to the entry-level plans alone.
• Only US servers- Bluehost does not allow its users to host their websites anywhere other than in the US. In case an international user is using this hosting provider for their blogs, they would experience a very slow connection. You would find other competitors who provide hosting opportunities to multiple countries.
• Not best for advanced hosting- Many people or companies may want to try this service to host their more advanced website projects. However, Bluehost is not compatible with too complicated software, e-commerce sites, etc. Plus, you would not find features like Git repositories or staging areas on this shared hosting either.
• Double add-on installation- You would find some add-ons already present in this particular web hosting server. And they are very useful too. However, you would have to install many of them all over again for them to work as intended.
• Expensive WordPress plan- Users do get the chance to utilize WordPress through the Bluehost plans available. However, they are not cost-effective, and many people cannot afford them. There are other competitors available in the market which prove similar WordPress plans and are cheaper.

Bluehost Plans and offers 

There are many hosting plans and offers that Bluehost provides to its customers. For a clearer picture, they are listed and detailed hereafter for your benefit.

Shared hosting

At first, we note the shared hosting plans, whose features are explained below in the table.

	Basic	Choice Plus	Plus	Pro
Website	1	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Support	Phone and live chat	Phone and live chat	Phone and live chat	Phone and live chat
Allowed Domains	1	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Performance	Standard	Standard	Standard	High
Database	20	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Storage	50 GB	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Backup	Basic	Advanced	Advanced	Advanced
Amount of Maximum Files	200,000	200,000	200,000	300,000
Maximum DB size	5 GB	5 GB	5 GB	5 GB
Starting Price (per month)	$2.95	$5.45	$5.45	$13.95
Renewal Price (per month)	$8.99	$16.99	$12.99	$25.99

• Basic plan- You can use this plan if your projects can work with 50 GB worth of storage and one website. You would also get 5 email accounts and 100 MB worth of space for each.
• Choice Plus plan– You would receive all the Plus package features and get better backup and a free domain. As for the email availability and total email space, you would get unlimited access.
• Plus plan– Users would get to have a lot of storage available, and they can create multiple websites, too. Plus, one would get a lot of email storage and account availability, much like Choice Plus. Also, you would get an unlimited amount of email addresses, each with unlimited space.
• Pro plan- If you want the absolute best performance, you can make do with the Pro package plan. Users can experience many of the Choice Plus and Plus features here, and they would get a high file limit too. Therefore, this is a better choice for more complicated web hosting projects.

Dedicated hosting

People adopting this type of Bluehost hosting can go for any of the three available plans. They are listed in the following table.

	Premium	Enhanced	Standard
Starting price in the first month	$119.99	$99.99	$79.99
After the first month	$209.99	$159.99	$119.99

You would get a variety of offers when you take up any of these server plans.

• Premium plan- When you avail of this particular dedicated hosting plan, you will get a 4 x 3.3GHz CPU. You would also get mirrored storage of 500GB-1 TB. As for the RAM, it extends to 16 GB, and you also receive 15TB bandwidth. You can use 5 IP addresses, a 24/7 backup service, one domain, and get a money-back guarantee under this.
• Enhanced plan– Users would get an extra 4x 2.5GHz CPU with this plan. You would get 10 TB worth of bandwidth. In terms of backup, domain, and money-back policy, they are the same as the Premium plan. But, you would get only four IP addresses.
• Standard plan– Much like the Enhanced plan, you would receive a 4x 2.5GHz CPU. You would also get 4GB Ram at this level. The bandwidth you would receive in this offer is 5 TB. You would also receive three IP addresses for this plan, but it is similar to the others in terms of domains and backup. You would also get a money-back guarantee.

VPS hosting

Under this type of Bluehost hosting, there are three particular plans users can avail of. They are as follows.

	Ultimate	Enhanced	Standard
Starting price in the first month	$59.99	$29.99	$18.99
After the first month	$119.99	$59.99	$29.99

The costs of such plans are the same for other competitors as well. Plus, all of them give the users one domain, a money-back guarantee, and 24/7 backup service when using Bluehost. There are visible distinctions, too, as mentioned below.

• Ultimate plan- The speed you would get using this plan is around 4 CPU cores, and the RAM storage is up to 8GB. Also, you would get a bandwidth power of 3 TB and 10 GB SAN storage.
• Enhanced plan– Users would receive slightly less than the Ultimate tier plan, i.e., 2 CPU core speed. Plus, you would get 2 IP addresses like the plan mentioned above.
• Standard plan- The Standard plan features are lower, like 2 GB RAM, 1 TB bandwidth, etc. Users would also get the speed worth 2 CPU cores, like the Enhanced plan. As for the SAN storage, you can work with only 30 GB, and you can use only one domain with this plan.

WordPress hosting

	Choice Plus	Plus	Basic
Subscription period	36 months	36 months	36 months
Starting price (per month)	$5.45	$5.45	$2.95

There are many similarities in the features of the lowest three plans with their shared hosting counterparts. The main differences are visible in the WordPress Pro plan of Bluehost web hosting. Users have been using this plan since 2018; that is when it was first launched.

The features of WordPress Pro are as follows.

• Cost- The cost of WordPress Pro plans are presented in the table below.

	Scale	Grow	Build
Intro Price (3 Months)	$57.95	$37.95	$27.95
Intro Price (6 Months)	$56.95	$36.95	$26.95
Intro Price (12 Months)	$54.95	$34.95	$24.95
Intro Price (24 Months)	$52.95	$32.95	$22.95
Intro Price (36 month)	$49.95	$29.95	$19.95
Renewal Price	$59.99	$39.99	$29.99

• Websites- Users can run more than one million websites using this hosting service.
• Speed- One of the biggest benefits that the WordPress Pro plans give is high site-speed. This is because it runs on high-quality VPS.
• Support– Users can opt for support from experienced WordPress experts 24/7. The types of support they give are for general questions, functionality, and design. Plus, with the Grow and Scale feature, you can use live support during your project operations.
• Money-back guarantee– This is available to the users.
• SSL- Users can work with SSL of the Positive Wildcard variety.
• Testing- Owing to the available regular backups, automated plug-in updates, and staging environment, you can thoroughly test the WordPress website. Plus, they are useful when you are building it as well.
• Features- Users get to experience a lot of features in the Build level. They are Malware detection, Malware removal, Marketing Center, Basic Jetpack Site Analytics, a hundred Free Premium Themes, etc.
• Business review- Your users can leave reviews from your website on sites like Google, yelp, or Bing. With this tool, you can make your website more accessible and user-friendly.
• SEO tools– Users can use the SEO tools to get ideas regarding how to improve the search engine rankings of their site. This tool provides them with suggestions. Not to mention, the Marketing Center is closely integrated with this. After you build and use your website through Bluehost web portal hosting, you can easily view your stats in the popular search engines.
• Unlimited video compression- Users get to add videos directly from the web without any extra optimization, thanks to this Bluehost feature. It is only available in the WordPress Pro plan, and people can stream the videos without any restrictions. However, we did not test this feature very extensively.
• High-quality developer staff- In case of any troubles, you can assist expert WordPress developers. Bluehost allows you access to them, and they can troubleshoot complicated issues that you may face easily.

Which plan is best for you?

You can choose the right plan for you, depending on what you need and the cost. To specify, if you are looking for a hosting type that would give you the basic features and is less costly, you can work with shared hosting. For most of the small-scale businesses and complete beginning in web portal hosting, this works well.

On the other hand, a dedicated type of hosting is comparatively more expensive. So, those who want complete control over their resources can use them appropriately. For example, the commercial companies benefit from this, as they can work with a physical server. The dedicated hosting in Bluehost is essentially that.

As for VPS hosting, it works for those who want the best of both worlds. Users can share a physical server, but they can also use the available virtual operating system.

The last plan, WordPress hosting, is the most expensive option and is fit for WordPress customers. And it gives really good features that would help the users build highly advanced projects.

Therefore, depending on what is most suitable for you, you can make your plan selection.

Offers of Bluehost

Bluehost gives extra offers as well. They are as follows.

1. Shared hosting

Bluehost provides around $200 worth of marketing offers to its users. Other extra elements of this offer include one SpanExperts and the Global CDN. For the former, that includes $24 worth of extra benefits every year.

Moreover, you get around $180 worth of annual benefits in the Pro pack, with features like a dedicated IP. So, you can operate it for SEO well.

You would also get Coupon Codes for shared hosting from Bluehost. These codes can help you use the services at 50% less cost. For example, the Basic plan price with these codes would start at $3.95 instead for each month. Also, they allow a one-month money-back guarantee for first-time users. And you can open a second account paying only $2.75 per month with a coupon, too.

• WordPress Pro

You would receive 40% off on your plan, and the price would start at $17.95 each month using this. Also, you would get an extra performance boost and improved marketing features.

• Domain names

You can purchase domain names from Bluehost directly, although they are not the most cost-effective. The price for the renewal for each year starts at $17.99.

The coupon offer allows 40% off for only a few domains. The domains that are on sales include .net, .com, .co, .org, and .biz.

• Bluehost SEO tools

The offer for these tools is discounted at the regular price of $5.95 per month. This tool helps with increasing your SEO ranking, as you can check for your ranks.

• Office 365 Business Plus

Users can get almost 60% off from this plan using this coupon off. The price for it is $3.99 for every month after first opening an account. Also, this works for each licensed account. Plus, you would receive professional collaboration and email tools extra with the plan.

• Office 365 Business Pro

For this plan, the coupon offer allows 50% off and costs $6.99 per license per month. You would get the Office 365 Business Plus plan’s extra features but on both mobile and desktop devices.

One common point about all the coupon offers is that only new accounts can avail of these offers. Plus, all of the offers come with a money guarantee for 30 days, except for the ‘domain names’ offer. You should also remember that you would have to pay each plan’s regular renewal prices later. This has a time limit of only the first month.

About Bluehost Affiliate Programme

When talking about Bluehost in detail, it is important to look at the affiliate programs. When a user joins Bluehost hosting, they can opt for the affiliated programs for product promotion. Generally, the affiliate programs of Bluehost are intricately linked to the plans under Bluehost. Consequently, you can choose a program based on the following plans:

• Shared hosting
• Dedicated hosting
• VPS hosting
• WooCommerce hosting
• WordPress hosting

There are other types of affiliated programs available under Bluehost hosting as well. Users opting for the Bluehost affiliate programs can earn around $65 for each sale they successfully complete. Later, the payout commission for the affiliate programs does go up in Bluehost hosting. However, that mainly depends on the volume of sales you make for that month. So, if you generate a lot of sales in one month, you would gain a higher commission.

Certainly, you would gain many advantages after availing of the affiliate programs under Bluehost. They are as follows.

• As mentioned above, you would receive $65 for every sale you make. So, even if you do not sell any more than one product in one month, $65 is still high. It is comparatively higher than offers from other web portal providers.
• A total of 2 million websites are hosted on this particular web host.
• It is highly popular among affiliate marketers globally due to the profitability potential. In fact, it paid more than 5 million dollars commissions over one year alone. Thus, it is obvious why marketers trust this host more.
• You can join Bluehost affiliate programs without paying any extra fees, and you can enjoy the services.
• Those who join the affiliate program under Bluehost have the chance to earn unlimited profits. Indeed, there is no limit to the amount you can earn if you get high customer traffic. Accordingly, if you sell to many individuals in one month, you can gain high profits. There is no least or maximum limit to the number of people you sell to, either.
• Bluehost allows a cookie life of 90 days. To specify, the customer’s browser can keep each cookie for 90 days before it automatically expires. Only if they clear the cookies and cache within this period they will lose the cookie.

Bluehost Customer Support team

One of the main points to judge regarding the effectiveness of any web hosting portal is customer support. Therefore, we checked this portion of Bluehost too and found it to be very effective. Certainly, people who use this service for their own website development reasons would get good customer care.

There are a lot of sensible features that allow us to make this assessment. For example, users would get 24/7 support on the phone. They would get tickets for email support too. Not to mention, there is a live chat feature available as well.

First, of its many good qualities, the customer service in Bluehost is easy to use. The live chat feature allows users to get in touch with the experts when they are having troubles. In turn, the experts can provide good-quality assistance to them in real-time. However, it is unclear whether you would get a repeated service from the same expert if you have extra doubts later.

Plus, the knowledge base of Bluehost is of high-quality as well, which helps the users well. The knowledge center of Bluehost is very big and easy to search through. Therefore, this is a very effective advantage of the customer support structure.

The customer service team of Bluehost is very responsive and could answer the questions quickly. They know a lot about the system and features, which we conclude from their accurate answers. Not to mention, their behavior with their customers is also commendable, and they were very attentive. So, users would get a good experience when interacting with the team.

The quality of the answers the support team provided is of high-quality too. For added assistance, they provide longer explanations and links to support the users. Thus, those who are complete beginners can manage their accounts on Bluehost well with their help.

Aside from the live chat feature, you would get phone call service as well. Indeed, Bluehost provides you with three types of numbers for technical support. They are:

• Dedicated and VPS hosting
• General inquiries
• WordPress service help

So, depending on what you need help with, you can contact the correct support teams.

Moreover, the help page is very beneficial for the users too. This surely simplifies their experience and allows them to get quick answers to their problems. Indeed, most common issues are listed on the main help page, and users can access them on the Bluehost website.

These can range between many different questions, for example, if you want to move your WordPress site to Bluehost instead of another. The question is available on the help page, and you can click on it. There, you would get a list of different ways of solving this particular issue. You would also get a help article, the relevant phone number for the support, and the live chat option. Therefore, you or any other user can easily solve your issues and get back to your project.

Another helpful point in the Customer support matter is the support forums. They include many of the questions, too, and you can research it on your own. If you want to find the solutions on your own or know how this hosting provider works, you can get that information. 

Overall, the support team of Bluehost does manage to work well in a lot of different ways. And the personal touch makes operating Bluehost services easier for the users. But, one drawback is the lack of a ticket-based support system. To concentrate more on the phone-based and live chat support features, Bluehost got rid of this system recently. However, for many users, this was a more efficient tool of support. 

Final Verdict

All in all, Bluehost has many uses, and a lot of them are highly reliable. While you would get better choices in regards to some conditions, Bluehost would perform adequately enough. So, you can choose the various plans under it for web hosting purposes.