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Quick comparison
| Plan | Intro price | Term | Renews at | Websites | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Premium | $2.49/mo | 48 months | $10.99/mo | 3 websites | 20 GB SSD |
| Hostinger Unlimited | $3.49/mo | 48 months | $16.99/mo | Unlimited websites | 50 GB NVMe |
| Bluehost Starter | $3.99/mo | 36 months | $9.99/mo | 10 websites | 10 GB NVMe |
| Bluehost Business | $6.99/mo | 36 months | $13.99/mo | 50 websites | 50 GB NVMe |
| DreamHost Web Hosting Launch | $2.89/mo | 12 months | See vendor | 25 websites | 25 GB NVMe |
| Hostinger Cloud Startup | $7.99/mo | 48 months | $25.99/mo | Unlimited websites | 100 GB NVMe |
Official list prices checked Oct 30, 2026, before tax. Sources: www.hostinger.com, www.bluehost.com, www.dreamhost.com.
We run WordPress on Hostinger shared hosting and on a Hostinger VPS. Bluehost and DreamHost are compared on their published plans and prices.
What matters in WordPress hosting
- Caching. A page cache does more for speed than almost anything else. Check that the host includes one.
- Renewal price. You will pay it for most of the site’s life.
- Sites and storage per plan. Enough for your plans over the next few years.
- Backups. Daily is better than weekly for sites that change often.
- Room to grow. An easy path to more resources when traffic grows.
1. Hostinger: best overall
What we like
- LiteSpeed page cache and CDN on every site we run
- Unlimited plan covers unlimited sites with daily backups
- Simple panel and an API for automation
- Low intro prices
What could be better
- 48-month prepay for the best price
- Renewal is about 4 to 5 times the intro price
We run a group of WordPress sites on Hostinger shared hosting. Cached pages come back quickly through its CDN; most of the first-byte time we measured was network distance. Uncached pages took 0.20 to 0.31 seconds longer to build, which is normal for shared hosting. For most people, Unlimited is the plan to pick: unlimited sites, 50 GB NVMe and daily backups. Read our Hostinger review.
2. Bluehost: lowest renewal price
What we like
- Starter renews at $9.99, the lowest of the plans we track
- 10 websites on the entry plan
- Business plan adds a web application firewall and phone support
What could be better
- 10 GB of storage on Starter
- 36-month term for the intro price
Bluehost Starter is $3.99 a month on a 36-month term and renews at $9.99, with room for 10 websites but only 10 GB of NVMe storage. Business ($6.99, renewing at $13.99) raises that to 50 sites and 50 GB. It is a good fit if you want predictable renewal costs and do not need much storage.
3. DreamHost: shortest commitment
What we like
- Intro price on a 12-month term
- 25 websites and 25 GB NVMe on Launch
- Unmetered bandwidth
What could be better
- Renewal price was not shown in our capture of its pricing page
DreamHost’s Launch plan advertises $2.89 a month for the first year with 25 websites and 25 GB of storage. A one-year intro term means less money up front than four-year deals. Check the renewal rate on the plan card before you buy; it was not shown when we checked.
4. A VPS with CloudPanel: for developers and busy sites
When a WordPress site outgrows shared hosting, usually because of WooCommerce, memberships or many logged-in users, a VPS gives it dedicated CPU and RAM. This site runs on a Hostinger KVM 4 with CloudPanel, nginx, PHP 8.3 and Redis. A full uncached render took about 65 ms and a cached page about 7 ms. Hostinger’s KVM 1 (1 vCPU, 4 GB) renews at $11.99 a month, close to shared hosting renewal prices.
You manage the server yourself, so read managed vs unmanaged VPS and our CloudPanel review first.
Which WordPress host should you choose?
| Your situation | Our pick |
|---|---|
| First blog or small business site | Hostinger Premium or Unlimited |
| Several small sites, low renewal cost | Bluehost Starter |
| Do not want a multi-year commitment | DreamHost Launch |
| WooCommerce, memberships or heavy traffic | A VPS with a panel, or Hostinger Cloud Startup |
Before you buy, run the plan through the renewal cost calculator for the years you expect to keep the site.
Make WordPress fast on any host
Hosting sets the ceiling, but most slow WordPress sites are slow because of how they are built. These steps matter on every plan above:
- Turn on page caching. On Hostinger, LiteSpeed Cache does this; on a VPS, a plugin such as Cache Enabler or a server-level cache. On our VPS, a cached page took 7 ms at the server and an uncached one about 65 ms.
- Use a current PHP version. Newer PHP releases are faster and get security fixes. Most hosts let you switch per site.
- Keep plugins lean. Each plugin adds code to every uncached request. Remove what you do not use, and prefer one plugin that does a job well over three overlapping ones.
- Pick a light theme. We use GeneratePress with a child theme; our homepage is about 52 KB of HTML, 11 KB compressed.
- Compress and size images. Upload images at the size they display, in a modern format, and lazy-load those below the fold.
- Add an object cache where available. With Redis Object Cache warm, our homepage needed no database queries at all.
- Use a CDN. Hostinger includes one. It brings static files closer to visitors and cuts the network time that dominated our shared hosting measurements.
Moving an existing WordPress site
Switching hosts is less work than most people expect:
- Lower your domain’s DNS TTL a day before the move, so the change spreads quickly.
- Take a full backup of files and the database, or use a migration plugin.
- Restore it on the new host and test it with a temporary address or your computer’s hosts file.
- Point the domain’s A and AAAA records (or nameservers) to the new host. Leave email records alone unless email is moving too.
- Issue an SSL certificate, check the site and forms, then keep the old hosting running for a few days as a fallback.
That is how we moved FindNChoose itself, from shared hosting to its own VPS, while keeping the old site untouched as a rollback.
Shared hosting with WordPress preinstalled and caching included. Hostinger’s Premium or Unlimited plans are what we use and recommend for most beginners. If you would rather not handle updates, caching and backups, yes. Many shared plans now include those features at a lower price than dedicated managed WordPress hosts. On renewal, about $10 to $17 a month for good shared hosting in our price check. Intro prices of $2.49 to $3.99 require long prepaid terms. When uncached pages are slow, you hit resource limits, you run a store or membership site, or you need software shared hosting will not run.Frequently asked questions
What is the best WordPress hosting for beginners?
Is managed WordPress hosting worth it?
How much should WordPress hosting cost?
When should I move WordPress to a VPS?
Sources
We run our own WordPress sites on shared hosting and on a VPS, and use AI coding tools every day. We publish what we measured, list every price with the date we checked it and label anything we have not tested ourselves. About us · Editorial policy