Bluehost Review 2023: Features, Pricing, Performance and More

So you’re thinking of getting BlueHost.

Great!

As one of only 3 web hosting providers recommended by WordPress, BlueHost is easily one of your best options. 

Just take a look at this quick overview of BlueHost:

But you might be wondering: 

How good is BlueHost anyway?

Is it really your best option? Or is it just the most popular provider?

How does it perform when it comes to:

• Price 
• Reliability 
• Website speed 
• Security 
• Hosting options?

The thought of doing your own research can make your head spin, we know. 

That’s why we went ahead and did all the hard work for you!

Today, we're taking a deep-dive review of Bluehost, looking at:

• Their pros and cons 
• What makes them a great web solutions provider 
• Their many web hosting packages

So without further ado, let’s dive into our BlueHost review for 2023.

Bluehost Overview

Image via Bluehost

Bluehost is headquartered in Orem, Utah, and was founded in 2003. To date, they power over 2 million websites globally. Their extensive catalog includes web hosting for shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting.

Pros and Cons

Like any other web solutions, Bluehost has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a quick look:

Bluehost Pros

Easy for beginners

You have a vast library of website themes to choose from, and these only require a few clicks to build. 

Check out how easy it is to create a BlueHost site with this tutorial: 

Plus, it has an easy-to-navigate cPanel that shows you everything at a glance.

WordPress optimized

Bluehost is one of the three hosting providers recommended and partnered with by WordPress (DreamHost and SiteGround are the other two). WordPress website integration is easy thanks to its one-click install.

Excellent uptime and fast loading speed 

Bluehost has recorded an impressive uptime speed response for the past 10 months. They even have an average of 99.99% uptime guarantee! We’ll look at this in detail later.

Affordable and with a money-back guarantee

Bluehost pricing starts at $2.75/month. If you find you don’t mesh well with the hosting provider, you can always get your money back thanks to their 30-day money-back guarantee.

According to Bluehost’s terms, the refund comes with a few policies:

• You can get a refund on all hosting services in between 3-30 days of signing up, but you can’t refund domain name registrations
• Cancel within three (3) days, and you get a full refund, but you still can’t refund the domain name registration
• Cancel after 30 days, and you get zero dollars back

Bluehost Cons

Renewal rates skyrocket

Bluehost charges almost triple the introductory rate. If their basic plan has an initial rate of $2.75/mo, that will climb to $8.99/mo for renewal. 

That’s shocking, but almost all web hosting providers have steep charges for renewal too.

Pricey add-ons

Bluehost add-ons include SiteLock Security, CodeGuard for site backup, SEO tools to rank your website better, and Single Domain SSL. Some web host providers have these in their basic packages.

Restrictions on basic plans

The basic plans are great for building one website, and it’s so affordable too. But that’s pretty much all you get -- one website with a limited 50 GB storage. No extra layers of security, backups, or capability to create more websites. 

If you’re starting a personal blog or a small website, that shouldn’t be an issue, though.

US-only server locations

Bluehost servers are in Orem, Utah, where the company is headquartered. They don't have servers in other locations or continents. If you live in another country, this could slow your site’s performance since the farther the server, the slower the data transfer speed.

Reliability and Performance

Image via Bluehost

What is Uptime?

Any web hosting provider worth their salt will give its customers a 99.9% uptime guarantee and stick to it too.

Bluehost is no exception.

What is uptime anyway?

No one likes slow websites -- definitely not your potential customers.

Uptime is a good measure of how web hosting providers can keep their sites up and running.

Websites that take forever to load and crash often won’t get the customer clicks and conversions it needs. 

You should be looking for a web hosting provider that falls between 99.95-99.99% uptime guarantee.

If they experience 99.99% uptime per year, your website will get a maximum of around 52 minutes of downtime per year. If your provider records a 99.95% uptime, you’ll most likely experience a yearly downtime of 4 hours.

For those running an eCommerce site, 4 hours of downtime can affect a percentage of your sales over the year. Customers that can’t load your page will naturally click away to a competitor’s site.

This is why it’s important to stick to a web host provider that can deliver when it comes to uptime.

Your website’s speed also helps you rank higher in SEO and search engine results.

So the question is, does Bluehost’s uptime guarantee hold up?

Bluehost’s Uptime Average

Based on Pingdom statistics, Bluehost has had an average of 99.93% (August 2023). They also had an average response time of 616 ms (August 2023).

Another website uptime tracker, Updown, showed the same results.

Bluehost had a 99.97% uptime percentage for the past month with 845 ms in response time

As for downtimes, Bluehost has recorded only one website downtime for the past half-year, and this only lasted less than 15 minutes.

Image via Updown

Bluehost uptime guarantee holds up pretty well -- they do promise fast and reliable websites after all. 

You’ll get, at best, a 99.99% uptime per year which gives you about 52 minutes of downtime in a year.

And since no web host provider can guarantee 100% consistent uptime, that’s the best you can get.

Bluehost Products and Features

Bluehost’s catalog offers four types of hosting: WordPress, shared, VPS, and dedicated. While they don’t offer cloud hosting, the first four types should cover most of your needs. 

Shared hosting

Image via Bluehost

If you’re strapped for cash, go for a shared hosting plan. It’s the cheapest out of all of Bluehost’s offers, but you won’t miss out on great features.

Shared hosting is best for personal websites, portfolios, and casual blogs. The prices are low since you share the server with thousands of other websites.

Think of it as renting a room with your dorm buddies.

The basic plan already comes with 50 GB SSD storage, free domain for a year, free SSL certificates, free Content Delivery Network (CDN), and dozens of custom website themes.

Choose a higher tier and you get unlimited websites and storage, unmetered bandwidth for more increased traffic, and even automated backups.

Bluehost shared hosting packages come in 12, 24, and 36-month deals. Here’s a quick look at the 36-month option:

WordPress Hosting

Image via Bluehost

WordPress highly recommends Bluehost, so you can expect ease of use plus dedicated resources and tools to help you.

This type of hosting also runs on shared servers, so it has the same prices and features.

Bluehost’s WordPress hosting gives you a free domain for a year, a free SSL certificate, a free CDN, and custom themes.

Go beyond the basic package and you get all that plus unlimited websites and storage and automated backup.

Bluehost will install the latest version of WordPress for you and will always keep it up-to-date.

When it comes to website building, you can customize your themes and add easy-to-install plugins like WooCommerce for eCommerce sites.

Once your website traffic picks up, Bluehost’s Managed WordPress can also help you scale to keep up with your website’s demands.

VPS Hosting

Image via Bluehost

If your website traffic has outgrown shared hosting, VPS hosting gives you a little more room to wiggle.

Unlike shared hosting, where you split resources among thousands of websites, VPS hosting gives you a part of the server where you have dedicated resources like RAM and CPU.

Think of it as finally owning your own room and getting your peace and quiet without roommates.

It’s dedicated hosting minus the price.

Bluehost’s VPS hosting plans come with a free domain for the first year, a free SSL certificate, up to 4 cores, and 120 GB of starting SSD storage.

These packages come in 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 36-month pricing options. Check out the 36-months deal:

Dedicated Hosting

Image via Bluehost

Those who need powerful servers to back up their websites need dedicated hosting. With this type of hosting, you own a physical server that’s 100% yours—no sharing with other people.

Plus, you get to customize everything about it from top to bottom.

Bluehost’s dedicated hosting is expensive. It’s better left for huge eCommerce sites or businesses who are expecting a high surge of traffic.

It can give you ultimate performance, security, and flexibility. You get an improved cPanel where you can customize and manage all your websites, domains, emails, and more in one place.

The basic plan comes with 500 GB of storage, 4 cores, 4 GB RAM, and even 5 TB of bandwidth. You get so much more when you opt for the higher-tier packages.

These packages come in 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 36-month pricing options. Check out the 36-months deal:

Domain

Image via Bluehost

If you don’t have a name for your website yet, Bluehost can help you out.

Another product on their catalog is a domain name or the online address for your website. 

To look for an available domain name or claim the one you have in mind, you just have to sign it up with Bluehost and choose from a string of variations and extensions.

Bluehost Pricing

We’ll be honest -- Bluehost isn’t the most affordable web hosting provider out there.

But they aren’t the most expensive either.

Its pricing packages fall in between, but they’re still worth every cent since even the basic plans can do so much. 

Bluehost also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you won’t have to sweat it if you figured it’s not fit for your goals.

Bluehost’s starting rate is probably one of the cheapest and most affordable ones out there. Just look at their $2.75/mo deal for shared hosting!

How Bluehost Pricing Works

Each Bluehost hosting service and package is priced depending on the length of time you’re committing to it.

Shared hosting and WordPress hosting have 12, 24, and 36-month account plan options. Of course, you’d get the best bargain if you go for the 36-month deal.

You pay for the entire plan up-front. So if you go for the 36-month ($2.75/mo) deal on the shared hosting basic package, your total cost at checkout would be $99.

VPS and dedicated hosting are pricier and have more payment options. You can choose between 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 36 months.

You can get up to 36% off if you go for the 36-months deal for these hosting types. But like with shared and WordPress, you also have to pay the entire bill upfront.

A 36-month deal ($18.99/mo) on the basic VPS hosting package will have you pay $683.64 at checkout. 

Bluehost Price Renewals

All the prices we’ve mentioned before are based on the introductory rates. You might be shocked to find that renewal rates shoot up after you finish your first-term payments.

Bluehost renewal rates are almost triple the initial price. It’s the same across all other web hosting providers.

Check out the price jump here:

Before you sign up for any package, make sure you’ve got an eye on the renewal rates and you understand them.

We can’t have you reeling in shock once your bill comes!

But these rates won’t be a problem if you’ve used the time with the initial rate to build up your budget.

Package Extras

Bluehost also has package extras you can add to your cart before checkout.

You can get the Codeguard Basic ($2.99/mo) for automated backups and the Bluehost SEO Tools Start ($1.99/mo) to help you rank higher on search engines.

To make your website even more secure and trustworthy, you can also add a Single Domain SSL (3.33/mo) and SiteLock Security Essentials ($2.99) against malicious attacks.

Security

Bluehost makes sure you get water-tight security with your website.

Even the basic plan comes with a free SSL certificate, which some web hosting providers only as an add-on.

SSL or Secure Sockets Layer is a layer of protection you get from scams, phishing, data breaches, and other threats. It helps encrypt your website and keep you and your customers’ sensitive information safe.

Aside from protection, having an SSL certificate also makes your website trustworthy.

Bluehost also has SiteLock Security to protect your website from potential malicious attacks and hackers. 

It’s a nifty tool that does automatic checkups so you can rest easy knowing your site is protected round the clock.

Customer Support

Image via Bluehost 

Bluehost has a proven track record when it comes to excellent support service. 

If you got your head swirling with the how-tos of website building, you can contact their in-house Blue Sky live support to hold your hand along the way.

Newbies don’t have to sweat it. Their design team can even do all the website building work for you!

Plus, you get access to their how-to guide books once you sign up for any package. Not to mention the website already has a resource base for your questions.

Image via Bluehost 

But Bluehost’s support service does not only stop at website design. They can optimize your website for you with effective keywords so you rank higher on search engines.

Bluehost lets you focus on your business while they focus on making your website stand out with marketing and content assistance.

Image via Bluehost 

You can reach their team of professionals 24/7 by dialing their hotline 888-401-4678, chatting up the live support bot, or via an email ticketing system.

What do customers have to say?

Like any web hosting provider out there, Bluehost has garnered mixed reviews from past and present customers.

Previous customers have praised it for having a helpful support team that solved problems as swiftly as possible.

Image via HostAdvice

Image via HostAdvice

Some even commended Bluehost’s low-cost and affordable prices that cater to everyone from students to professionals.

Image via HostAdvice

But Bluehost does get its load of bad reviews too.

Some complaints are about the website being slow for a shared hosting service. 

(They did acknowledge that it’s shared hosting, after all. That means you share your resources with everyone.)

Sure, Bluehost isn’t the most perfect, sparkling web solutions provider out there, but there’s no 100% ideal provider either.

If you’re looking around for a great web hosting provider (or for any type of service, for that matter), it’s always best to dig around customer review sites to help you decide.

FAQs

Who is Bluehost For?

Everyone!

From novice website builders to pros and experts, Bluehost can handle and create whatever you have in mind.

Bluehost’s simple website builders let beginners build their first sites in a few clicks. As for the pros, they can customize their site and tinker up to root level with Bluehost’s more comprehensive hosting packages.

Why Would I Need Bluehost?

Without a web hosting provider, no one will be able to access your website. As a web hosting provider, Bluehost lets you house your files on physical servers so anyone who knows your domain can visit and you can reap the benefits.

How Do I Migrate to Bluehost?

It sucks to go through a terrible web hosting provider, but Bluehost is here to save you. 

Bluehost provides a smooth and easy website migration process done by their in-house professionals and experts. All you have to do is sit tight and let them do all the work! Your files will be transferred in no time, and you’ve got yourself a brand new, excellent web host.

Final thoughts on Bluehost Review 2023

Bluehost has great features on all fronts, including unlimited storage, websites, emails, bandwidth, and tight security to keep your mind at ease.

Add its competitive pricing plans to the list, and it’s a sweet deal.

Newbies won’t have a tough time dealing with complicated coding and whatnot to build their website. All they have to do is choose from Bluehost’s nifty list of templates, make a few clicks, and their website is up and running in no time.

Should you go for Bluehost?

Absolutely!

Even pros and experts can find that Bluehost can handle their complicated hosting demands with its VPS and dedicated hosting offers.

Whether you’re planning on a personal blog, a small website, or even the largest eCommerce platform that’s poised to wow the world, Bluehost has got you covered.

But you do have to prepare for the steep renewal prices after your initial term.

So how about it?

Are you ready to try web hosting with Bluehost?

Let us know!