Thinking about inexpensive website hosting and wondering how it compares to pricer options?
Companies like GoDaddy, 1&1, and Bluehost are common low budget options vs professional web hosting. I’ll break down the difference between low-budget hosting and professional business class hosting.
What’s being compared?
We’ll be comparing professional managed web hosting by TheeDigital, generic shared hosting (the cheapest option), and managed WordPress hosting by companies like GoDaddy, 1&1, and BlueHost.
GoDaddy plans start at $5.99/month for shared hosting and usually top out around $24.99/month for managed WordPress Hosting (without any add-ons). While professional business hosting with TheeDigital starts at $65/month and goes up based on the website’s resource needs.
What Do You Get: Comparing Features
So what do you get with that price difference why not pick the cheapest plan? Well the cheapest plan might be right for you. It all depends on your needs and how much having website downtime or technical help you might need.
If you are comfortable being your own web admin, can troubleshoot hosting issues when they arise, and having your business website down for extended periods of time is not an issue. Then maybe the cheapest shared hosting plan is right for you.
| TheeDigital | Managed Hosting | Shared Hosting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress Updates | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automatic Backups | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Staging Sites | ✅ | ✅* | ❌ |
| Server-Level Caching | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| US Based Help Desk | ✅ | ❌ |
You’ll notice that the cheapest shared hosting plans don’t come with automatic backups and easy restoring of files. You’ll also need to stay on top of managing your website updates as security vulnerabilities and code updates become available.
Shared hosting also does not come with the server-side speed enhancements that many managed hosts offer. When it comes to customer service and you’re paying $5.99/month. You can’t expect much. That $5.99 needs to cover the costs of the hardware, electricity, marketing, business infrastructure, and pay for support staff. The profit margins are slim and the first thing you start trading off is customer service. The company makes money by serving the masses without demanding needs.
Not the best option for a business website. Where downtime can lead to lost business and revenue. But a great option for small personal blogs that don’t drive revenue or have high traffic.
Comparing TheeDigital Hosting and Managed Hosting
TheeDigital’s professional hosting plans and managed hosting plans by GoDaddy and similar companies are more comparable in price and features.
Automatic Backups are an important feature that can save you from a faulty update or user-generated issue. Need to restore your website to the way it was a week ago. With automatic backups, you have the files necessary to easily do this.
WordPress Updates are also an important feature for business websites. As a business owner, you want to focus on what you do best and generate more business. Not worry about keeping your website up to date and avoid being vulnerable to hacks. You’re probably not spending your free time reading up on the latest security vulnerabilities and patching your website.
Staging websites allow you to copy your current website to a temporary domain hidden from the public. This way you can test out updates, apply changes, and view them before rolling it out to the main website and the public. This helps you test things on different browsers and devices so you can make sure your update is ready for the public.
Staging websites can also help you prepare product launches and have them ready for scheduled launch. No need to worry that a piece of code might behave differently on your local dev environment then the server. Since you are testing things on the same server as your live site.
Server level caching means you don’t have to configure your own caching plugin (though there still may be benefits to using something like WP Rocket). Managed WordPress servers are typically setup for doing one thing and doing it well. Serving WordPress websites as fast as possible using the latest technology.
How TheeDigital Hosting is Different
Where TheeDigital and many managed WordPress hosting companies are different. Is that our support team is right here in the USA in Raleigh, NC.
Your website isn’t just a random site that we host. It’s a real business that is important to your success. Downtime means lost business, revenue, and calls. So we make sure to treat your business website as our business website.
After we apply updates we check your website by visiting it and making sure things are still working properly. If an update will cause your website to break. We roll back the update and let you know what the problem is and what would be involved to fix it.
Something went wrong and your website is down? We don’t clock out at 5:30 and call it a day. Someone from our team will work to address the issue and keep you informed of progress. No silly chats with someone halfway around the world who’s juggling hundreds of other customer issues at the same time.
Ultimately TheeDigital hosting is for businesses who rely on their website to drive revenue and where downtime can equal lost income. And for business owners who want to focus on doing what they do best and letting us handle keeping their website up to date, safe, secure, and running quickly.
Conclusion
This post is not about bashing GoDaddy, or any other large-scale hosting service that focuses on small to mid-sized business. This post is about the benefits of utilizing a professional, local, proven hosting service. After all, for every job, there is the proper tool.
For example, many of us would prefer to have the dealership that sold you your car, knows your car inside and out, and knows your objectives for the car. Now, carry that example over to your choice of who will host your newly-launched business website. Would you prefer to keep all of your internet presence-related activity under one tent, or spread the jobs out to a variety of far-flung service providers?
At TheeDigital, we provide full service internet marketing options: design it here, develop it here and have it reside here. Additionally, with TheeDigital’s tiered hosting approach, you can find the hosting level that best fits your needs – after all, website hosting is not a one size fits all proposition. We offer everyone a full slate of tools to get the job done. And who would know that better than the firm that built your website from the ground up?
Are you looking to partner with a professional web design company, who will do more than just launch your website and walk away? Contact the Web Design Experts at TheeDigital at 919-341-8901 or schedule a consultation.
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