Once you’ve decided on the type of web hosting that best suits your needs, it’s time to pick a hosting plan.
Hosting plans are essentially an agreement laying out how much you’ll pay to store your website, and what sorts of helpful web hosting services are included in that fee.
Essentially, a hosting plan is a rental agreement – how much are you paying per month to rent the space, and what utilities and amenities are folded into that amount.
Plans are typically billed on either a monthly or annual basis. A quick pro-tip: While you’ll pay more upfront, opting for a plan with annual billing often offers a bigger initial discount and saves you money for that first year of service.
The price of a plan goes up depending on the size (often measured in gigabytes) and resources of your website, and the number of services you need.
When picking a web hosting plan, think seriously about your needs:
For instance, if you’re building a website for a small business with less than 10 employees, a web hosting plan that comes with 150 email addresses might be a tier in price above what’s practical for your needs.
Similarly, if your website features lots of data-hefty content, like high-quality photo galleries and HD videos, a plan offering a roomy 10GB of disk space could be the better choice versus one with only 1GB.
On the other hand, sometimes all you need is a little helping hand. For example, if you already have a website through WordPress, but are tired of dealing with the endless updates and maintenance, you can get a Managed WordPress plan to handle that headache for you.