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Anyone who has ever shopped for web hosting knows that you can spend anywherefrom nothing up to several hundred dollars to host your web site. So what’sthe difference? Well often times if you’re talking about typical shared webhosting in the $6 to $20 range – nothing. That’s right – nothing! Nothingthat is, except good old fashioned marketing and hype!

We compared standard features on 5 well known shared hosting accounts to seeexactly what you get for your money – and the results may surprise you. Whatwe really care about in our test is probably what you would care about as asmall business owner looking for hosting for a basic site: adequate disk space,ample email accounts, and reasonable bandwidth. We looked over all the otherbells and whistles – but weren’t really willing to pay loads extra for them.We were also looking for a short term contract (monthly or quarterly) – not ayear or two commitment.

Upscale

Verio’s Bronze Plan - http://hosting.verio.com/index.php/unixwin_bronze.html

Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $24.95 per month + free setup
Basic Specs – 250 MB of diskspace, 7.5 GB of bandwidth, and 20 emailaccounts
Extra’s – Web design software, free domain pointing, Urchin webstats, free chat software

Our take – If this were 1998 I might consider paying $24.95 for a package likethis…oh wait, it’s 2004.

Mid Tier

Interland’s b100 Account - http://www.interland.com/shared/bluehalo/?package=b100

Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $12.95 per month + free setup
Basic Specs – 250 MB of diskspace, 10 GB of bandwidth, and 30 emailaccounts
Extra’s – WebTrends web stats, access to log files, firewallprotection

Our take – This is one of the biggest brands in hosting and their prices havebeen reduced of late. Still pretty expensive compared to aggressive lower pricedcompetitors.

SuperbHosting’s U Power Service - http://www.superbhosting.net/upower.php

Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $12.50 per month + free setup
Basic Specs – 1000 MB of diskspace, 50 GB of bandwidth, and 250 email accounts
Extra’s – Free domain, 30-day money back guarantee, daily data backups, freesearch engine submission, no content restrictions

Our take – Another well known hosting service that seems to offer considerablymore value in the mid-tier than other companies.

Cheap Hosting

IPowerWeb - http://www.ipowerweb.com/products/webhosting/index.html

Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $9.95 per month + $30 setup
Basic Specs – 800 MB of diskspace, 40 GB of bandwidth, and 400 emailaccounts
Extra’s – $50 Google AdWords credit, money back guarantee, SSLincluded, unlimited email forwarding

Our take – Often thought of as the low priced hosting leader. Their plansreally shine when signing up for an annual account where the price drops to$7.95 per month.

HostSave Standard Hosting - http://www.hostsave.com/hosting/plan_features.htm

Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $8.95 per month + free setup
Basic Specs – 1000 MB of diskspace, 100 GB of bandwidth, and 500 emailaccounts
Extra’s – Free MySQL database, catch-all email address, PERL v5, logfile access

Our take – This looks like the best deal for our basic needs. They have a bigbrand name and all the features we need plus the MySQL database thrown in.

Conclusions

You can pay a lot for basic shared web hosting – you can also get it on thecheap. While certain specialty features might justify paying a premium, ouranalysis suggests that you can probably get the same specs – maybe even betterspecs – without paying more money. So for our hard earned bucks, cheaper isdefinitely better!

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