If you are looking for a fast, safe, easy to use, and cheap web hosting provider for those in the UK, you’ve come to the right place!
In this guide, I have rounded up some of the best budget-friendly web hosting companies that strike a great balance between benefits and price.
With all of these web-hosting providers, I have tested and ranked various aspects such as performance, uptime, usability, servers, and of course price! Let’s get started!
7 Best Cheap Web Hosting UK Providers 2024
1. Bluehost: Best Cheap Web Host For Price & Value
Established in 2003, Bluehost powers over 2 million websites (including this website) across the globe and is now considered one of the top providers for beginner website makers.
Bluehost has also achieved the #1 recommendation from WordPress, which is the largest website platform in the world.
At the first glance, you will find that Bluehost offers a lot of benefits such as a free website builder, free domain, free SSL certificate, single-click WordPress installation, and around the clock customer support.
As for speeds, my own testing revealed that Bluehost servers delivered speeds around of around 550ms, which isn’t exceptionally fast, but still very good for the cheap price.
On the other hand, the uptime (amount of time a website is online) of Bluehost was outstanding, returning a score of 99.99%, which is a testament to the quality of the Bluehost server infrastructure.
As for the server locations, Bluehost unfortunately only has servers located in the US. To combat this, however, Bluehost does have a free CDN network (powered by Cloudflare) which makes copies of your websites and distributes it to multiple locations throughout the UK.
The end result is almost instant load times!
On a side note, this website is hosted on Bluehost and is using a free CDN. So these are typical speeds that you could expect. 😃
When it comes to pricing, the basic plan offered by Bluehost starts at £2.26 per month and includes 50GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth (traffic), free domain, free SSL certificate (this is a must), and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
If you are looking to host more websites, you can also opt for the Choice Plus Plan which costs £4.25 a month and allows for an unlimited amount of websites!
Considering all the factors including performance, security, reliability, and price, I found Bluehost to be one of the best cheap web hosting providers for those in the UK.
So if you are building your first website, blog, or small business website, and want an insanely simple web host at a cheap price, Bluehost is hands down my top pick! Highly recommend!
2. Hostinger: Cheapest Web Hosting Provider
Hostinger was established back in 2004 and currently hosts more than 29 million users across 178 different countries. While many of these customers came from their original free service (000Webhost), this is still an incredible number and a testament to their service.
Like Bluehost, Hostinger also does offer 24/7 client support, 30-day money-back guarantee, quick and easy deployment, and single-click WordPress installations.
As for their performance numbers, Hostinger was able to deliver 99.9% uptime along with exceptional load times of 360ms, which is due to Hostinger having locally based servers in the UK!
Speaking of server locations, Hostinger has 7 different global data centres in regions including Brazil, US, UK, Singapore, and Lithuania. Having the UK based server definitely is a huge plus as it results in low latency with exceptional reliability.
Two thumbs up!
When it comes to the price, Hostinger’s Single Web Hosting plan starts at a staggeringly low price of £0.99/mo and offers 10 GB of storage, support for 1 website, 1 email address, 100 GB of bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate.
Unfortunately, there is no free domain name included. 😞
While there is no denying that the £0.99 price tag is attractive, one thing to be aware of is that this price renews at £2.99/mo after the promotional period. But nonetheless, still incredible value!
All in all, Hostinger’s cheap plan may seem to skimp on features, but the service makes up for it with sheer performance. Moreover, the global presence of server locations makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking to expand locally, or beyond the UK!
3. HostGator: Best Unlimited Storage Web Host
HostGator was founded in Florida in October 2002, and almost two decades later, the web hosting service has turned into one of the leading cloud solution providers selling VPS, dedicated hosting, shared hosting, and reseller hosting.
Currently, Hostgator offers single-click WordPress installation, free automated backups, unlimited storage and bandwidth, free domain and SSL certificate, and swift for reliable performance.
When it came to the speeds of Hostgator, their performance was a bit lacklustre (more on that below), which hovered around the 700ms range. On the flip side of the coin, however, HostGator did deliver a 99.90%.
One of the underlying reasons behind the slower response times is the fact that HostGator has no UK data centres (all in the US). Also, HostGator doesn’t integrate with CloudFlare CDN in the dashboard, which is also a downside as it doesn’t allow users in the UK to easily integrate the service.
In saying that, Hostgator still can be connected to a Cloudflare, but you will have to change the DNS nameservers on your domain.
So while this isn’t a deal-breaker, it is something I would like to see improve.
As for the price of HostGator, their beginner plan is only £2.11/mo and includes a free domain, free WordPress installation, unlimited bandwidth, free SSL certificate, and an email address!
So while the may lack in the speed department, Hostgator does make up for it with a cheap price and a load of valuable benefits!
Taking everything into account, I can say that HostGator is a great option for those looking for unlimited storage and reliability at a competitive price. Overall, a great web host that is perfect for bloggers and small business owners.
4. iPage: Best Cheap Web Host With Freebies
Founded in 1998, iPage has been in the hosting business for more than 2 decades and currently powers more than 1 million websites!
A first look reveals that iPage offers quite a lot of freebies in its basic package including free domain registration, free site builder, free templates, free SSL certificate, free email address, and free domain transfers. Nice!
As for the speeds of iPage, I received around 700ms load times when testing from London, which to be honest, is quite average. Not the best, and not the worst. But for the price (see below), I really shouldn’t complain!
Surprisingly, iPage delivered some of the best uptime results in this guide which averaged around 99.96% and the “worst” month being 99.90%.
Like many of the other cheap web hosting providers in this list, iPage only has servers located in the US, which explains the average load times. But again, these speeds can be optimised for those in the UK with caching, CDNs, and image compression.
Currently, iPage is offering its introductory web hosting plan for only £1.53/mo when signing up for the 3-year plan! As an added bonus, this offering also includes unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, single-click WordPress installation, vDeck Control Panel, and network monitoring.
Overall, iPage is a highly reliable and extraordinarily cheap web host which could be great for businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who are on a budget, but want access to all the key features!
5. SiteGround: Fastest Web Host For WordPress
Founded in 2004, SiteGround powers 1 million-plus websites, has 500 employees, and also has data servers in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Some of the key benefits of SiteGround is that customers get access to a free SSL certificate, site transfer, 30-day money-back guarantee, and a guaranteed 99.90% uptime!
When it comes to performance, I conducted various speed tests from London and received an average load time of 420ms, which is excellent! Also, when combined with the 99.90% uptime, this is a match made in heaven for speed and reliability!
When it comes to the server locations, Site Ground has data centres all around the world including Asia, Netherlands, Singapore, US, and the UK! This allows SiteGround to deliver lower latency that is great for a wide variety of businesses.
That being said, the packages are on the expensive side. For example, the StartUp plan is £5.36/mo and offers a single website with 10 GB of storage, 10,000 visits per month, free SSL, daily backups, free email and CDN, unlimited databases, and managed WordPress.
So if you are looking for the best combination of speed, performance, and reliability, but are willing to pay more for that luxury, SiteGround is a great option for UK based websites.
While it may not be the cheapest web host for those in the UK, it makes up for it in almost every other way!
6. A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting was launched by Bryan Muthig in 2011 who had immense experience as a UNIX systems administrator. His venture grew from a two-room office into a full-fledged business that currently powers thousands of websites across the globe in different regions.
An overview of the website reveals that A2 Hosting proudly offers 99.90% uptime commitment, unlimited SSD storage, free site migration, free automated backups, money-back guarantee, optimized WordPress, free SSL certificate, and round the clock customer support.
During my testing, I found out that both the response times as well as uptime were exceptional. Average speed during the entire month was around 317 ms with an uptime of 99.93% which was slightly better than what was claimed.
Having excellent infrastructure, A2 Hosting is capable of not only delivering top speeds but keeping your websites up and running.
Although A2 Hosting doesn’t have any local data centres, it is still one of the fastest hosting services around. Their data centres are located in Michigan, Arizona, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
A2 Hosting terms its servers as ‘Turbo Servers’ which utilizes innovative technology to deliver fast response times as well as reliability.
A2 Hosting’s basic plan starts at £2.29 a month and offers Turbo Servers, free migration, and WordPress optimized websites. Websites can be deployed easily with a single click while 99.90% uptime ensures your website stays functional for your visitors.
Comparing with other hosting services, A2 Hosting isn’t only affordable and competitively priced but offers some of the best response times and perform consistently. You obviously have to make a few compromises but given the price point, you are not giving up much.
7. Webhosting.uk.com
Established in 2001, Webhosting UK is one of the top UK-based dedicated hosting service providers that is currently serving more than 35,000 clients from different verticals across the globe.
Webhosting UK server network hosts over 1 million websites. Being one of the top hosting services, Webhosting UK has forged lasting partnerships with major technology giants including Microsoft and Dell.
Looking at Webhosting UK, there are some cutting edge features including fast-performance SSDs, 24/7 customer support, 1GBit port speed, and budget-friendly packages starting from £46.02 per month so you can choose one that suits your business needs the best.
You can get up to 32 cores and 64 processing threads along with a maximum of 256 GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage with redundancy for backups.
According to my own experience, I found that Webhosting UK servers were able to deliver adequately fast speeds of 000ms for my UK-based visitors while the average uptime turned out to be 99.7%.
These numbers may not exactly blow you away but are worth every pound you have to pay.
Webhosting UK servers are housed in secure and cutting edge data centres in multiple locations including Reading, Maidenhead, Wakefield, Nottingham, and York.
Having access to regionally-located servers contributes heavily to enhanced speed, response times, and overall performance. On the other hand, servers located abroad may not be as performance-efficient.
Starting package offered by Webhosting UK is WHUK E3 Standard the comes with four 3.0 GHz cores and 4 processing threads along with 8 GB to 32 GB of the maximum memory, and two 240 GB high-performance SSDs.
It also includes 1TB of usable RAID 1. Being the starter package, it is quite affordable as you’ll only be paying £46.02 every month if you select 12-month billing term.
Taking all aspects into account, I have found Webhosting UK to be an affordable, highly performant, and reliable dedicated server solutions partner, especially for small businesses and startups who are just starting out and want to keep their operating overhead at a bare minimum to maximize profit.
How I Found the Best Cheap Web Hosting UK Providers
Being an entrepreneur for more than a decade, I have gone through my share of hosting services to streamline my workflow and deliver a seamless experience to my website visitors as well as existing customers.
In my bid to find the best and the most affordable web hosting service in the UK, I have come to realise what matters most and what we should avoid at all cost.
I can break down my process into five different factors that I considered to pick the best cheap web hosting UK providers.
User-Friendliness
One of the key factors that I always look for is how seamless and intuitive the entire process is. From gathering information from the website and customer support to migrating my website to their servers, I evaluated every aspect of the process.
Price to Value Ratio
Not all web hosting services are created equal and there are compromises to be made. I completely understand that. That’s why instead of just looking at the lowest price, I also take into account what I am getting for that price.
Some web hosting services low ball the competition but come up short when it’s time to deliver.
Value-Added Services
Another aspect of a web hosting service evaluation is to ensure that I won’t have to go anywhere else. I look for a one-stop solution where I can get all of my needs met. For instance, some web hosting services don’t offer Google Docs and Office Online support and I dock points for that.
Adding More Accounts
Scalability is another crucial factor. If I need more accounts, is it even possible to do so and if yes, how much will it cost me in terms of effort and pricing? I evaluate how easy a web hosting service makes scalability and adding new accounts.
Device Compatibility
I cannot ignore the fact that more than half of my website traffic is coming from mobile devices. So I also keep track of a hosting service’s ability to serve different kinds of devices including smartphones and tablets.
Is Cheap Web Hosting Any Good?
To be honest, it totally depends on your business needs. However, given the numbers of small business, blogs, and single page websites, I’d say that for most people a best cheap web hosting UK service would suffice.
However, if you want to scale your operations to the point where affordable shared hosting can no longer support your business requirements, you always have the option to go for dedicated hosting. Meanwhile, the best cheap web hosting UK plan will offer the following benefits:
- Allow you to host your website within your budget
- Keep the business overhead low improving the bottom line
- Comes with free SSL, free migration, and money-back guarantee
- Website backups are automatically created
- You can get great speeds and uptime for a low price
- You can include add-ons if you want certain features
- Scalability is easier and more affordable (until a certain limit)
Limitations of Cheap Web Hosting
Since you are paying for a shared hosting service, it means that other websites are also sharing the bandwidth which can lead to certain limitations including the following:
- Poor service or service denial issues during peak times
- Storage space running out if you are hosting a lot of media
- No dedicated server management available
- Less secure than dedicated web hosting
Is Cheap Hosting Worth It?
This is a decision that only you can make. Generally, people who are running individual blogs, small e-commerce stores, and single page websites can do a lot with cheap hosting. For a few pounds a month, they can serve thousands of visitors in a seamless manner.