Bluehost review from a former 3 year Customer

Last updated on February 6th, 2023 at 01:52 pm.

Genuine BLUEHOST REVIEW

GENUINE BLUEHOST REVIEW

Having used Bluehost for the past 3 years, I believe I am highly qualified to give a genuine review.  This year,  February 2018, I moved all my websites to cloud hosting on Vultr.  This is mostly due to the desire to have control over my own server and not due to any Bluehost features .

Bluehost was founded in 1996 and since then it has worked  to become better in its Web Hosting services. So far it has grown to be one of the most recognized web hosting companies in the world that powers over 2million websites around the globe. Their relationship with wordpress is so strong that the WordPress community officially recommends them. Bluehost provides 24 hours customer support. Support is 24/7.  B Host also pride themselves in great hosting infrastructure.

So in this review I’m putting together the basic facts about Bluehost in a concise write up so that you can effectively make your decision if you are considering using  Bluehost for your website.

As you already know, I had been  using Bluehost for the past 3 years (2014 to January 2018 . Slightly more than 3 actually. This year I moved to VPS Hosting on Vultr.

Specializations and Customer Support

Bluehost review from a former 3 year Customer

Bluehost has a very responsive and informative customer support team that works 24/7 . Different customers may have had different  experiences with the support team. Personally, I can’t complain about the Bluehost Customer support.

The company focuses on many  customer oriented services other than just Customer support. They have a myriad of Blogging and online marketing tutorials  to assist beginning bloggers and online entrepreneurs.

The Blue Host hosting is top of WordPress recommended list.  It could be sponsorship, it cvould be based on functionality. I am not full informed on the specifics of this relationship.

WordPress is a major interest for Bluehost. Most of their Web hosting packages are geared towards Word Press websites. Their marketing is geared towards WordPress users. Then again, currently, WordPress powers the majority of the web.  people are even moving from other Website solutions,  to WordPress. That could be a factor. Bluehost has tremendously specialized in WordPress Hosting. You can literally install anew WordPress website in less than 2 minutes.

Based on my  experience, there are lots of features that come with every hosting package. The Hosting Panel is quite easy to use by  beginners and experts. The Bluehost Web Hosting area provides ease of use, especially for people who are creating a website for the first time . With a new shared plan you’ll get a shared SSL certificate, a Domain and access to their domain website builder.

Their customer support is better than most, I can tell you that. For instance, the Godaddy customer support is too pushy, always trying to get you to buy something when you contact them with your problem.

One click Install

Bluehost enables you to install any script using a step by step process that any beginner or expert may follow.  You could install scripts such as WordPress, magento, Joomla, PrestaShop and so many more. The one click installation process has been customized to work with Mojomarketplace. Mojomarketplace is a website with premium themes, plugins and professional services.

With the one click install, you can install your website on a  domain or a sub-domain.  Check out this Free Bluehost tutorial to see how this is done.

Migration Policy and Price Plan

Bluehost professionals can migrate any user up to 20 email accounts and about 5 websites.  but this service is neither free nor cheap, it will cost you $150, so I suggest you use freelance marketplaces to purchase migration services at a more affordable cost from other vendors. For 150 bucks Blue host promises zero downtime during site transfer.Worthy of note is that they do not provide site migration for VPS, reseller and dedicated server plans.

Greengeeks offers free migration from any web host.

Bluehost offers its lowest plan at $3.95/month if you are a first time customer. When you renew the plan, the price changes. Please note that the price written here is subject to change depending on the company, but it is correct as of the date of writing this review. This can be confirmed in the screen-shot below. Check out the current prices here.

Bluehost review from a former 3 year Customer

Quality of Support Materials

Bluehost is well documented. There is an extensive amount of videos and articles that will help you when you need any help.  Most materials are created by the  Bluehost team while other materials are created by third party individuals. Here is my Bluehost Tutorial for beginners on Youtube. A complete video guide to help you learn about managing your website, working with emails, databases, File Manager, FTP and so much more.

Bluehost servers are located and operated from Provo in Utah, it is a 50,000 square-foot facility that enables them provide their services using Cloudflare CDN which has more than 100 datacenters around the world, their materials are Excellent, Visually uncluttered, crystal Clear, Extensive, etc. bluehost is PCI compliant and all accounts on the platform are A- and B- compliant.

Bluehost review from a former 3 year Customer

Control Panel

Bluehost makes use of Cpanel  for all their plans and they also provide a 30 day money back guarantee but this does not apply to add-ons, services and domain, in a situation where you need your money back but you were offered a free domain in the plan you signed up for, the actual price of the domain will be deducted from the money that will be refunded.

CPanel is very User Friendly, that is why most commercial Web Hosts use it. As someone who currently hosts his own website, I can confidently say, that the Cpanel is the most expensive in it’s category and at the same time it is the best . However that is not your concern, that is the Web Host’s concern because they are the ones who pay for the licenses for usage.

CPanel will make your hosting time on Bluehost, real easy.

OTHER FEATURES INCLUDE:

  • Provision of site back up pro at an additional cost which automatically does a daily backup for your website and also provides easy access to the backup archive.
  • The Bluehost sitebuilder is available in all packages for free.
  • A lot more is here on Bluehost.

Pros

  • free SSL certificates and domains . Of course this is shared SSL
  • useful, well-organized material. This is my favorite part of Bluehost, the documentation is superb. You will never walk alone, I can tell you that !
  • wide variety of hosting options. You may choose whichever option best fits you needs, There are lots of small and big websites being hosted on Bluehost alike.
  • Bluehost is one of the top 3 web hosts recommended on the  WordPress.org hosting page for providing an optimal environment for WordPress sites. I concur.
  • Bluehost Web Hosting is very user Friendly to Beginners. The Web Hosting area is easy to use and easy to learn to use.
  • Blue host offers 30 days money back guarantee. So, if you don’t like it, just ask for your money back and try someone else.
  • Bluehost support is pretty helpful.  personally, I never got disappointing encounters with the customer support.

Cons

  • They are a bit more expensive than a few other hosts. I currently use Vultr and my server is slightly cheaper than what I used to pay on Bluehost.
  • Cost of migrating existing websites are higher than what is offered by similar companies. This is not a big deal since you can go to Fiverr and hire someone to move your website for just five bucks or thereabouts.
  • Servers are slow at times, but this also depends on how heavy your website is. You can cloak speeds of up to less than a second if you don’t overwhelm your web page with too much ads and media content. The average is usually 3 seconds (This is based on my experience. My website is pretty heavy too !)
  • Domain renewals on Bluehost are more expensive that most other hosting companies. So a better option for you is to buy a domain elsewhere and point it to Bluehost. This is a Bluehost tutorial on how to do that. It’s a very  simple process.

Why do you need a website?

There are so many reasons why you need a website which includes:

  1. Reduced cost of running your business.
  2. Your business gets to appear on search engine results.
  3. Continued presence even after working hours. 24 Hour information availability.
  4. Increased customers due to ease of access through the Internet..
  5. And many more.

Features of Bluehost (From around the Website)

  1. 99.98% Uptime: Uptime is a measure of how good a web hosting provider is at keeping their systems up and running without any shutdown. Web pages can’t keep customers if they are always down, so uptime is very important. Uptime is a very important criterion in measuring how reliable a webhosting service is.Bluehost’s uptime is just about 99.98%, 0.08% better than the industry average of 99.90% based on our tracking and monitoring over the last 20 months. Bluehost’s 99.98% beat the industry average by 0.08% (99.90%) according to metrics received from my time on Bluehost.
  1. Super secure options: Bluehost with its state of the art security ensures that no customers private information is misused. The state of the art security system provides strong tools for combating some of the most common website risks.
  1. 24/7 Customer support: Bluehost customer support offers online chat support, support tickets, video tutorials and maintain a knowledge base housing a variety of articles, guides, how-tos, instruction and answers to their client’s questions.
  2. 30-days money back guarantee: Bluehost offers an unconditional, hassle-free 30 days money back guarantee with most of their plans, so you can try them out and get your money back if the experience is below par. This does not apply to domains.  Once you buy a domain name, it is yours and you cannot return it.
  1. Fast page load time (552ms): This is debatable , depending on the website you run. Static web pages and lightweight wordpress blogs will load really fast. If your website is a little demanding , then this is a not very true.  Bluehost test sites over the past years  witnessed average page loading times of less than a second, faster than the average load times of other web hosting services . It’s also very consistent and fast. It all depends on your website. Some responsibility of speed will fall on you . If you use really heavy and bloated themes and plugins, your website will suffer the consequences of low speed.
  1. User-friendly interface even for beginners: Bluehost’s easy-to-use interface comes with a lot of training too. From your dashboard, you can track logins, update billing information, manage your domains and monitor emails. Check out my Free Bluehost Tutorial here.
  1. Powerful affiliate program: Bluehost affiliate program offers one of the most detailed and accurate tracking in the business. The commitment of the affiliate managers helps you to succeed. They provide support, insight, and personalized advice. If you want to become an affiliate of Bluehost then consider registering. 

After signing up on Bluehost, get this Free Bluehost Tutorial. This is a full Bluehost tutorial that will teach you all you need to know to Manage your Website on the Bluehost  Cpanel.

Bluehost Tutorial

Bluehost Pricing, Hosting Plans and Quick Facts

Shared hosting:

Bluehost provides three shared hosting options to choose from.

Basic plan:

$3.95 per month.

It supports one (1) website

50GB storage and unmetered bandwidth.

Five (5) email accounts with max email storage of 100MB per account.

Plus plan:

$5.95 per month.

Supports unlimited website, unmetered storage and unmetered bandwidth.

Unlimited email accounts with unlimited email storage per account.

Prime plan:

$5.95 per month

providing ‘unlimited’ websites, storage, bandwidth,

Unlimited email account and email storage.

Cloud hosting:

They have three main cloud hosting plans:

Starter plan:

$6.95 per month.

It supports one (1) website, 100GB storage space; 2GB available RAM and unmetered bandwidth.

One hundred (100) email accounts with max email storage of 500MB per account.

Performance plan:

$8.95 per month.

It supports unlimited website, 100GB storage space; 4GB available RAM and unmetered bandwidth.

Unlimited email accounts with unlimited email storage per account.

Business pro plan:

$15.95 per month.

Unlimited website, unmetered storage space; 6GB available RAM and unmetered bandwidth.

Unlimited email accounts with unlimited email storage per account.

WordPress hosting:

This is a dedicated WordPress solution for really big websites. If you are getting started , choose shared web Hosting.

This supports four main WordPress hosting plans:

WP standard plan:

$19.99 per month.

It supports 30GB storage, 30GB backup and 2GB RAM.

This plan can handle up to 100million visits per month.

WP enhanced plan:

$29.99 per month.

It supports 60GB storage, 60GB backup and 4GB RAM.

This plan can handle up to 300million visits per month.

WP premium plan:

$39.99 per month.

It supports 120GB storage, 120GB backup and 6GB RAM.

This plan can handle up to 600million visits per month.

WP ultimate plan:

$49.99 per month.

It supports 240GB storage, 240GB backup and 8GB RAM.

This plan can handle up to 600million visits per month.

VPS hosting:

Supports three main VPS hosting plans:

Standard plan:

$19.99 per month.

Comes with 2 cores (speed),

30GB SSD disk space,

2GB RAM and

an unlimited bandwidth.

Enhanced plan:

$29.99 per month.

Comes with 6 cores (speed),

60GB SSD disk space,

4GB RAM and

an unlimited bandwidth.

Ultimate plan:

$59.99 per month.

Comes with 4 cores (speed),

120GB SSD disk space,

8 GB RAM and

an unlimited bandwidth.

Dedicated hosting:

Supports three main dedicated hosting plans:

Standard plan:

$79.99 per month.

Comes with 4 cores,

8 threads (speed),

500GB (mirrored) storage,

4GB RAM and

5TB bandwidth.

Enhanced plan:

$99.99 per month.

Comes 4 cores,

8 threads (speed),

1TB (mirrored) storage,

8GB RAM and

10TB bandwidth.

Premium plan:

$119.99 per month.

Comes with 4 cores,

8 threads (speed),

1TB (mirrored) storage,

16GB RAM and

15TB bandwidth.

My verdict

After using Bluehost for all this time, I can say that I would recommend VPS hosting first. However if you don’t have the technical know-how to make that happen, you may use Bluehost. Bluehost is user friendly, beginner friendly and their Customer Support is better than most. There are a lot of Bluehost Tutorials online, so you will never get stuck or get lost.

My website may have gone off-line, once in a while, but show a Web Host with a 100% online guarantee and I will show you a Web Host you should avoid for being a big giant liar.

Ricky Wahowa approves Bluehost, however, consider VPS first.  Bluehost also offers VPS options but I haven’t used that, so I won’t talk about it. I have used the ones on Vultr and Digital Ocean.

PS: This post has Bluehost affiliate links . Any link you click on, is probably and  even more so definitely an affiliate link. If you sign up for any package, you will be a blessing from God . A blessing sent to help promote my online endeavors. So, thank you in advance.

If you have any questions before you make your decision, feel very free to ask your question in the comments section.

Here is a Bluehost Tutorial to get you started. Watch the video below: 

After signing up on Bluehost, get this Free Bluehost Tutorial. This is a full Bluehost tutorial that will teach you all you need to know to Manage your Website on the Bluehost  Cpanel.

Bluehost Tutorial

Free Bluehost Tutorial for beginners Start now

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