Fast Page Load Speed
If you’re stuck between choosing Bluehost and iPage, you’ll probably have to know some facts first. One of those facts is just exactly how fast both web hosts are.
Before purchasing a web hosting plan, the speed of a prospective web host is probably the most important thing you should know. A slow web host will almost certainly make you lose views (or won’t make you gain them at all). That will almost certainly affect your conversion rate and earnings. That’s why it’s important to know just how fast a web host is before buying a plan.
So how do you know the speed of a web hosting provider? Well, you check. And how do you check? You test, as we did.
Bluehost Fast Page Load Speed
Our web page with Bluehost had a fast page load speed of about 800ms, which is faster than a lot of the web hosts that we’ve tested.
iPage Fast Page Load Speed
iPage wasn’t as fast as Bluehost but was pretty fast. We recorded aan verage load speed of 1.3 seconds.
While speed is important, it is definitely not the most important thing used in determining whether a web host is good enough for you or not. There are other important things that one must consider before choosing a web host. One of those things is the value offered for money.
Bluehost vs. iPage; Pricing And Value For Money
No matter how great a web host is, for it to be any good, it has to come at the right price. It simply wouldn’t do for you to have to overpay, just because of great performance.
That’s why we’ll be looking at all the web hosting plans of Bluehost and iPage to see which host offers the best plans, and which plan has the best value for money.
Now, this will be a bit tricky. That’s because iPage had only one shared hosting plan, while Bluehost has four. It will be a bit difficult to compare four plans to one. But we’ll try.
iPage Shared Hosting Plan
Like it’s been said before, iPage has only one shared hosting plan which is the one-size-fit-all plan. It’s pretty cheap and costs about $1.99 for the first term. It renews at $7.99 though.
The plan comes with unlimited desk space, scalable bandwidth, unlimited domain names, unlimited MySQL databases and a free domain for a year.
The one-size-fit-all plan of iPage is probably as good a plan as you’re going to get under $10. It’s moderately priced, and it maxes out on all the very important specs. As such, it’s a great plan that you shouldn’t mind getting if you have to. It has no obvious defects, and you’d be getting your money’s worth by buying it.
Bluehost’s Basic Plan
Bluehost’s cheapest plan is the Basic plan and it comes with 1 website, 50 GB of storage space, unmetered bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, 1 included domain, 5 parked domains and 25 subdomains. The plan costs $2.95 per month.
The Basic plan is a decent starter plan. It gets all the basics right, and it’s a great plan if you want to host only one small site.
Bluehost Medium Tier Plans
Bluehost has two medium-tier plans, and they are the Plus and Choice Plus packages.
The Plus plan of Bluehost has unlimited websites, unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, standard performance, unlimited domains, unlimited parked domains, unlimited subdomains, Spam Experts and 1 Office 365 Mailbox— free for thirty days. The plan costs $5.45 per month for an initial three-year plan and renews at $10.99
Bluehost’s Choice Plus has all the features of the Plus plan plus Site Backup in the form of Codeguard Basic. However, instead of renewing at $10.99, the plan renews at $14.99
The Choice Plus plan costs just about the same as the Plus plan and comes with extra add-ons. The more prudent decision would be to purchase the Choice Plus plan if you can afford to continue paying for it after renewal.
Bluehost Top Tier Plan
The Pro plan is Bluehost’s most expensive plan and it comes with unlimited websites, unlimited storage, Domain Privacy + Protection, Codeguard Basic for site backup, a dedicated IP, unlimited domains, Spam Expert, free SSL certificate, unmetered bandwidth and 1 Office 365 Mailbox free for thirty days. The plan costs $13.95 per month.
The Pro plan is only for clients who want extra security features and would like the best possible support. If you are not willing to pay for that, then the Pro plan is not for you. However, if you’re willing, it represents great value for money.
The Right Host For You.
So which host would be the right one for you? Bluehost or iPage? Well, let’s look at the facts. Bluehost is the faster web host. That means that your site will perform well on Google searches, and you will invariably get a lot of views. This will definitely affect your conversion rate. Basically, If you want to give your site the highest chance of being successful, you should go with Bluehost.
However, it doesn’t end there. iPage isn’t terribly slow either, and while bounce rate with iPage may be a bit higher, it wouldn’t be bad enough to give you too much trouble. iPage has only one plan that maxes out on all base specs like disk space and websites. This means that anyone with any need can use it. Importantly, it’s a very cheap plan too. In fact, it’s cheaper than all of Bluehost’s plans, and since it maxes out all base specs, it’s definitely the more financially prudent plan to purchase.
This poses a dilemma for the average buyer. Do you go for quality or quantity? Do you pay a bit more for Bluehost and get the best quality service or pay a bit less and get average service? It’s up to you, really.
Alternative
iPage is one of the cheapest hosts on the market (you can get unlimited disk space for just about $1.99). It was founded in 1998, and since then it has grown a host of over a million websites spread over two data centres in America. The great thing about iPage isn’t just that it is a terribly inexpensive host, it’s also that they have decent customer support and speed. So if you’re purchasing iPage, you’re buying a web hosting plan that is one of the cheapest on the market, and you’re buying decent (if not great) performance. The host has great uptime, decent load speed and a lot of third party applications.
iPage has only one shared hosting plan, so they do not try to hold anything back to force you to upgrade. The plan comes with a free domain and a free SSL certificate, and all of this costs just about $2.