Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Compare The Best Reseller Hosting Plans

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best reseller hosting provider for most people is SiteGround or InMotion Hosting.

Reseller hosting is great because it is easier and faster than starting your own web hosting company from scratch.

You won’t need to worry about the hardware, resources, or other expensive costs associated with managing servers and hosting facilities. It’s a smart way for developers and agencies to earn some extra money from existing clients.

The Best Reseller Hosting Providers and Plans for 2022

  • SiteGround — Best for existing agencies.
  • InMotion Hosting — Best VPS plans for managing ecommerce sites.
  • GreenGeeks — Best for developers who prioritize eco-friendly hosting.
  • HostGator — Most cost-effective reseller plans.
  • Liquid Web — Best hands-off server maintenance and upkeep
  • A2 Hosting — Best for scaling small-to-medium-sized client lists.

Read on to learn more about each of the top reseller hosting providers on my list to find the best option for you.

I think you’ll be surprised at how inexpensive it is to get started. The more you sell, the more you can make. Every company needs hosting for their site–start providing this valuable service today.

SiteGround – Best for existing agencies

  • Starts at only $6.69/month
  • 20 GB web space
  • Unlimited sites & databases
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Start now

SiteGround is another big player in the web hosting industry. So it’s no surprise that they offer excellent reseller hosting plans.

SiteGround used to sell “reseller credits,” where each credit was worth one year of hosting for a website.

However, they now have three reseller packages with varying levels of web space and support.

Siteground Reseller Hosting Plans

Every plan comes with unlimited websites, a centralized dashboard, free WP installation, auto-updates, daily and on-demand backups, free SSLs, CDN, and email, easy staging, and unlimited databases.

If you start with the GrowBig plan, it is $6.69 per month. The GoGeek plan is $10.69 per month and includes priority support and the ability to white-label clients. Cloud reselling plan starts at $100 per month and also gives your customizable client access and the ability to tailor site resources.

It is important to note that these fantastic prices are promotional rates and will renew at a higher price.

While SiteGround offers an excellent service of free daily and on-demand backups, they are missing some important reseller features, such as not having automated billing or domain name reselling features, and it is not really built to scale. But SiteGround is ideal for existing businesses to expand their offerings, due to already having billing and clients built-in.

The prices alone make SiteGround a top choice for resellers. If you’re a small agency with a handful of websites to manage and want to grow, SiteGround’s pricing system makes it possible for you to add reselling to your offerings. Read more about their hosting services in my complete SiteGround review.

InMotion Hosting – Best VPS plans for managing ecommerce sites

  • Normally $29.99/month
  • 25 cPanel accounts
  • Free dedicated IP
  • 90-day money back guarantee
Get a 48% discount

InMotion has a variety of plans. Here’s a breakdown of what each reseller plan offers:

The “R” packages are shared hosting plans, and the “VPS” packages are virtual private servers.

Things like disk space, monthly bandwidth, and dedicated IPs increase with each plan. Pricing for the InMotion Hosting reseller plans are as follows:

  • R-1000S — $21.39 per month
  • R-2000S — $29.99 per month
  • R-3000S — $41.24 per month
  • Reseller VPS — $39.99 per month

How does this compare to other hosting providers we’ve reviewed so far? Let’s take a look.

HostGator’s top package offers 140 GB of disk space and 1400 GB of bandwidth. The R-2000S and R-3000S from InMotion would be the closest plans to this. Both of these are at similar price points as well.

The biggest difference is that InMotion has even more options. Their VPS plan has 125 GB of disk space and unlimited of bandwidth per month.

This means that InMotion’s reseller plans can handle more clients and more monthly traffic than the other options on our list. They offer beginner reseller plans like the R-1000S, and more advanced plans like the Reseller VPS 3000, offering service to every level of reseller.

With a VPS reseller plan, you can even manage ecommerce websites. You’ll have root access as well to make custom changes to your server.

InMotion offers free billing software, free cPanel and WHM, free SSD drives, white label services, DDoS and malware protection, and server management features for select packages.

They also have a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is almost unheard of in the web hosting space.

Overall, InMotion Hosting has a reseller plan for everyone. But I recommend them if you have a lot of clients. If you want to learn more about InMotion check out my full InMotion hosting review.

GreenGeeks – Best for developers who prioritize eco-friendly hosting

  • Normally $34.95/month
  • Unlimited SSD web space
  • 10 cPanel accounts
  • Eco-friendly hosting
Get a 43% discount

GreenGeeks offers environmentally-conscious web hosting services.

That means they leverage renewable energy to power their hosting solution—which is so cool. In fact, for every ampage of energy they use, they put back 3x that via renewable energy through the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

They specialize in reseller hosting too. In fact, GreekGeeks offers three different reseller plans:

Their packages can be purchased in quantities of 10 clients. The more clients you have, the more cost-effective it is per account.

If you fall somewhere in the middle of these tiers or have more than 50 clients, you can purchase additional accounts in bundles of 5.

The discounted pricing for additional accounts is:

  • RH-25 — $19.95 per month
  • RH-50 — $24.95 per month
  • RH-80 — $34.95 per month

All GreenGeeks reseller plans come with great benefits like:

  • Free SSL certificates
  • Free cPanel migrations
  • WHMCS licenses
  • White label services
  • GreenGeeks managed support
  • Free CDN integration
  • Nightly backups

As their name implies, GreenGeeks uses renewable energy to power their hosting services. They strive to make each of their servers carbon neutral. That means whatever carbon they contribute to the environment, they try to take out through various environmental initiatives.

So it’s a great option for those of you who are conscious of the environment and want to market green web hosting to your clients. They’ll also plant one tree for each hosting package they sell.

This reseller service is made with developers in mind. You’ll get multiple PHP versions, MySQL databases, FTP accounts, support for Perl and Python, and access to the latest developer tools like WP-CLI, Git, Drush, and lots more.

All GreekGeeks reseller plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. It’s definitely nice to have that assurance to fall back on.

HostGator – Most cost-effective reseller plans

  • Starting at $19.95/month
  • Host unlimited domains
  • Free SSL certificate
  • 45-day money back guarantee
Get a 33% discount

HostGator is an industry leader in the web hosting space. On top of that, they also give you great reseller options.

They offer three different reseller plans:

As you can see, the price points for all three are within $5 of each other. Just remember that this is a promo rate. But you can lock in this introductory rate for your first 36 months.

All reseller plans come with great benefits like:

  • Unlimited domains
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Private name servers
  • Email accounts
  • FTP accounts
  • MySQL accounts

The plan you choose depends on your needs, of course. So pay attention to the bandwidth and storage for each package.

Fortunately, HostGator makes it easy for you to scale. If you start with the Aluminum or Copper plan, you can upgrade for free at any time.

All reseller plans come with free WHMCS billing software, which makes it easy for you to manage your clients.

You’ll also get WHM control panel for monitoring your server status, and setting limits for things like disk space and bandwidth for your clients.

If you’re already a reseller and want to switch providers, HostGator offers up to 80% off transfers and registrations.

HostGator guarantees a 99.9% uptime rate. So you won’t have to worry about your clients being upset with the performance of their website.

Another reason why I recommend HostGator for reseller hosting is because of their support.

They offer 24/7 customer service via phone and live chat. Automatic weekly backups and 24/7 server monitoring are standard as well. Plus, you’ll get a 45-day money-back guarantee, which is more than enough time to see if you’re satisfied with your plan.

Liquid Web – Best for hands-off server maintenance and upkeep

  • Starts at $99/month
  • Fully-managed services
  • Free WHMCS licenses
  • VPS, cloud, or dedicated hosting options
Get started today

We’ve featured Liquid Web on our lists for best dedicated hosting plans and best VPS hosting plans—and for good reason. They offer great hosting services with high memory and storage, at an affordable price.

Their reseller hosting options are no exception. They offer both VPS and dedicated servers for resale. These come with a free WHMCS plugin as well as instant provisioning.

LiquidWeb also offers a WHMCS plugin for you to sell cloud VPS or cloud dedicated hosting products.

For their dedicated servers, Liquid Web has a number of lucrative plans that include a free WHMCS license. It should be noted, though, that’s only available to customers who have hosting services with Liquid Web already.

Those plans are as follows:

Liquid Web reseller pricing page.

I recommend going with at least the Silver plan. The extra 8 GB and the terabyte of backups is entirely worth it for the price.

Here are a few more notable features to call out:

  • 100% Uptime Service Level Agreement. This promises that if your site ever goes down due to their servers, Liquid Web will compensate you for the downtime.
  • No SysAdmin required. Liquid Web handles any upkeep and maintenance you might need for your server—so you won’t have to hire someone to do it for you.
  • Free DDoS protection. Their network is highly secure, layered with multi-level DDoS attack prevention systems.

To get started you’ll have to apply for their reseller program. Doing so is as easy as filling out a form indicating the products you’re interested in, your contact info, and information about your business.

A2 Hosting – Best for scaling small-to-medium-sized client lists

  • Normally $18.99/month
  • WHM Control Panel
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • Anytime money back guarantee
Get a 51% discount

A2 Hosting offers some of the fastest speeds for web hosting out there. They’re also very reliable in terms of uptime. Both of which are crucial in the web hosting industry.

Their reseller choices are great for those of you who want a quality service in a low-to-mid price range. Here’s an overview of A2’s entry-level reseller hosting plans.

A2 Hosting reseller pricing page.

These prices reflect signing up for three years. Signing up for a shorter period of time will increase the price. Kickstart, for example, is $24.99 per month for a single year, or $34.99 paying month to month.

In addition to these plans, A2 offers four more, so scaling up won’t be an issue.

You’ll notice that they have regular and “Turbo” plans. I’d highly recommend going with the Turbo plans, as that is the only way to get A2’s legendary speed. The regular plans are fine, but if you are in the reseller game, providing your clients with the best possible performance is going to help you grow.

Note that with the entry level hosting plans, Kickstart and Turbo Kickstart, you don’t get free WHMCS, which is crucial for client management.

You can buy the WHMCS add-on for $10 per month, but at that point, you might as well upgrade to a package that includes it for free.

With reseller plans above Kickstart, you can also have a greater number of client accounts. Unless you’re planning on keeping things small, I’d recommend starting with Launch or above.

In my A2 hosting review research I found that A2 Hosting is committed to a 99.9% uptime rate. Their servers are up to 20 times faster than their competitors (if you go with Turbo plans), and they have an amazing customer support system.

What is reseller hosting?

Reseller hosting makes it possible for you to sell web hosting to other people.

It’s essentially white label website hosting. You buy the service from a larger hosting company, and then resell that service to your clients.

The reseller focuses on marketing and sales while leaving all of the heavy-lifting to the larger hosting service.

With reseller hosting, you set the hosting prices for your clients. As long as the provider gets their monthly rate, the sky is the limit for what you can charge. Since you’ll be paying wholesale rates to the hosting company, there’s an opportunity for you to make substantial profit margins.

If you pitch it correctly, your clients will love this option. You become a one-stop-shop for their website. You’re already handling things like development and design, so why not handle the hosting as well?

Who is reseller hosting for?

If you’re launching a website from scratch, or you’re just looking for a new web hosting provider, reseller hosting is not for you.

For the most part, reseller hosting is for web developers, web designers, and agencies.

However, if you’re an entrepreneur in the tech space, you might see an opportunity here to earn some extra money as a reseller.

For example, if you own a local computer shop, you could potentially start reselling hosting packages to customers in your community.

Whether you’re a solo developer, large enterprise, or anywhere in-between, reseller hosting is suitable if you’re planning to manage at least 10 websites or more. Anything less than that won’t really be worth your time or effort.

Aside from the additional profits you can make from your current client packages, reseller hosting is a great way to retain your customers for the long term.

If you develop and design a website for someone, they won’t need your services forever. But if you can simultaneously manage their hosting service, then you’ll continue to get recurring income long after the development is complete.

The Top Reseller Hosting Plans in Summary

Reseller hosting is an excellent way for developers, agencies, and entrepreneurs to earn recurring revenue with white label web hosting. Reseller plans let you sell web hosting without maintaining, updating, or monitoring any servers.

Since every website needs a hosting provider, you have no shortage of potential customers to target. But success as a reseller is directly tied to finding the right hosting partner.



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Compare The Best Time and Attendance Systems

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best time and attendance systems for most people are Rippling and OnTheClock.

Time and attendance systems lets you track employee hours and manage pay—crucial tasks for every business with a workforce.

The best time and attendance systems are simple to implement and manage. Your employees will always be compensated appropriately for their work while eliminating bottlenecks in payroll.

The 8 Best Time and Attendance Systems of 2021

How to choose the best time and attendance system. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing time and attendance systems.

That’s why good time and attendance systems integrate popular online payroll services.

If your current system is inaccurate or outdated, you could be costing your business tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

So if you need an updated time system, you’ve come to the right place.

No matter what type of business you have or what industry you’re in, this guide will help you find the best time tracking and attendance system for your company.

I’ll give you an in-depth review of each option below. We’ll discuss the top features, benefits, costs, and other considerations to give you the information needed to make a decision.

Best Time and Attendance Systems Reviews

Rippling — Best for Running Payroll in Two Minutes or Less

  • Built-in payroll solution
  • Create custom workflows
  • Potent automation features
  • Starts at $8/employee per month
Try Rippling for Free

If you already have payroll software in place that you love, you’re looking for a time and attendance solution that integrates with it seamlessly. Otherwise, you’ll get frustrated with manual data entry or messy or incomplete importing from your time tracking tool.

But what if you’re thinking, “Well, I could use better payroll software too.”

Enter Rippling.

Rippling homepage.

With it you get top-of-the-line time tracking software that is built to streamline your workload and automate routine actions. It’s incredibly easy to set up automated workflows (say, for a simple example, if an employee works over eight hours and incurs an overtime rate) and customize them with simple-to-learn triggers and logic.

But what really grabs you is how much easier Rippling’s time and attendance system makes running your payroll.

With the intelligent technology behind the platform, you can run your payroll in as little as 90 seconds. With no importing/exporting of spreadsheets or .csv files, Rippling ports the hours logged over to its payroll module and takes it from there.

It smartly factors in deductions, taxes, variable pay rates, and more. All that’s left for you to do is review and approve and, voila, payroll is taken care of.

The combination of payroll and time and attendance tracking in Rippling means you get everything you need from both, including:

  • Automatic tax, employee, and labor compliance
  • Automatic tax filings
  • Global payments to employees and contractors
  • PTO tracking
  • Custom reporting
  • Geolocated, QR code-based, and selfie clock-in

And, you get all the essentials of time tracking software. Employees can clock in and out using a tablet, the Rippling app, or through their computer.  You get to review and approve hours worked and assistance with meeting labor law regulations on breaks and overtime.

And, with that perfect payroll integration, you get clear, real-time insight into labor costs.

Rippling offers custom pricing to its clients, depending on what combination of Rippling services they need. Beyond payroll and time tracking, there are also solutions for benefits administration, recruiting, and internal IT management.

Pricing starts at $8/user per month. Get a free custom demo.

OnTheClock — Best for Businesses with Regular Service Calls

  • Thorough GPS tracking
  • Can try out for free
  • Integration w/ major payroll software
  • Perfect for field service
Try it for Free

A service company has a wider range of needs from time and attendance tracking software than most others.

We’re talking about businesses like a construction operation, an IT firm, an insurance company, or anything else where you’re dispatching employees constantly throughout the day. If that’s you, you’re going to find the features you need in OnTheClock.

Whereas many other time tracking solutions allow for GPS tagging on clock-ins, few give you full visibility into where your techs or reps are in real-time and where they’ve been throughout the workday.

OnTheClock’s GPS time clock allows your workers to check in on their own mobile device or an approved device upon arriving and leaving each job site.

OnTheClock homepage.

But it’s the real-time GPS tracking that goes the extra mile (without overstepping into invading worker privacy). In the OnTheClock interface, you can see at a glance who’s where they’re supposed to be and who isn’t.

And, with the breadcrumb feature, you can also see if workers are sticking to their schedule and staying at the job site when they’re supposed to.

You can also set up geofencing to make sure employees only clock in when they’re actually present at the location and drop pins for punch-in spots for when jobs are more remote or in between sites.

Plus, with custom-set employee roles, you can make it easier to switch between jobs without clocking out for your team members who wear many hats when out in the field.

Beyond those key features for organization that regularly send employees out into the field, such as automatic PTO and overtime tracking, employee requests within the platform and app, scheduling, and project cost and invoicing assistance.

OnTheClock also integrates fantastically with all the big payroll platforms out there, such as ADP, Quickbooks, Gusto, Paychex, and more.

Pricing is wonderfully straightforward. With no contact, no limitations on features, and no base monthly fee, you simply pay for the number of employees you have as active users on OnTheClock.

For just one or two employees, it’s completely free (which also can function as a free trial for test driving the platform out). From there it scales down, starting at $3/employee per month:

  • 3-10 employees: $3/employee per month (e.g. five employees = $15/month)
  • 11-25 employees: $2.95/employee per month
  • 26-50 employees: $2.90/employee per month
  • 51-100 employees: $2.85/employee per month

This continues all the way up to 301-400 users ($2.70/employee per month). Custom pricing is available for teams larger than that.

Get started with OnTheClock by trying it for free today.

QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) — Best for Remote Workers and QuickBooks Integration

  • Plans start at $28/month
  • Time tracking on any device
  • Employee scheduling
  • QuickBooks integration

>> Compare Quotes

QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) ranked high on our list of the best employee scheduling software. So it’s no surprise to see them at the top of this guide.

TSheets was famous for how well it helped keep track of workers in the field and on jobsites, and QB Time has kept all those helpful features.

Your employees clock-in from anywhere using the mobile timesheet app. The app will track time even if WiFi and cell service is unavailable.

You can leverage geofencing technology to draw a virtual radius around your business or job site. This allows you to make sure your employees are where they need to be to get the job done.

QuickBooks Time multiple platforms demo page.

As I’ve already alluded to, the employee scheduling features are exceptional as well. This is an added bonus that comes standard with your time and attendance system.

For those of you who want a more traditional time clock system, where your staff and clock in and clock out on the same device, you can use the Clock Kiosk. The kiosk works on any tablet or computer with a connection to the Internet.

Each employee has a unique 4-digit pin. The system also has a biometric facial recognition tool to prevent the “buddy punching” system.

Here’s a quick comparison of the two plans and pricing options for QB Time:

Premium — $20 base fee + $8 per user per month

  • Time tracking on any device
  • Mobile app with GPS capability
  • Payroll and invoicing
  • QuickBooks integration
  • Employee scheduling
  • Real-time reporting
  • Time clock kiosk (including facial recognition)

Elite — $40 base fee + $10 per user per month

  • All Premium features
  • Timesheet signatures
  • Geofencing
  • Project activity feed and estimates
  • Track project progress

Both plans are available for a 14-day trial for any business that wants to test them out.

I’d recommend this product to any business that wants to a time and attendance system to simplify their payroll process. It integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks accounting software (obviously), but also Gusto, Square, Expensify, Xero, and other popular solutions.

TimeClock Plus — Best for Large Businesses and Secured Access Control

  • Customized pricing
  • Wide range of time clocks
  • Fully customizable
  • Top of the line equipment

>> Compare Quotes

TimeClock Plus gives you great time tracking solutions at an affordable cost.

Their hardware is top of the line. You can rest easy knowing their features and tools are up to snuff.

Depending on your business type, TimeClock Plus has a wide range of time clocks for you to consider:

  • Barcode clocks — Employees scan their badges to clock in and out
  • Biometric clocks — Fingerprint scanners and hand scanners
  • Magnetic swipe clocks — Can be used with pre-existing magstripe cards
  • PIN entry clocks — Employees clock in and out using their unique PINs
  • Proximity clocks — To ensure maximum speed and efficiency
  • Web clock — For online time keeping

In addition to using advanced equipment for tracking time and attendance, TimeClock Plus doubles as a security feature. You’ll have the option to configure select equipment with your door locks to prevent unauthorized access to buildings, rooms, or any other entrance with a locked door.

TimeClockPlus attendance and time data screen.

This type of system is best for larger organizations with complex security needs. Most small business owners won’t need employees to scan a fingerprint to enter rooms throughout the building.

TimeClock Plus systems are fully customizable.

It has built-in absence management tools and integrates with your employee scheduling software as well. Alternatively, you can use the TimeClock Plus workforce scheduling system if you don’t have one already.

TimeClock Plus has more than 30 years of experience providing services to businesses. They provide top of the line equipment for every time and attendance system.

While these time clocks might sound complex, TimeClock Plus makes the process easy for you.

You’ll have a consultation with an advisor to find the best solution for your business. They’ll set up the system for you and even train your supervisors and employees on how to use it.

As a fully-customized solution, there are no prices available online. Although you can expect to pay top dollar for advanced equipment like biometrics that syncs with your security system.

Stratustime — Best Cloud-Based Software for Small Businesses

  • Starts at $4/mo per employee
  • Access on any device
  • Works with 60+ payroll systems
  • Cloud-based and easy to use

>> Compare Quotes

Stratustime is a cloud-based time and attendance software from Nettime Solutions.

The offer a simple yet intuitive way for employees to clock in, clock out, and request time off.

It’s incredibly simple for anyone to use. Mangers, employees, and even payroll staff benefit from Stratustime.

Stratustime is flexible, offering plans and services for a company of any size. This means that it can grow with your business as you scale and add new employees.

It also integrates with 60+ payroll systems to ensure a streamlined process through each HR component.

Stratustime workflow and process diagram.

As a cloud-based system, it can be accessed on any device. From smartphones to a computer in the office, Stratustime is available 24/7.

Some of the top features of Stratustime by Nettime Solutions include:

  • Ability to clock in or clock out from anywhere
  • Intuitive schedule views
  • Hour tracking
  • PTO accruals
  • Time off requests
  • Sick time
  • Simple manager approvals
  • Employee scheduling tools
  • Time forecasting
  • Alerts
  • Geofencing
  • ACA compliance

While the exact prices and plans aren’t available on the website, Stratustime is very affordable. This is another reason why it’s a top choice for small businesses.

Monthly rates start as low as $4 per employee. There are no long term contracts, so you can cancel at any time if you’re unhappy (which probably won’t happen).

Using a cloud-based software like Stratustime means you won’t have any complicated equipment installations or troubleshooting problems. The software lives in the cloud, so it can be up and running in minutes.

Existing businesses using Stratustime have nothing but good things to say about the software. For smaller organizations with one location, multiple locations, and remote employees, Stratustime is an excellent choice for your time and attendance system.

UKG (formerly Kronos) — Best for Small to Midsize Businesses

  • Industry-specific solutions
  • Safe, secure, and reliable
  • Automation tools
  • Real-time data & visibility reports

>> Compare Quotes

UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) was formed by a merger between two major players in the HR tech space, Kronos and Ultimate Group.

Kronos had one of the most extensive time and attendance systems on the market, and it’s only gotten better since the merger in 2020.

UKG is going to be overkill the really small business, or one that’s never going to grow beyond a few dozen employees.

But it’s a solid idea for businesses that are looking to use time tracking along side other HR and business management software. UKG can keep your workforce management, employee scheduling, HR database, analytics, payroll, and human capital management under one roof.

Common industries that use UKG for time and attendance management include:

  • Health care
  • Retail
  • Manufacturing
  • Higher education
  • State and government
  • Contract services
  • Banking
  • Police and corrections
  • Distribution

What makes UKG unique is the way that they provide business solutions. They have several different product suites to accommodate the needs of your organization.

UKG Ready

  • Best for small business HR
  • Flexible pay rules to track and manage labor costs
  • Manager and employee self-service tools
  • Multiple collection options (including time clock on web and mobile)
  • Enforce attendance policy with tracking tools

UKG Dimensions

  • Best for midsize or large organization workforce management
  • Use data to power your management
  • Data collection using handheld devices, phone access, badge and biometrics
  • Devices for multiple environments and universal device manager
  • Streamlined data flow

UKG Pro

  • Best for midsize or large organization human capital management
  • Unified suite for payroll, recruiting, talent, time and attendance

You can get a product suite for practically anything. Some are more complex than others. It all depends on what your business is looking for.

Regardless of the solution you choose, Kronos systems are safe, secure, modern, and reliable.

Contact their sales team to request a quote and schedule a consultation.

uAttend — Best for Very Small Businesses

  • Powerful, reliable, & affordable
  • Web and mobile app access
  • Multiple time clock options
  • Connected to the cloud

>> Compare Quotes

uAttend is a simple way to track time and attendance at your business developed by Workwell. It’s a powerful, reliable, and affordable alternative to traditional time clocks.

You’ll also have web access and mobile app access to the system. This is an ideal feature for your remote workforce. You can even set up geofencing functionality to restrict punches to designated locations.

I love their web dashboard. It’s the perfect way for managers to see everything at a glance. You’ll be able to see who’s working, who missed a punch, and dozens of other reports.

Since this solution is web-based, you won’t have to download any software, and it can be accessed from anywhere. Even if you’re away from the office you’ll know exactly what’s going on with your staff at all times.

Here’s a quick overview of some of the popular time clocks and hardware offered by uAttend:

  • RFID Card LAN Time Clock — $119
  • Fingerprint LAN Time Clock — $149
  • Touch Tablet Wifi Time Clock — $179
  • RFID Card Wifi Time Clock — $219
  • Fingerprint Wifi Time Clock — $249
  • Facial Recognition LAN Time Clock — $259

Depending on your needs, you can get a time clock for somewhere in the $120 to $260 range. This is extremely affordable, even for very small businesses.

In addition to the time clocks, you can purchase RFID cards and key fobs from uAttend as well.

All of the time clocks come with a monthly subscription based on the number of employees you have. The clocks won’t work without a subscription. All of the prices are transparent.

  • 1-9 employees — $20 per month
  • 10-19 employees — $34 per month
  • 20-49 employees — $59 per month
  • 50-99 employees — $94 per month
  • 100+ employees — $119 per month

While uAttend does have plans to accommodate larger organizations, I’d definitely recommend it to those of you who have a smaller operation. It’s an ideal solution for businesses that fall within those first two tiers of up to 19 employees. Beyond that, I’d look elsewhere.

iSolved Time — Best for Growing Businesses

  • All-in-one solution
  • Extremely flexible options
  • Cloud-based system
  • Employee scheduling tools

>> Compare Quotes

iSolved Time is another all-in-one solution for time and attendance. It’s a simple way for managers, supervisors, business owners, and employees to manage time tracking.

They offer a wide variety of solutions including physical time clocks, a mobile app for time tracking, employee self-service tools, and a combination of these offerings.

Setting up your new system from iSolved Time is quick and easy. You’ll also have access to a wide range of training options, so you know the ins and outs of the solution.

Like many other choices on our list, iSolved Time is a cloud-based system. You’ll have the option to add physical time clocks on-site, but you can access information from anywhere with an Internet connection 24/7.

Here are some of the top features and benefits of the iSolved Time software:

  • Geofencing capability
  • Employee scheduling tools
  • Ability to accommodate remote employees, multiple worksites and locations
  • Time management tools
  • Choice of time collection methods (virtual clock, physical, mobile app)
  • Sophisticated HR integration

I like iSolved Time because they have the features and capabilities to accommodate any business size. That’s why it’s a top solution for those of you with growing businesses.

As your company scales and you continue to add new employees to your team or multiple locations, iSolved Time has the capacity to grow with you.

How to Choose the Best Time and Attendance System For Your Business

Now the best part: it’s time to choose a good time and attendance system.

Not sure how to choose? Don’t worry. Just follow our methodology to narrow down your options.

This is the same rubric we used when determining this list. I’ll describe the features that you need to look out for while you’re browsing.

Compare Quotes From The Best Best Time And Attendance Systems

Get matched up with a time and attendance system that fits your needs.

>> Compare Quotes

Hardware

The very first thing you need to do is determine if you want physical hardware associated with your time and attendance system.

For those of you who are already using punch cards, a modern time clock is a viable replacement. I’d recommend this for businesses where the majority of employees work on-site at the same location. Punching in and out as they enter and exit makes the most sense.

For those of you with smaller teams or lots of remote or mobile workers, hardware won’t be necessary. You can find a time tracking system with a mobile app for managing everything on the go. There are also web-based solutions that don’t require hardware either.

Punch Method

The punch method will obviously depend on if you’re using hardware or not. But there are still variations with or without physical equipment.

For example, mobile app punching can be managed using geofencing technology. Your staff will only be able to clock in if they enter the designed location for a job site.

When it comes to in-person clock-ins and outs, there are time clocks that work with PINs, RFID cards, fingerprints, hand prints, facial recognition, and more.

A small coffee shop probably won’t need facial recognition or other biometrics as the punch method, but a sophisticated business with advanced security needs would benefit from this feature.

Integrations

Your new time and attendance system should do more than just track time. It should integrate with other tools that you’re using to minimize manual administrative tasks.

Look for a solution that integrates with your employee scheduling software or payroll system. Some of the options on our list have these features built-in.

Business Size

A startup team of four and mid-market companies with 200 employees will not have the same time and attendance needs. It’s important to find a solution that works well for the size of your organization.

Lots must be taken into consideration here. Some systems charge you based on the size of your staff. You could even incur additional costs for things like key FOBs and ID cards.

If you currently have a smaller business now, make sure you choose a system that can scale with you as your business grows. That way, you won’t have to switch systems as you hire additional employees or open up new locations.

The Top Time and Attendance Systems in Summary

Rippling, OnTheClock, and QuickBooks Time stand out as the best time and attendance systems on the market. These solutions, along with the other top picks on our list, make it easy for any business to accurately track employee time.

The best time and attendance systems sync with your payroll provider to ensure seamless and accurate pay runs every time.

Compare Quotes From The Best Best Time And Attendance Systems

Get matched up with a time and attendance system that fits your needs.

>> Compare Quotes


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Compare The Best Shared Hosting Plans

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best shared hosting company for most people is Hostinger or DreamHost.

Shared web hosting is the perfect solution for new websites. As an entry-level service, it’s also ideal for simple websites or anyone with a tight budget.

The best hosts don’t feel like they’re shared.  That means uptime, speed, and support are so good you won’t even notice you’re sharing a server with other sites.

Compare the Top 9 Best Shared Hosting Companies

How to choose the best shared hosting plans. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing shared hosting plans.

Getting good shared hosting is about more than just getting a good deal. You want to make sure you have a little room to grow, and the tools you need to build your site.

Read on for in-depth reviews of each web host. I’ll cover the the basics of what you’re looking at in plain language.

After the reviews, there’s a guide to help you assess your options, whether you’re launching a new site from scratch or looking to change hosting providers

Hostinger – Best Web Hosting for Tight Budgets

  • Starts at $1.39/month
  • Month-to-month pricing
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • 30-day money back guarantee
Get an 85% discount

Hostinger offers one of the most affordable hosting services I’ve seen.

In fact, their plans start at $1.39/month for their Single Shared Hosting plan. Their most expensive plan is their Business Shared Hosting Plan that’s just $3.99/month.

Yes, you read that right. That’s rock bottom pricing.

The catch? These are promotional rates. When you renew, the price jumps up—but it’s still just $2.99/month.

Hostinger pricing page.

To lock in the lowest price, you have to sign up for 48 months, which stretches out your discount as long as possible. And when you renew, it’s still going to cost less than most other shared hosting.

Alongside that unbeatable pricing, Hostinger promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee and their site speed is more than serviceable.

Here’s a peek at Hostinger’s plans, with pricing for a four-year upfront commitment:

Single Shared Hosting – $1.39/month

  • 1 website
  • 30 GB SSD storage
  • ~10,000 monthly visits
  • 1 email account
  • 2 Databases
  • 100 GB bandwidth

Premium Shared Hosting – $2.59/month

  • 100 websites
  • 100 GB SSD Storage
  • ~25,000 monthly visits
  • Unlimited databases
  • Free domain
  • Free email
  • Google Ads credit
  • Unlimited bandwidth

Business Shared Hosting – $3.99/month

  • 100 websites
  • 200 GB SSD storage
  • ~1,000,000 monthly visits
  • Unlimited databases
  • Free domain
  • Free email
  • Google Ads credit
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Daily backups

All plans come with managed WordPress, which is an excellent inclusion if you want to use WordPress as your CMS. That means even with these low, low prices, you get one-click WordPress installation, the WP Starter site building wizard, auto updates, and a lot more.

If you’re looking for a decent shared web host on a tight budget, Hostinger is a fantastic option.

DreamHost – Best Shared Hosting That Leaves Room to Grow

  • Normally $2.59/month
  • Month-to-month pricing at $4.95
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 4.6/5 rating from Trustpilot
See the best deals

DreamHost offers cost-effective shared hosting without sacrificing performance.

There are actually three big reasons why DreamHost stands out to us:

  • Reasonable monthly rates. You can get a good price for shared hosting without signing a contract. With a monthly rate that starts at $5.99 per month, DreamHost is much less expensive than other providers who only give you a good deal with a long-term commitment.
  • Unlimited traffic. They give you the option to take on more traffic without charging you more for bandwidth. That means if you have an article go viral and a ton of traffic floods into your site, you won’t get punished for it on your next bill. That can be great if you’re planning to be the next Tim Ferriss or James Altucher.
  • Plenty of plans. They offer a ton of different plans beyond their shared hosting. That means if you ever get to a point where you’re ready to upgrade, they offer VPS hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, managed WordPress, and more. It just depends on what you want.
Dreamhost home page.

DreamHost’s interface is user-friendly and their plans are quite affordable, coming in two flavors:

Shared Starter – Starting at $2.59 per month

  • Hosting for 1 website
  • 5 subdomains
  • Email starting at $1.67 per month
  • 50 GB of site storage

Shared Unlimited – Starting at $5.95 per month

  • Hosting for unlimited websites
  • Unlimited subdomains
  • Email included
  • Unlimited site storage

The Shared Starter plan is the best option for brand-new websites. You get plenty of site storage and five subdomains. The biggest downside is that email accounts from your domain aren’t included, but you can add that option in checkout.

Personally, I recommend the Shared Unlimited plan. It comes with added benefits I like, such as email accounts bound to your domain, unlimited subdomains, and unlimited SSD storage.

Both plans come with WordPress pre-installed, a WP site builder, and a free SSL certificate.

DreamHost guarantees a 100% uptime rate. If they fail to meet that promise, you’ll receive compensation for every hour of downtime, which is up to 10% of your next pre-paid renewal fee.

They also offer a 97-day money-back guarantee. In my experience, 30 days seems to be the industry standard, so DreamHost really stands behind their product by tripling that period.

For those of you who already have a WordPress site, the DreamHost experts will migrate the site to your new account for a $99 fee. If you fall into this category, I strongly recommend taking advantage of this service.

No matter what, go with DreamHost if you’ve got lofty goals for your site’s future.

Bluehost – Best for Creating Your First Website

  • Normally $7.99/month
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 30-day money back guarantee
Get a 63% discount

Bluehost is a favorite of ours at Quick Sprout, ranking high on our lists for best web host, best VPS host, and best dedicated host.

While there are many reasons we like them, the reason we often recommend them is because they’re the perfect option for beginners. With their one-click WordPress install, intuitive dashboard, and award-winning 24/7 customer support, they’ll hold your hand through the entire setup process.

That means zero development or web design knowledge needed. Just sign up and go. You’ll have a website up in less than 20 minutes. That’s why we highly recommend them if you’re creating your very first website. And if you need more help, be sure to check out our article all on how to create a website.

Bluehost home and offer page.

Bluehost offers four different plans:

Basic – Starts at $2.75 per month

  • 1 website
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • 50 GB of SSD storage
  • 1 domain included
  • 25 sub domains

Plus – Starts at $5.45 per month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Unlimited SSD storage
  • Unlimited domains
  • Spam experts
  • Office 365 Mailbox (free for 30 days)

Choice Plus – Starts at $5.45 per month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Unlimited SSD storage
  • Unlimited domains
  • Spam experts
  • Domain privacy
  • Site backup

Pro – Starts at $13.95 per month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Unlimited SSD storage
  • Unlimited domains
  • 2 spam experts
  • Domain privacy
  • Site backup
  • Dedicated IP

My pick for most folks is the Choice Plus plan. With a starting price point the same as the Plus plan, it’s worth paying a few extra bucks per month when it comes time to renew to keep site backups and domain privacy.

But if the extra spam protection and dedicated IP is enough for you, the Pro plan is a great value at the price point, too.

Bluehost is also highly scalable. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to switch plans easily.

So, if your site is brand new and you’re not planning to prioritize traffic for a couple of years, then you can definitely get away with the Basic plan for the time being.

Bluehost’s pricing plans are straightforward, but they will charge you for add-ons.

To get the best possible rate, you need to lock in your plan for 36 months. That’s another reason why I lean toward Choice Plus over the Plus and Basic packages.

Even if you’re paying a little extra for resources that are going unused right now, it’s worth it for that time in the future when your site eventually scales.

It will only end up costing you an extra $30 per year to go with Choice Plus over Basic for the first three years. That’s a great price for a reliable shared hosting service.

Try Bluehost on for size today with their 30-day money back guarantee.

A2 Hosting – Best Shared Host for Sites With a Need for Speed

  • Normally $7.99/month
  • Month-to-month pricing at $9.99
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • 30-day money back guarantee
Get Started

A2 Hosting is one of the fastest shared hosting services available on the market today.

That’s all due to their powerful servers that offer the best loading speeds and uptime rates. If you’re looking to deliver content swiftly to your audience, this is the hosting plan for you.

A2 Hosting home and offer page.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of their four shared hosting plans:

Startup – $2.99/month

  • 1 website
  • 100 GB SSD storage
  • Free site migration

Drive – $5.99/month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unlimited SSD Storage
  • Free site migration
  • Free automatic backups

Turbo Boost – $6.99/month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unlimited NVMe Storage
  • Free site migration
  • Free automatic backups

Turbo Max – $12.99/month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unlimited NVMe Storage
  • Free site migration
  • Free automatic backups

For those of you who have a need for speed, the Turbo plan will be best for you. It’s probably the fastest shared hosting plan offered by any provider on our list. A2 is already known for its speed, and Turbo is their top-of-the-line shared plan.

While it ends up being $20.99/month when you renew, it’s still cheaper than some of the other high-end plans we’ve looked at. Overall, A2 Hosting is priced in the middle range compared to the competition.

You can also check out my full A2 Hosting review for more on their other features and plans.

Furthermore, A2 Hosting offers free site migrations on all of their shared plans. Other providers charge an added fee for this service.

They have excellent customer support and a money-back guarantee, which are helpful bonuses.

Tap into A2 Hosting’s turbo-charged shared servers today to feel the thrill of speedy loading times.

InMotion – Best Shared Hosting for 24/7/365 Customer Support

  • Normally $7.99/month
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • Free and unlimited email
  • 90-day money back guarantee
Get a 57% discount

InMotion Hosting is a fantastic option for anyone who loves—or knows they’ll rely heavily on—quality customer support.

Seriously. Take a look at any reviews from them. Nine times out of ten they’re going to mention their support—and for good reason.

InMotion boasts an incredibly responsive customer support team that’s available at all hours of the day. You can reach them via chat, phone, email, or through your customer portal.

They can help you in case your site experiences any issues like cyberattacks or if it crashes. They’ll even help you migrate your site if you need it.  

They also have a fantastic knowledge base in case you want to take care of things yourself. You’ll be able to learn about anything from transferring a current domain to setting up Mac Mail, Outlook, or email on your phone.

InMotion has three shared hosting plans for you to choose from.

Lite – $2.79/month

  • 1 website
  • 10 GB SSD storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Free email address
  • Free SSL

Launch – $5.99/month

  • 2 websites
  • 50 GB SSD storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • 10 email addresses
  • Free SSL

Power – $5.99/month

  • 50 websites
  • 100 GB SSD storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • 50 email addresses
  • Free SSL

Pro – $13.99/month

  • 100 websites
  • 200 GB SSD storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited email
  • Free SSL

Unlike other plans we’ve seen, InMotion’s entry-level plan offers hosting for more than one website, unlimited disk space, and unlimited email. This is a great value for the price.

The Launch plan is the best option for beginners. Power is made for small business websites, and the Pro plan is made for developers and growing businesses.

Like we said before, though, compared to some of the other providers on our list, InMotion really stands out when it comes to their customer support. This is definitely something to keep in mind as a new website owner.

For those of you who decide to go with the Pro plan, you’ll get a 99.9% uptime guarantee. If InMotion fails to deliver on that promise, you’ll get credits toward free hosting.

Speaking of credits, InMotion’s Launch Plan—and all the other plans higher than it—come with $150 in free advertising credits, which can be very useful for a new website. It’s a great way to gain some exposure through popular search engines

Go into your web hosting knowing that you have a helping hand all the way by choosing InMotion.

HostGator – Best Shared Hosting for Building Your First Ecommerce Store

  • Normally $6.95/month
  • Month-to-month at $10.95
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • 45-day money back guarantee
Get the best deal

HostGator gives you everything you need to create an online store and start selling products. Their ecommerce site builder is simple and intuitive and they also sweeten the deal with $150 Google Ads credit to help get your marketing off on the right foot.

For further customization, they give you cPanel access, which isn’t always an offering among shared hosting providers. That means you can customize your online store to your heart’s desire by installing plugins and tweaking settings.

HostGator home page.

Their plans are as follows:

Hatchling Plan – $2.64 per month

  • Single domain
  • WordPress installs
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
  • $200 marketing offer
  • Free email address

Baby Plan – $3.38 per month

  • Unlimited domains
  • WordPress installs
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
  • $200 marketing offer
  • Free email address

Business Plan – $5.08 per month

  • Free upgrade to positive SSL
  • Free dedicated IP
  • Free SEO tools
  • Unlimited domains
  • WordPress installs
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free WordPress and cPanel website transfer
  • $200 marketing offer
  • Free email address

Note: HostGator often offers flash sales—so the price might actually be even lower when you visit their page than what we have here.

Both the Baby and Business plan come with unlimited domains, while the Hatchling plan is for a single domain.

The Business plan comes with added benefits like a free dedicated IP, free SEO tools, and a free upgrade to Positive SSL.

I love the value they offer. The new customer rates are definitely on the lower end of the spectrum, but the renewal rates aren’t too expensive. Plus, you can lock in the introductory rate for three years.

If you’re considering HostGator, I’d recommend the Business Plan. Yes, even for beginners.

It’s not often that I pick the top-tier pricing as the go-to plan for everyone. But, with HostGator, I think that the value for that plan is the best. The add-ons that come with the Business Plan are worth the higher pricing. Ultimately, it’s still less than $15 per month, even after you renew.

In addition to 24/7 server monitoring, 24/7 live chat and phone support, HostGator also has more than 500 video tutorials and nearly 700 help articles if you want to learn how to do things on your own. They also offer pretty solid cloud hosting.

Get your web store started on the right foot by choosing HostGator for your hosting.

SiteGround – Best Host for When Your Audience Grows Big

  • Starts at $3.99/month
  • Free SSL, email, CDN, & backups
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Get a 67% discount

SiteGround is a great choice for growing websites because each plan gives you different options depending on your monthly visitor load.

They also offer unmetered traffic with every single plan. That means you don’t have to worry about how big your audience gets or how many people you have coming to your website. You can get a spike in traffic and not see your resources throttled or your price jump at your next bill.

SiteGround pricing page.

Beyond that, SiteGround makes it easy to scale up to a bigger, better plan if your site’s newly massive audience becomes the new normal.

Here’s a brief overview of SiteGround’s three shared hosting plans:

StartUp – $3.99/month

  • 1 website
  • 10 GB of web space
  • ~10,000 monthly visitors
  • Unmetered traffic
  • Free SSL
  • Daily backup
  • Free CDN
  • Free email
  • Managed WordPress
  • Unlimited Databases

GrowBig – $6.69/month

  • Unlimited websites
  • 20 GB of web space
  • ~25,000 monthly visitors
  • Unmetered traffic
  • Free SSL
  • Daily backup
  • Free CDN
  • Free email
  • Managed WordPress
  • Unlimited Databases
  • On-demand backup copies

GoGeek – $10.69/month

  • Unlimited websites
  • 40 GB of web space
  • ~100,000 monthly visitors
  • Unmetered traffic
  • Free SSL
  • Daily backup
  • Free CDN
  • Free email
  • Managed WordPress
  • Unlimited Databases
  • On-demand backup copies
  • Priority support

If your website is brand new, you probably won’t be getting 10,000 monthly visitors for quite some time. But with that said, I’d still recommend the GrowBig plan over the StartUp option.

The GrowBig plan comes with on-demand backups and a free site transfer. That’s an important feature for those of you who are switching to SiteGround from another hosting provider.

The StartUp plan is for small, simple websites that are expecting tons of website site traffic. I’m sure the majority of you won’t fall into this category, but if your needs are super simple, it’s a still-solid offering from SiteGround.

GoGeek comes with three levels of super-caching, advanced priority support, white-label and client management services, and pre-installed Git. All three plans come with 100% renewable energy match, too!

There’s a plan for everyone in SiteGround’s shared hosting, so get started with them today to be ready for when your site blows up in popularity.

iPage – Most Affordable Shared Hosting for a Customizable Online Store

  • Normally $7.99/month
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • FREE drag and drop site builder
  • 30-day money back guarantee
Get a 75% discount

iPage offers a very straightforward pricing plan with just one plan for shared web hosting.

For real, it’s dead simple: Their plan costs $1.99 per month when you sign up and $7.99 per month when you renew. Overall, this definitely puts them in the running for the best cheap web hosting.

But iPage’s standout features are a highly intuitive ecommerce store builder that comes with $200 worth of ad credits to use on Google or Bing. That’s more than even HostGator gives you.

iPage home and offer page.

They also offer a ton of unlimited features like disk space, bandwidth, and domains. It’s easily the best deal when it comes to creating an online store.

Even though they offer low prices, iPage has great features like:

  • Unlimited disk space
  • Scalable bandwidth
  • Unlimited domains
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free domain for one year
  • Free ecommerce integration
  • 24/7 phone and live chat support

That’s a lot of “frees” and “unlimiteds” for such a low-cost plan.

Overall, iPage is best for smaller websites and stores. Think stores where you’re only selling 1-5 products.

Be aware, they do charge extras for things like site transfers, but that’s expected for a low-cost web host.

Get with iPage to host your ecommerce store on the cheap.

GoDaddy – Best Shared Hosting for Bundling Domain and Email

  • Normally $8.99/month
  • 24/7/365 U.S. based support
  • Free domain and 1 year of email
  • Guaranteed 99.9% uptime
Get a 88% discount

GoDaddy is a popular and well-known brand in the hosting industry. They’re an excellent option if you’re looking to bundle a great email service and domain with your hosting. In fact, that’s why we included them in our best domain registrars, too.

Their email service is especially great if you already use Microsoft for your email provider. It’s worth noting that Microsoft 365 is only offered for free in the first year—though you can cancel your automatic renewal at any time.

GoDaddy home page.

GoDaddy offers three shared hosting plans. Each one is made for different types of websites.

Economy – $2.99 per month

  • 1 website
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • 100 GB storage
  • Free Microsoft 365 email in your first year
  • Free domain with annual plan

Deluxe – $7.99 per month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Unlimited storage
  • Free Microsoft 365 email in your first year
  • Free domain with annual plan

Ultimate – $12.99 per month

  • Unlimited websites
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Unlimited storage
  • Free Microsoft 365 email in your first year
  • Free domain with annual plan
  • 2x processing power and memory
  • Free SSL certificate in your first year.

As you can see, all of the GoDaddy plans are affordable. There’s something for everyone on this list, and it’s very straightforward.

If you’re starting a simple blog from scratch, you can get away with the Economy plan.

You always have the option to level-up if you need more resources. GoDaddy will actually send you an alert if you’re getting close to exceeding things like your memory or CPU. That way you can stay on top of things. Read my full Godaddy hosting review here to get a deeper view into what makes them work.

For those of you who have a small business and expect heavy site traffic, you’ll be better off with the Ultimate plan. They’ll give your site the processing power you need to succeed.

Knock out hosting, a domain, and email service in one fell swoop by going with GoDaddy.

What Is Shared Web Hosting?

Since the majority of you are probably new website owners, let me take a moment to explain exactly what shared hosting is and how it works.

With a shared hosting plan, your website will be hosted on the same server as other websites. This means that you’ll be sharing (hence the name) server resources with those other sites as well.

That’s the reason why shared hosting is so cost-effective compared to VPS hosting or dedicated hosting plans.

Shared hosting is like renting a bedroom in a house with other roommates. You have your own room, but you’re sharing supplies and resources in the house. If one of your roommates has a bunch of friends over and they eat all of the food or use all of the soap, there won’t be anything left for you.

This is the major downside of shared hosting. If another site on the same server has tons of traffic, it can slow down the loading speed on your website.

Shared hosting is an entry-level service offered by most web hosting providers.

How to Find the Best Shared Hosting for You

So how do you find the best shared hosting?

When it comes to any type of hosting, the two most important factors are always going to be:

  • Reliable Uptime Rates. This is how often your website actually stays up and doesn’t go down for unplanned reasons. Very important because if your website is down, you won’t make any money or reach any readers.
  • Fast Loading Speeds. This is how quickly your site loads its pages and it’s important for your visitors’ experience on your website (think of how often you’ve exited a site because the page was taking just a little too long to load).

These are vitally important no matter what type of hosting you’re looking for—so we’re not going to spend much time talking about this.

Why? Most web hosts are fairly similar in this regard. They need good uptime and speed in order to be any good to begin with

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for VPS hosting, shared hosting, or dedicated hosting. You need solid uptime and speed.

So, reliable uptime and speed doesn’t necessarily help us decide what the best web host is for common needs, other than eliminating hosting options that flat-out don’t make the cut.

That’s why we’re going to take a look at the other factors we believe are very important when considering shared web hosting.

Below are the criteria that we used when creating this list. Use it for your own research to help guide your ultimate decision:

Set-It-and-Forget-It Web Hosting

If it’s your first time building a website, it’s easy to be intimidated and frustrated by the process.

That’s why you want to find a provider that makes web hosting a breeze for you. In fact, it should be something you don’t really have to think about at all once you set it up.

That’s why we love options like Bluehost so much. They make it incredibly easy for beginners to create a website, especially with features like one-click WordPress installation.

InMotion’s Launch plan is also another beginner-friendly hosting solution that we highly recommend. They’ll walk you through the entire setup process and, by the end of it, you’ll feel like a pro with your very own website.

If you do want to get more hands-on with your host a bit more, you’ll want to find a host that gives you an easy-to-use and easy-to-navigate platform. This is another area where Bluehost shines.

High-Traffic Hosting Capacity

In the ideal world, you’ll get a ton of traffic to your website right off the bat—but the reality is it likely will take you a while to get there.

When you do arrive, though, you’ll want to make sure that your web host can manage your heightened traffic load.

Luckily, all of the shared hosting providers on this list can manage a decent amount of traffic —some of them do so better than others, though.

For example, web hosts like Bluehost and HostGator give you unmetered bandwidth. That means you won’t get penalized (in terms of a poor visitor experience or additional fees) when you have a flood of traffic coming to your site all at once.

As we mentioned before, though, shared hosting is a fairly entry-level hosting solution. If you see your website easily attracting at least 200,000 monthly visitors, you’ll want to upgrade to VPS, cloud hosting, or a dedicated server to handle this routine strain on resources.

This is also an area where you’ll want to take a look at the uptime assurances of each web host. Most all of them will offer you uptime in the neighborhood of 99.99%.

Some, such as Hostinger, will refund you for any time your website goes down due to a spike in traffic. Though you want your website up as much as possible, it’s good to see a web host put some skin in the game in order to assure you that they’ll work to keep your site up and running—and they’ll compensate you generously if they can’t.

Customer Service at a Moment’s Notice

Customer support is something that is sneakily important when it comes to web hosting.

After all, you don’t ever want to need it. But, when you do, you’ll want it to be the most helpful and comprehensive support you can get—especially if your website is making money for you.

When researching your shared web hosts, take a look at what each host offers for customer support.

Some questions to consider:

  • Can you reach them via phone? What are their hours of operation?
  • Are they available 24/7/365?
  • Can you call them even if you don’t live in the United States?
  • Do they offer live chat, email, phone, and ticketing options?

Customer support isn’t just about calling someone up when something goes wrong, either. It can also come in the form of tutorials, guides, or user forums to help answer any questions you have.

It could also be the tools available to build and support your website. For example, iPage offers an easy-to-set-up ecommerce integration that works great if you’re creating an online store.

Plans for When You’re Ready to Upgrade Your Website

Shared hosting is often seen as the entry point for a lot of websites. It’s an easy way to get a site live even if you have no experience with building a site or using a web host.

If you have bigger goals for your website, like becoming a wildly popular destination, creating an ecommerce store, attaining boatloads of leads, or a combination of all these things, you’re going to eventually want to upgrade your host.

VPS hosting is a common step up from shared hosting, as it provides servers with more resources to work with.

If you eventually get to the point where you’re drawing in millions of readers each month, you might want to consider getting a dedicated host.

Virtually all of the hosts on this list offer an easy way to take the next step up from shared hosting.

For example, Bluehost offers both VPS and dedicated hosting for when you’re ready to really level up your website. DreamHost offers cloud hosting, as well as managed WordPress hosting.

Each one of these hosts have a dedicated customer support team that’ll help you easily upgrade your hosting service—and, often, you don’t have to worry about a lengthy and painful migration process because it’s still from the same company. Double win!

What Type of Website Do You Want to Build?

The right web host for you also largely depends on what you’ll actually be using the website for.

If you just want to build a single website for a portfolio or information about your business, each of the hosts on this list can easily handle that for you.

But if you want to, say, open an online store, we highly recommend you use a host such as iPage. They give you a free online store, PayPal integration, and tons of other ecommerce features.

GoDaddy also offers an online store builder along with their hosting and domain plans. You’ll be able to easily create a great-looking store on their site with just a few clicks.

If you want to get into blogging, DreamHost and Bluehost are great solutions. They offer great WordPress integrations to help get your blog up and running and attract tons of new readers.

Consider what you want to do with your website and see what each host has to offer for your goals.

The Top Shared Hosting Plans in Summary

All shared web hosting services are not created equal. Some providers offer better plans than others. When comparing packages side-by-side, you should consider speed, power, performance, support, and scalability.

The best shared hosting plans typically offer great deals for new websites. Just make sure you choose a plan that can accommodate your traffic. You’ll likely need to upgrade your web hosting down the road, but you can put that off for a while if you choose the right starter plan today.



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