If you want to have a website, you must purchase two things: a web host and a domain name. Choosing the company you buy your hosting from is no small potatoes. Costs, features and reliability vary wildly. If you leave it to me I will use one of the companies below. If you’re not sure, I’m happy to discuss.
A Quick Definition of Web Host and Domain
In short, the web host is the physical address of the actual server, while the domain is the url, e.g. NameOfYourSite.com.
These are totally different products, but many companies try to lump everything together so they can sell you more stuff.
What Is a Domain?
If there were no domain providers, going to a website would require typing in a number, much like how we use phone numbers today. Instead we have domain providers, who essentially sell a nickname that knows to connect to your particular web host. You should be able to buy a domain for less than $15 per year. But once you buy a domain, hold onto it forever!
What is a Web Host?
Your web host is the computer where your website lives. It is not a software or system, it is a physical location in the world where you rent space on a computer. It serves up web pages, so we call it a server. The difference between your own computer and a server is that your computer goes to sleep when you aren’t using it. But a server stays awake 24 hours a day so that your site stays up too.
For this reason, web hosts are never free. It requires electricity to run all these computers, and that costs money. Web hosts cost about $4-40 per month. The ones I use are on the low end. If this is your first site, you don’t need an expensive host…and price and quality are not always correlated when it comes to web hosts!
In setting up your website, the host is the more important consideration than the domain. You can get your domain from just about anywhere and it doesn’t make too much difference. But it’s very important to choose a good web host.
Web Hosts Pay Referral Fees
You often can’t trust web hosting advice on the web because web hosts pay referral fees to websites that recommend them (AKA affiliates). Many popular sites post ads to the most popular web hosts so they can get a referral fee when someone clicks on their link. There’s nothing wrong with getting a referral fee, but it does give someone a reason to make a recommendation even when they haven’t done the proper research.
Here are the things I considered when researching the web hosts I endorse below.
I am an affiliate for GreenGeeks, but my stake in this is bigger than a referral fee. For one thing, if I endorse a crummy web host, that reflects on me. More importantly, if I have to contact their support on your behalf, I want to be dealing with someone who knows what they are talking about! Honestly the top names in web hosting provide an awful experience at a terrible price. If I can help my clients to support a better company while also saving them a buck, that means so much more to me than an affiliate fee. I have wasted valuable hours interacting with support for terrible web hosts; I would sacrifice any referral fee to get those hours back. I’d appreciate if you choose GreenGeeks that you get there by clicking on the link on this page and/or using futureisfiction as a code at check out, so the sale gets linked back to me!
Web Hosts I Recommend
I can set up hosting for you, but if you want to do it yourself, these are the companies I recommend.
(Updated for 2025)
Currently I recommend either Stablehost or GreenGeeks. Their pricing is comparable: though GreenGeeks gives a better discount on signup, Stablehost will give you the better price for the years following. I’ve also had a fantastic experience with WPEngine, but I’m not endorsing them because they cost ten times as much (starting at $35/month) as the perfectly cromulent web hosts below.
Years ago, Diane Presler had me research web hosts for her educational project Learn HTML with Song. I ended up with five solid hosts. One was bought out, one went under. Of the other three remaining, Stablehost was the most affordable, so that’s the one I used when I set up a new hosts for a clients. (If you’re wondering about the other recommended hosts that came out of the research, they were GeekStorage and Liquid Web. I’m not endorsing them only because I have more experience with the companies below, but they are probably also fine choices [in summary: Liquid Web is costly and GeekStorage lacks chat support]).
More recently, author Kristen Caven turned me onto GreenGeeks web host and I liked it so much I signed up to become an affiliate. For many years I used GreenGeeks exclusively, because Stablehost lacked chat support. And Green Geeks offsets all their carbon emissions! But now that Stablehost has chat support, the decision between the two is not as simple.
My point with this lengthy preamble is that my comparison below does not include all the relevant considerations. Those are detailed in my page on how to choose a web host. Rather, below I am detailing the relevant differences between the two hosts I recommend.
Cost Comparison: Stablehost Vs GreenGeeks
Both companies offer a discount for the first year of signing up. But once you invest in a website, it is going to be something you’ll want to keep going year after year. So I am comparing both the sign up cost as well as the costs following that.
If you’ve already purchased your domain (YourSite.com), note that cost and exclude it from the totals below.
What Stablehost will cost you
As of 2025…
Cost for the first year at Stablehost
About Domain Privacy
Legally, every website must have a public address. Since most authors do not have a separate business address, this is usually their home address. The average person doesn’t know how to look up a domain address, but regardless most of my clients don’t want their address listed publicly.
The solution is that most domain providers will offer to list their own address for an additional fee. If Interpol or law enforcement thinks you are committing a crime, they can still get your address by contacting the domain provider. But it will protect your home address from being identified by a creep who happens to look up your public site information.
$51.6 for first year of hosting + the cost of the domain: ~$13. Their domains include Domain Privacy for free, so this is an excellent value.
= $64.60 for the first year.
Cost for Following Years at Stablehost
At Stablehost, you get a loyalty discount if you’re willing to pay for more than one year at a time. The lowest price is for buying three years, and the highest is for a single year. I strongly recommend buying three years at a time, but this is why the price below is a range.
After the first year, the annual cost of Stablehost will range between $103.08-127.08, depending on whether they purchase for one year or up to 3. In addition, you’ll need to add the same cost for domain above, = 116.08-140.08 for following years.
= $116.08 for the second year (and beyond) at Stablehost
What GreenGeeks Will Cost You:
Promo Price for the First Year of GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks offers an incredible discount for sign up, but will cost more after that. Not only do they offer an unbeatable price of $2.95/month, they give you the first year of your domain for free. That comes out to $35.40 for the whole first year!
Price for GreenGeeks after the first year
After the promotional price ends, the cost of Green Geeks goes up to $12.95/month. But that’s not all! Their domains are pricey, because they don’t offer domains as a standalone service. Every year following, the standard domain will cost $17.95, + another 9.95 for domain privacy. That comes to a total of:
= $183.3 for the following years at GreenGeeks.
GreenGeeks does often offers discounts for buying more years at a time, but it’s not a certainty as it is with Stablehost. Even so, they will still cost more than Stablehost (especially if they provide your domain).
Bottom Line on Price Comparison between GreenGeeks and Stablehost.
Let’s presume you need to purchase both a web host and a domain (url).
Based on 2025 pricing, Stablehost will cost $64.60 for the first year and 116.08 after that (or 140.08 if you only buy a single year).
GreenGeeks will cost $35.40 for the first year and $183.30 for the following years.
So you save $29.20 on the first year of GreenGeeks but after that it could cost you $67.22 more to host with GreenGeeks than with Stablehost, every year.
If you already purchased your domain elsewhere, you can cut $27.90 off of that price difference.
Another Consideration…how much interaction do you want with your web host?
At GreenGeeks you can add me as a moderator of your account, whereas in StableHost I have to add you as a user on my account. Why does this matter?
It seems like a small thing, but it’s actually a big aspect of how working with me is different than some other website designers! Here’s why. At Stablehost, they expect someone in my position (i.e. someone who manages websites) that your customers will see none of the user interface. Instead, the account holder manages all their customers’ websites, along with their billing. At Stablehost, I am the boss of the website and you are merely a customer.
Whereas at GreenGeeks, you are the boss and I am your employee. The client signs up for the account, and I am merely there to step in when requested. I went this route because I presumed that my clients wanted full access to the products they are paying for! But I have learned over the years that is not always the case! Many of my clients see getting emails they don’t understand to be confusing, frustrating and a waste of their time. I am still grappling with how best to offset this concern in a way that is affordable and efficient.
The way it is at Stablehost is ideal for someone who wants to pay a bit more and wipe their hands of it. Stablehost’s lower pricing reflects this, as they expect their web designers to be the “middle man” providing most of the support. Whereas at GreenGeeks, they expect to interact directly with customers. They expect that the person who owns the site is also the person who should be contacted when the site needs updating, or when they launch a new feature, or if there is a hack or the site goes down, etc.
Bottom line: Stablehost may be better if you want to hire me to update your site and plugins, monitor your comments and uptime, review emails from the web host and domain, etc. While GreenGeeks may be better if you expect to be done with me after I am finished building the site. But ultimately, I can work with either one regardless of whether you want to be hands-off with your web host.
Both hosts are excellent, affordable and have good customer support.
Please use the links on this page or click on the banner below (rather than typing the url directly) if you want to get started with GreenGeeks.
Where to Purchase Your Domain
Most web hosting companies will also sell you domains. If you want to purchase your domain from one of the web hosts above, that can simplify matters (currently purchasing from GreenGeeks includes a free domain for the first year).
I purchased my domains from NameSilo because they have a good reputation, they were priced competitively, and they let you keep your address private for free (See inset above.) However, NameSilo’s prices have gone up since the pandemic and now StableHost has a better price for domains.
I’ve kept this page simple, but if you want to know why I endorse these companies, see how I choose a web host. If you have additional questions about choosing your web host, perhaps I can help.