Why Choosing the Cheapest Hosting Solution Can Sometimes Cost Small Businesses More
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Key Takeaways
- Cheap hosting isn’t always secure; each site on the shared server can be at various levels of risk
- Upgrading the hosting plan or migrating to another provider can be costly
- Fees for necessary add-ons can quickly add up
- Cheap hosting often comes with poor support and unresolved issues
- Businesses might face downtime, bad reviews, and lost sales
Cheap hosting (which is usually shared) involves multiple websites sharing the same server. They are all connected, so if one website suffers a breach or attack, all the others can be at risk. Vulnerabilities can exist despite hosting providers’ efforts to implement security measures, especially if the other websites on the server are inadequately protected.
Cheap hosting can pose a higher risk for websites with sensitive information. Regular updates and strong passwords can help mitigate security concerns, but in every event, cheap hosting is usually not secure. Small businesses can face a significant risk, making up almost half (43%) of cyberattack targets annually. 46% of cyberattacks in 2024 were perpetrated against small businesses with 1,000 or fewer employees. On average, small and medium-sized businesses can stand to lose $25,000.
Small businesses can be set back by anywhere from $120,000 to as much as $1.24 million to respond to and resolve data breaches. Industry insiders recently predicted that cybercrime costs would rise by 15%, reaching the mind-boggling $10.5 trillion in 2025.
Before we get any further into this article, we want to drop a quick disclaimer. If you purchase hosting using one of our links, we might receive a commission. This doesn’t cost you any extra and helps us create content free of charge. We may also have business relationships with various hosting companies and may be compensated for some content or ads—but rest assured, that doesn’t affect our opinion one bit; we’ve built Web Hosting Buddy on honest hosting reviews. Want to be sure? Check out our “Hosts We Don’t Recommend” page to see us call out bad hosting companies!
Lack of Sufficient Resources Might Compel a Business to Upgrade or Migrate
Shared hosting may limit the resources available, such as CPU and bandwidth. If another website sees a spike in traffic, the other sites on the server slow down (it’s common that some low quality shared hosts don’t manage resources properly. Large files, videos, or heavy plugins take up a lot of resources. A small business that anticipates growth might need to upgrade to a different type of web hosting should its expectations materialize.
Cheap hosting typically suffices for light to moderate traffic volume site. However, as traffic increases, a buiness might face the need to migrate to a more robust solution. Switching to a new hosting plan may be costly, especially if the customer has signed up for a long-term web hosting agreement that they now want to terminate. Migrating to a better provider will involve costs for data transfer, new hosting plans, and potential downtime during the transition.
Necessary Add-Ons Come With Extra Fees
Fees for necessary add-ons like backups, security upgrades, or extended storage can quickly add up with cheaper shared hosts. While basic backup plans only cost $2–$10/month, on-demand or more frequent backups can cost up to $20/month. Some providers charge $10–$50 per restoration if backups aren’t included in the plan.
Additional storage typically won’t cost more than $10/month for an extra 10–20 GB, but high-performance SSD storage is very likely to cost more.
As for security upgrades, the price for a web application firewall can be $10–$20/month, and malware scanning and removal is offered for $5–$30/month, and standalone DDoS Protection can cost up to $50/month.
Low-Quality Support Results in Unresolved Issues
Cheap hosting providers often skimp on customer service, offering limited or low-quality support. Resolving technical issues will, therefore, take longer, impacting the business’s brand and reputation. For example, a website that’s frequently down or slow can harm a brand’s image, making it appear unprofessional or unreliable. This can lead to lost sales and difficulty retaining customers. Support is literally one of the most important things in the hosting world (we talk about this a lot).
Low quality hosting can also cause a business to get bad reviews too. As of 2025, up to 84% of consumers referred to online reviews before making the decision to buy a product or service. Let’s say a local store receives a few negative online reviews, and 200 internet users read them over the next year. Assuming negative reviews deter 80% of viewers, that’s a loss of 160 potential customers. The annual cost to the company would be $80,000 if an average sale amounts to $500 – a significant loss!
Final Thoughts on Why Good Shared Hosting Matters
Opting for the cheapest hosting solution only seems like a smart move for some small businesses aiming to cut costs. The hidden expenses associated with poor performance, limited scalability, inadequate security, and subpar support can outweigh the initial savings. A reliable hosting provider that prioritizes uptime, speed, and security is not just an operational necessity—it’s an investment in your brand’s credibility and long-term success.
