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What is: Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting is a term used for web hosting service plans where multiple websites share the resources of a large web server. Many WordPress web hosting providers offer shared hosting plans at extremely affordable rates ranging anywhere from $3.95 per month to $9.95 per month. Shared web hosting plans are by far the cheapest and most affordable than other web hosting plans such as VPS or Dedicated server.

Due to their low cost, shared web hosting plans are considered ideal for small businesses, blogs, and portfolio websites. Most beginners don’t need anything more than the shared web hosting. We always recommend to keep your costs low when starting out and work your way up. You don’t need to spend money on resources that you don’t need.

Are you wondering why shared hosting is so cheap? Well by having multiple sites on the same server, web hosting companies can simply provide the service at a much more affordable rate. Think of this way. If you rent a house by yourself, then you are responsible for paying all the rent. If you have roommates, then you split the rent amongst everyone which makes the amount owed by each person to be a lot lower. To put things in perspective, a dedicated web server starts at somewhere around $150 per month and can go into thousands of dollars per month.

This post was originally published in the wpbeginner glossary.

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