Why Is Web Hosting So Expensive?

I know, I know. You are here because you want to understand…

Why is Web Hosting so expensive? Web Hosting is expensive because of the following factors:

There is cost associated with maintaining Servers on which websites are hosted,

Money is required to buy Storage for hosting websites,
Websites need Bandwidth to operate which again needs money,
Web Hosting companies need to invest money in Securing their servers,

Scaling web hosting infrastructure to meet the growing demands of hosting websites needs money, and
Operating a Customer Service team also requires money.

Even though all of these expenses make a web hosting expensive, you should be able to easily recover this web hosting cost once your business starts to make sales online.

So instead of thinking why web hosting is costly, I would like you to think about how you can generate sufficient revenue to cover the web hosting cost.

However, I know you are here to learn about the factors that make web hosting costly, so let’s take a look at each of the above factors in detail now.

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6 Factors That Make Web Hosting Expensive

Given below are the 6 major factors that make web hosting expensive and why.

Read each one of them carefully to understand how these factors contribute to increasing the cost of web hosting.

1. Servers

Websites are hosted on servers, and it costs money to buy and maintain servers.

Whether your website is hosted on Shared Hosting Server, Virtual Private Server (VPS), or a Dedicated Server, all of them have a cost associated with them.

Your Web Hosting company needs to buy these servers and then hire staff to maintain these servers so that websites can keep running smoothly.

And the servers cost money. They are not free. So…

No Servers = No Websites.

2. Storage

The servers that a Web Hosting company buys need to have sufficient storage so that website files can be stored on the servers.

Not only that, but many Web Hosting companies also provide you with daily backups of your website, databases for your website, and mailboxes for your emails.

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All of this needs storage. And since it costs money to buy storage, that cost adds up to make web hosting expensive.

Apart from that, to make websites run faster, many Web Hosting companies now provide SSD storage, which again is expensive.

All of this adds to the cost of web hosting.

3. Bandwidth

Once your website is hosted on a server, it will consume bandwidth every time someone visits your website.

The cost of this bandwidth is also passed on to you.

Even though this cost is not as high as the cost of a server, it still adds up to make web hosting expensive.

The more bandwidth you need, the more the cost.

I know that some Web Hosting companies state that they provide unlimited bandwidth. But, nothing is free in this world.

Nowadays, many Web Hosting companies have started to specify how many visitors can visit your website before your hosting plan limit is exceeded. Even though this limit is dependent on a number of factors, not just bandwidth, it is still a good indicator of why web hosting plans are expensive.

4. Security

You want your website to be secure, don’t you?

And the most significant security measure that can be implemented for websites is at the server level.

Every Web Hosting company takes care of securing their servers.

This costs money.

And as with everything else, this cost is eventually passed down to you.

This is another reason why web hosting is expensive.

5. Scalability

Every Web Hosting has to take care of scaling their infrastructure as their customer base increases.

As the number of websites increase, and the traffic to those websites increase, the cost of operating and scaling the servers also increases to meet the increasing demands.

If the web hosting infrastructure does not scale, then all websites are at risk of going offline.

No one wants that. Neither the Web Hosting company nor you.

So scaling web hosting infrastructure is essential.

And this again costs money, which results in the cost of web hosting going up.

6. Customer Service

When you host your website, you will have hundreds of questions.

And you will want to talk with someone at your Web Hosting company to get answers.

So every Web Hosting company has to invest in building a Customer Service team that can help its customers.

Some companies provide 24×7 phone support, some provide Online Chat support, while some provide Ticket support.

Whatever form of support is provided, it costs money to run a Customer Service operation.

That cost also adds up to the cost of web hosting, thus making it expensive.

What Else?

I have listed above all the major costs associated with web hosting that make it expensive.

There are other costs too, like electricity, internet, salaries, etc. which all add up to make web hosting expensive. But I haven’t covered those because these costs are part of running any business, not just a web hosting business.

I hope you have now got a good idea of why web hosting is so expensive.

And instead of looking at web hosting as an expense, think of the profit that your website will make you once you start selling your products and services online.

Your website has the potential to get you customers from around the world which you cannot get if you only run a brick-and-mortar store.

Why Is Web Hosting So Expensive? – 6 Main Factors