It’s that time of year, so I thought I’d put up a short post with some advice about Black Friday web hosting deals from the perspective of a long-time web hosting client.
I look after web hosting for many sites, so I often shop around in November for Black Friday web hosting deals. If you only need to host a website for a short project, you can find lots of deals that offer decent hosting plans for under $25 for 12 months.
However, if you are setting up a site that you expect/hope will be running for many years, it’s a good idea to check the fine print. How much will that Black Friday web hosting plan cost you for the second and subsequent years?
All too often, people starting out in affiliate marketing get a great deal for the first year of hosting, and don’t worry about subsequent years because they plan on making so much money that it won’t matter. Then it takes them a few months before they are ready to launch their site, and it takes longer than expected to make some sales, and before you know it, it’s time to renew the hosting at full price.
Some Black Friday web hosting deals cost more in the long term
Most Black Friday web hosting deals give a huge discount for 12 months, and then revert to regular pricing for subsequent years. If you are comfortable moving your site each year, that is one way to keep your costs low, but it can be a considerable hassle, and may lead to your site being down for days at an inconvenient time of year.
After the first year, many people choose to remain with the same host for convenience but end up paying significantly more for their plan.
My advice: look for Black Friday web hosting deals that are good for 24 or 36 months. That way, if you are starting out, you have more time to build your business, and also locks in a good hosting deal for a longer period.
Black Friday web hosting deals that last
To get affordable hosting that still offers excellent service, I switched some clients to A2 Hosting a couple of years ago and have been very impressed with the reliability and speed. Currently, I’m using a single ‘Turbo’ hosting plan for 12 WordPress sites, a Grav CMS site, a static HTML site, and 3 Node.js sites, along with several email addresses for each site. Performance is great, support is very responsive, and downtime has been almost zero.
A2 Hosting’s Black Friday web hosting deals are all based on 36 months, so the initial cost is higher than the 12-month offers you see elsewhere, but you are locking in three years of excellent hosting at a reasonable price. For example, you can get 36 months of the Turbo Velocity plan for $177.00 or ($4.75/mo). So you pay $59/year for three years of great high-speed hosting. That’s the best Black Friday web hosting deal for 2024!
In 2020 I wrote about how much I liked Siteground, and they remain an excellent premium hosting service, and they have some real advantages for hosting WordPress sites. Currently (November 2024), their Black Friday web hosting deal for the ‘GrowBig’ plan is $47.88 for the first 12 months ($3.99/month). This is a fantastic deal for a great plan – the regular price is $29.99/month. If you buy 24 months up-front, it costs $299.76 ($12.49/mo), which is still a good deal compared to the regular price but quite a jump from the cost for 12 months. After the Black Friday web hosting deal expires in 12 or 24 months, you will pay the regular price of around $360 per year.
Don’t get me wrong – regardless of who you chose, if you buy a Black Friday web hosting deal, when it expires, you will be paying the regular price. My advice is that you should find an initial deal that lasts as long as possible, and make sure you chose a good hosting company – don’t simply grab the best deal based on price alone.
Good luck with your Black Friday web hosting search, and Happy Holidays!