Bluehost is a seasoned web hosting company that specializes in WordPress. They’re well-known for being user-friendly and cost-effective, making them an excellent alternative for aspiring entrepreneurs wishing to launch an online business.
Security, performance, and storage are essential factors to consider when it comes to eCommerce web hosting. However, you’ll need a solution that interfaces effortlessly with robust eCommerce systems like WooCommerce and provides the support you’ll need to keep things operating smoothly.
Bluehost is a web hosting company that makes it simple to set up WooCommerce stores. As a result, we’re going over Bluehost’s web hosting options to see if they’re ideal for your WooCommerce store.
About Bluehost
Bluehost has been a well-known and well-recognized web hosting solution since 2003. Individuals can create a web presence with the organization’s help, which keeps hosting simply to handle.
Over two million websites use Bluehost hosting as of this writing. The service provider has been dedicated to WordPress for more than a decade. It now offers WooCommerce-specific hosting, tailored for business owners who want to start selling using WordPress and WooCommerce.
Bluehost is well-known for its 24-hour support and low costs. They also provide various hosting options, including shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting – so there’s something for everyone’s web hosting needs!
Bluehost’s prices start at just $3.95 per month, making it a good choice for anyone starting a business on a shoestring budget.
About WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an ecommerce plugin designed specifically for WordPress. It can turn ordinary WordPress sites into fully functional online stores.
WooCommerce has everything you’ll need to build a profitable online business.
Both digital and physical products can be uploaded and sold. Using WooCommerce’s integrated shopping cart, you can easily design your storefront, add product details and variations, and accept payments. You may also keep track of your inventory, compute sales tax automatically, and offer coupons and discounts to persuade customers to buy.
WooCommerce has a single dashboard where you can track the success of your store. You may combine your WooCommerce store with various third-party apps as a WordPress extension. If you ever need to enhance its capability, this is a great way.
You may utilize an existing name and get a free WooCommerce SSL certificate with Bluehost’s WooCommerce hosting options. WooCommerce is also pre-installed, so you can start constructing your e-store right away.
Let’s take a closer look at these features:
Features and Costs
Bluehost provides two WooCommerce hosting options: regular and premium packages.
Here’s a quick rundown of the costs.
The Standard package is offered for the following items:
- Monthly fee: $29.95
- Monthly fee: $15.95 (with a one-year commitment)
- Monthly fee: $12.95 (with a three-year commitment)
The premium bundle is available for the following items:
- Monthly fee: $49.95
- Monthly payment of $32.95 (with a one-year commitment)
- Monthly payment of $24.95 (with a three-year commitment)
It’s important to note that these discounts are only valid for the first payment cycle. When you renew, the regular plan costs $24.95 per month, and the Premium package costs $39.95 per month.
These costs may seem intimidating if you’re on a tight budget, but both pricing levels are jam-packed with features. Each bundle contains the following items:
- Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days
- Monitoring and statistics on the site
- For speed enhancement, there are multiple caching layers.
- A completely free SSL certificate
Features of the Standard Plan ($29.95 per month)
The Standard plan already includes WooCommerce and a storefront theme. This template is designed for online sales and has a quick load time. You’ll also gain access to website traffic analytics, including information on your orders, consumer patterns, and traffic. Bluehost also allows you to collect and post customer evaluations on your store, which can help you establish a good reputation.
You can also create discount codes and set up payment processing with a one-click install. You’ll be happy to know that you can process manual orders if you’re selling offline. This allows you to manage your inventory and sales statistics from a single location.
It also comes with Jetpack’s free version pre-installed. Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create quicker and safer pages. It also has features like an activity log, automated social media posting, downtime monitoring, and access to a CDN that can help you improve traffic.
Aside from that, you’ll get access to Creativ’s email marketing services.
WooCommerce store owners may use eMail as an easy-to-use marketing tool.
Features of the Premium Plan ($49.95)
The Premium plan, as you might expect, adds to what’s included in the Standard package. You may also manage online bookings and plan appointments in addition to these services. You can also start selling and handling recurring payments, such as subscriptions, for items and services.
Bluehost WooCommerce calculates your sales tax by city, state, or country using this package. Plus, you can build bespoke choices for the products or services you’ve offered for sale. You could, for example, provide different sizes and colors, as well as a gift-wrapping option.
Premium Jetpack features like advertisements, Google Analytics, and more are included in the Premium package. Your store will also benefit from free domain privacy and protection. Bluehost hides your website’s personal information and substitutes it with generic contact information. As a result, your email and personal mailbox will remain spam-free.
CodeGuard Basic is also included in the Premium package. (This is only available for one year with the Standard package.) CodeGuard backs up your website and records all your content, including photographs, text, video, and other media. This provides an additional layer of protection and much-needed piece of mind if your website collapses.
Finally, the Premium option includes unmetered bandwidth, critical for scaling your online business without slowing down your site.
The Bluehost Marketplace
It’s also worth noting that Bluehost has its WooCommerce plugin marketplace. If you require additional functionality beyond that provided by these packages, you can search for and integrate with:
- Up-sell and cross-sell product add-ons to customers during the checkout process
- Product suppliers
- Shipping options include FedEx, USPS, and UPS.
- Xero
- WooSlider is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create (transitions, directions, speeds, and pagination for your slideshows)
- Respectfully, Sensei (launch online courses on your site)
- Integrations with Amazon Pay, Stripe, and PayPal Pro
- ShipStation
- A widget that converts currencies.
The Premium bundle includes over $200 worth of top WooCommerce plugins. If that doesn’t meet your demands, you can look for plugins and rates on the marketplace.
Bluehost WooCommerce Customer Support
Bluehost, as previously mentioned, provides 24/7 assistance for both of its WooCommerce hosting options. You can reach out to the team via phone or by live chat. Please be aware that international calling fees may apply!
Bluehost also has an online resource center with articles on how to build a website, increase sales, and market your business. You can also use the sizeable online Knowledge Base to locate self-help articles on a variety of topics, including:
- Hosting a website
- Configuring email clients
- Taking care of your account
- WordPress
…only to name a few.
Security
A free SSL certificate is included with both Bluehost’s WooCommerce plans. This guarantees that internet browsers perceive your site as safe and provides some protection for your customers’ online transactions. You’ll also have your IP address.
Domain privacy and protection, on the other hand, are only available with the Premium package. You’ll also need to upgrade to the Premium subscription to get unlimited access to CodeGuard.
Bluehost WooCommerce Pros and Cons
Both WordPress and WooCommerce recommend Bluehost, so we think it’s a safe pick if you’re just getting started. However, this does not imply that this provider will be suitable for everyone. We’ll go over the most notable benefits and drawbacks of utilizing this service in this part to help you figure out who this provider is best suited for:
The Pros
- By committing for a more extended period, you can save a lot of money, making Bluehost very reasonable.
- Bluehost has a high uptime rating (99.98 percent )
- You have access to a lot of storage space.
- With the Premium package, you get unlimited bandwidth.
- Jetpack and CodeGuard are two useful plugins that come pre-installed and ready to use.
- With your package, you get a free domain and SSL.
- Support is available via phone and chats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- You can host many websites.
- WordPress.com has officially endorsed Bluehost.
The Cons
- Bluehost’s renewal terms should be scrutinized because they are frequently more expensive than their initial fees.
- Bluehost concentrates on sites hosted in the United States, so your page load times may be significantly slower if you’re browsing from another country.
- Bluehost does not provide automatic backups of your website. This is accomplished via CodeGuard, only available for a year on the Standard plan.
- There are web hosting alternatives that offer superior overall performance on the market. Bluehost is more suited to small to medium-sized projects and stores due to this. Bluehost might not be the ideal option if you expect a lot of traffic.
- The Premium product add-ons are only included with your first site if you host numerous sites.
- It’s worthwhile to educate oneself thoroughly on price-value comparisons. The installation of WooCommerce is entirely free. The free Jetpack plan and the shop theme are both free. You may be able to locate cheaper hosting while still benefiting from these tools if you’re prepared to execute a couple of these steps yourself.
Our Final Verdict
Bluehost’s reputation as a reliable hosting provider for WordPress and WooCommerce beginners is well-deserved. Their WooCommerce plans are a good choice for individuals who want to start selling online but don’t want to deal with the setup.
These bundles ensure that you have everything you need pre-installed and ready to use so you can get started right away. This includes both WooCommerce and a functioning online store theme. This comes at a reasonable price, especially if you sign up for three years before considering switching or cancelling.
On the other hand, more advanced users with established stores that receive significant levels of traffic, on the other hand, may benefit from going elsewhere. Bluehost also does not provide native backups and does not provide the best speed for high-traffic sites.
Many of Bluehost’s WooCommerce capabilities make things simple, but they’re not hard to put up on your own with a bit of effort. This implies you can end yourself paying for services you don’t require only to save time.
If you know what you’re doing, splurging on more premium hosting with a managed hosting company and handling much of the setup yourself makes more sense. For beginning sellers, we recommend Bluehost’s WooCommerce bundles. You could sign up for three years to expand your seat and then migrate to a host that can handle more enormous traffic volumes.
You also have nothing to lose by giving Bluehost a try because they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like their services.
