Monthly or Yearly Web Hosting Plans

I'm looking to start a new blog or 2 and was wondering if it's a good idea to just pay monthy or if I should go for a yearly price. The yearly prices that I have seen are much cheaper if you use them.

What would be the best way to go for someone starting a couple of new blogs?

I think if you know the web hosting is good then buy the year plan and save the money. If you are not sure if the web hosting is good then you should try to pay for the monthly plan in case it turns out to be bad or have bad service. If it is good after 1 or 2 months then you can pay for a year and save money.

I agree with Keral on this. If you are not sure of the quality of the hosting and support then it may be best to pay monthly for a couple of months so you don't get locked in with a bad host or lose the money because you have to switch hosts after any kind of refund period.

If you know the host is a good one then paying for a year at a time to get a discount will probably be better in long long run from a financial standpoint.

I like to use the monthly plans even though they cost a little more because I am sometime uncertain about a web hosting service or if just in case my plans change. If you pay for a year and then you need to change your hosting service or you close down your website then you will lose that money you paid if you paid for a year.

If you know the web hosting company is a good one and you are planning on using the service for about a year then go with the yearly and save the money.

However, if you are not sure about the host or you don't know if you are going to need the hosting for about a year or so then go month to month until you are sure about the host and your needs.

I think you should be careful if you buy hosting for one year at a time. I found out that my web host has bad uptime and my blog goes down too often. I did not know this at first so I am saying that if you pay for one year time then you might lose your money if you have to move like me.

@KeralMTG , @Dean , @ulterios I really would not know how to tell good web hosting from bad so how would I find out?

@Marcos I had thought of those things but the savings is really big for paying for a year at a time. I thought it might be worth it anyway.

@Kania That is something that I was afraid of because I don't know how to tell what is good or bad hosting. How long did it take for you to find out your hosting had problems?

Ellen F said:

@KeralMTG , @Dean , @ulterios I really would not know how to tell good web hosting from bad so how would I find out?

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That is not always easy to do but a good place to start would be to do a search in your favorite engine website and gather as much information about a web host as you can.

Another thing that you can do is to ask others on site's like this one for any input or knowledge about a particular web host.

Reading and asking questions are good ways to help get some information on a host to help you determine in part if a host is any good or not.

The only thing is that often there is false information out there on hosts so you can never be 100% certain about a host until you try them out.

You can always try to get hosting with a particular host and pay for a month and see how they do but again, that doesn't always tell the whole story.

Web hosting can often be hard to figure if a certain provider is a good one or not until you have been with them for some time.

Ellen F said:

@Marcos I had thought of those things but the savings is really big for paying for a year at a time. I thought it might be worth it anyway.

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Then maybe it might be worth it to try if the saving amount is that great. Just see if you can find out if they are good or not before signing up to them. Maybe just buy a 1 month plan to test them to see how they are first then buy the 1 year plan.

If they have a monthly plan then I would just pay for a month and see how good they are. Then if they are good and you like them then pay for the year. That way you can try out their support and see how their servers do.

@Ellen F

I think that you just need read about them and try to find honest reviews or also to ask about them on places like this website. Other people might know something about some hosts that you do not know. Just check on the host before you sign up for a long plan. Always go for monthly if you are not sure if the host is good or not so you can try it.

Ellen F said:

@ulterios I really would not know how to tell good web hosting from bad so how would I find out?

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The best things to do is to ask questions on places like this forum and go out and do some research in your search engine of choice.

Try to get all the information you can on a potential web host and that can help save some potential headaches later on.

Since you have mentioned the monthly option then you can always get the hosting if you think it might be good and try it out for a month or 2 and see how it does. Then if all goes like you want then sign up for the yearly term.

@Ellen F

I think it was after 1 or 2 months. It just started to go down more and that can hurt my blogs rankings in Google.

@Dean Thanks and I might ask here if I can't find what I want to know.

@Marcos & @Traveler I will do that I have been thinking.

@KeralMTG That sounds like a good idea.

@ulterios That sounds like a good idea and that will play it safe.

@Kania That's too bad. I hope you have better luck next time. I hope I don't have to go through that.

Ellen F said:

@Dean Thanks and I might ask here if I can't find what I want to know.

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Sounds great Ellen. We have so many members that have used and are using many different web hosts that maybe someone will know something about a potential web host you are wanting to know about.

Thank you @Ellen F and I hope you do not have that kind of experience with your web hosting. It is very disappointing.

Kania said:

Thank you @Ellen F and I hope you do not have that kind of experience with your web hosting. It is very disappointing.

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Awww, I am sure it is and I am sorry that you are going through that. I know things like that that we can't control can be very upsetting when they go wrong.

I am hoping to avoid that myself with some luck.

Ellen F said:

Awww, I am sure it is and I am sorry that you are going through that. I know things like that that we can't control can be very upsetting when they go wrong.

I am hoping to avoid that myself with some luck.

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It's ok. I am just thinking about it like it is a learning experience. I am trying to learn about many things for my blog and marketing so I know there will be some good and some bad I have to learn.

Never pay for web hosting for a year or more at a time unless you trust that the host is going to give good services. I have done this a couple of times and got burned so I learned the hard way.

If you trust the service and are saving some cash then go for it.

JohnQ said:

Never pay for web hosting for a year or more at a time unless you trust that the host is going to give good services. I have done this a couple of times and got burned so I learned the hard way.

If you trust the service and are saving some cash then go for it.

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This would be places that I don't know anything about so there would be no trust yet so then monthly seems like the best option at least in the beginning.