Cloud & Deployment3 min read
Choosing a hosting provider: a checklist that survives year two
Every host looks fine on day one. The differences show up when traffic triples, a region goes down, or you need to leave.
Web hosting is renting space on a computer that keeps your website online. For a small business website it should cost between $0 and $25 a month. Your domain name is separate and costs about $12 to $20 a year. If you are paying more than $50 a month for a simple brochure site, you are almost certainly being overcharged.
It is renting space on a computer that is always switched on, so people can reach your website.
Your website is a set of files. Those files have to sit on a computer that is connected to the internet all the time. Renting space on that computer is hosting. That is genuinely all it is.
| Thing | What it is | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | Your address — yourbusiness.com | $12–$20 a year |
| Hosting | Where the files live | $0–$25 a month |
| name@yourbusiness.com | $6–$7 per person a month | |
| SSL certificate | The padlock in the browser | Should be free |
| Upsell | Do you need it? |
|---|---|
| SSL certificate | No — it should be included free |
| Domain privacy | Often worth a few dollars, sometimes included |
| Site backup add-on | Should be included, or use a free plugin |
| 'SEO tools' bundle | No |
| Dedicated IP address | Almost never for a small site |
| Premium support tier | Only if you genuinely need phone support |
| Unlimited everything | Marketing language, not a real feature |
Make sure the domain name is registered in your name and your email address — not your web designer's. This is the single most important detail in this whole article.
If a developer registers your domain under their own account and later becomes unreachable, you can lose your web address and your business email. It happens regularly and it is entirely avoidable.
Yes, and it is a normal thing to do. Your domain stays yours and points wherever you tell it. Moving a small site typically takes an hour or two.
Legitimate free tiers from established providers are genuinely fine for small sites. Avoid anything that puts advertising on your pages or does not let you use your own domain.
No — hosting is included in their monthly fee. You are paying for the builder and the hosting together, which is part of why those subscriptions cost more than hosting alone.
It means your site is unreachable. Any decent host is up more than 99.9% of the time. It only becomes worth worrying about if customers start telling you the site is down.
ROVQIX Growth
SEO & growth team, ROVQIX
The ROVQIX growth team handles technical SEO, Core Web Vitals and AI-search visibility for the sites we build. Recommendations here are the ones we apply to client projects and to rovqix.in itself.
ROVQIXdesigns and builds production web platforms — Next.js front ends, Node.js APIs and the infrastructure behind them. Tell us what you're building and we'll scope it with you.
Every host looks fine on day one. The differences show up when traffic triples, a region goes down, or you need to leave.
Three real price brackets, and how to tell which one your business actually needs.
They do different jobs. The risk is building only on land you do not own.
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