We’ve all learned that nothing good comes for free at some point in life. A good product or service has to cost a certain amount of money. If a service is offered for free, it’s either not complete, or the company has other sources of income. So, when you look for free hosting for your WordPress website, be sure that you’re not getting the full package.
Free WordPress hosting is often offered as a trial to incentivize you to buy the full package. Companies that offer free hosting are only doing it for advertisement purposes.
So, let’s check out what’s the problem with free WordPress hosting and why you should settle for a reasonably priced subscription with a good hosting service.
Wait! Are You Telling I Can Host for Free?
Well, yes! You can host a website for free? But that’s not something that should excite you. It’s a common practice among hosting services to offer a free plan for promotion purposes. Free services draw crowds, and that’s a good marketing strategy. But the catch is to get you to pay for the good stuff after you like the free stuff; that’s how companies make money to sustain their business.
While it’s possible to settle with a free hosting plan, you’ll be compromising a lot of things…
Here are 4 Good Reasons Not to Settle for a Free WordPress Hosting Plan
- You don’t get to have a branded domain name or email address
So, you’ve got a cool idea for a domain name, or you already named your business a long time ago, and you want that name put like this: “www.my-cool-brand-name”? Well, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not possible with a free hosting plan.
If you choose WordPress.com as your free host, you’ll be having them on your website’s name. You don’t get to have a clean link such as the one above. The WordPress brand name will be there to tell people you don’t pay for a hosting plan.
The same goes for your special email address.
- You’re subject to their terms of service conditions
One of the biggest downfalls of being subject to the terms of service of another company is the fact that they can do whatever they want without your consent. For example, if you host your website with WordPress for free, you’re always subject to the term: “your website can be terminated at any time without giving you a notice.”
Imagine having a blog that you fill with content on a regular basis terminated and all the data lost without any backups. That’s not a good situation to be in. At least wiith a cheap hosting plan, you get to have backups.
- You miss out on all the handy features
Unfortunately, with free hosting plans, you can’t get access to plugins. WordPress plugins are really important because they allow you to expand the capabilities of your website and make it even better. One of the most important plugins is the SEO plugin which allows your website to get more traffic.
There are plenty of good WordPress plugins that you’ll be missing out on if you settle with one of the free memberships. Free hosts block the use of third-party plugins for many reasons, namely because they cost them.
- You can’t customize your theme
With free hosting, you have to settle with the basic theme they offer you. You can’t access all the cool themes that make websites stand out. If you’re a person of style and sophistication, it’s really bad for you to have an ugly website; it just doesn’t feel right. You want your website to look cool, and you’ve seen some good themes out there that you’d love to try, but you can’t because you’re a cheap person who wants free stuff.
Not being able to customize your website is frustrating; that’s why you should pay something.
Free is Not Good
You compromise a few important things with a free WordPress host. You know that nothing good comes for free. Unless you’re a baby, you know exactly that adults don’t just give free things, especially when big companies need to make revenue.
Solve the Problem with a Cheap WordPress Hosting Plan
You can get a cheap hosting plan for less than the money you spend each month on that Netflix subscription that you don’t even use anymore because Desney+ has all the superhero movies. Starting at $5 per month, you can get all the benefits of a good hosting plan that allows you to do your website’s good things. As a matter of fact, you don’t have a website unless you pay at least $10 per month, period.
Maintaining servers costs a lot. Those intricate machines need manpower to run and manpower costs money. Also, the capitalists behind the hosting companies need to make money; that’s how things work.
Conclusion
So, make sure to look for a good hosting service provider for your WordPress website. Maybe you should consider managed WordPress hosting for some extra cash and get all the good features that come with it.
And for more WordPress content, visit our dedicated WordPress blog section. You can find more blogs like Different Types of Web Hosting Explained! Shared Hosting vs. VPS Hosting vs. Dedicated Server. And remember to check our hosting recommendations if you want to start your own blog.