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Website Hosting Cost Calculator

Most hosting deals are priced to expire. See the first year, the renewal year, and what the page actually costs you per thousand visits.

Enter your numbers

Introductory price per month

The headline offer. Read the contract length - some are 36 months.

Renewal price per month

Check the renewal rate in the fine print. If it is not published, assume 3x.

Visitors per month

Peak month, not average. Hosts suspend accounts on peak, not average.

Add-ons per month

CDN, backups, staging, security, extra storage. Managed hosts bundle these; cheap hosts do not.

One-off setup or migration cost

Some hosts charge for migrations, or you pay a developer to move the site.

Monthly overage / upgrade buffer

Traffic spikes, bandwidth overages, plan upgrades mid-term.

Year 1 total cost

Intro price, add-ons, overage buffer and setup, for twelve months.

Effective monthly cost (year 1)

What you actually pay per month in the promotional period.

Effective monthly cost (year 2+)

After the promotional rate expires - the number that decides whether it was a good deal.

Renewal price increase

How much more you pay once the intro rate ends.

Cost per 1,000 visits (year 1)

The only fair way to compare plans of different sizes.

3-year total cost

Two renewal years are included, which is where cheap hosts stop looking cheap.

Estimates only. Vendor pricing and contract terms vary - always confirm figures on a written quote. Results update as you type and nothing is sent to a server.

Hosting is sold on a promotional first-year price and renewed at whatever the host feels like charging. Renewal rates commonly run 2-4x the intro rate, and almost nobody works this out before buying.

This calculator puts the promo price and the renewal price side by side, adds the add-ons that are optional in the marketing and mandatory in practice - CDN, backups, staging, security - and shows you the cost per thousand visits. That last number is the only fair way to compare a $4 shared plan against a $115 managed plan.

How to use this calculator

Enter the introductory monthly price exactly as advertised - do not average in a free domain or ad credit.
Look up the renewal price before you buy, not after. It is usually in the terms page rather than the pricing page, and it is frequently 2-4x the intro rate.
Put your peak month's visitor count in, not the annual average. Shared plans are suspended for exceeding limits, and a suspension costs far more than a bigger plan.
Include the add-ons the cheap plan does not give you: CDN, automated backups, staging, and malware scanning. Pricing them separately usually erases the saving.
Compare the cost per thousand visits, then compare the three-year total. A plan that is cheap for year one and expensive for years two and three is not cheap.

Want managed hosting priced flat, with no renewal cliff?

WP Engine prices the same in year one and year three, and bundles CDN, backups, staging and security. If the renewal increase above is large, that is the comparison worth making.

See WP Engine plans

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Or compare against a usage-priced host?

Kinsta bills on visits rather than storage, which suits sites with lots of content and modest traffic. Their entry tier includes CDN and staging by default.

See Kinsta pricing

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Frequently asked questions

Why is the renewal price so much higher than the intro price?

Because that is the business model. Shared hosts acquire customers at a loss and recover margin over the contract. Renewal rates of 2-4x the intro rate are normal in the shared and budget VPS segment; managed WordPress hosts tend to price flat.

Is managed WordPress hosting worth the higher monthly cost?

It is usually cheaper than it looks once you price in the add-ons. Managed plans bundle CDN, backups, staging, caching and security that cost extra elsewhere. The break-even is typically around 20,000-30,000 monthly visits, or earlier if you value not doing updates yourself.

What is a reasonable cost per thousand visits?

For a static or well-cached site, $0.05-0.30 per thousand visits is achievable. Above $1.00 you are paying for managed tooling, dedicated resources, or a plan that is much larger than your traffic needs.

Does the free domain matter?

Only in the first year, and only if you were going to buy that exact name anyway. It is typically worth $10-15 and is a rounding error against a multi-year hosting contract.

Next steps

The renewal increase is the number to negotiate or avoid. If it is steep, price a flat-rate managed host on the same traffic before you sign a multi-year deal.