4.5
Very Good
The Best
Easy to use
Speed
The Worst
Expensive
No backups
Starting From
$9.99 / month
Can You Trust Their Shared Hosting?
According to BuiltWith, 1 in every 20 websites seems to be hosted on GoDaddy. Undeniably, they are a web hosting titan, with around 20 million customers, over 9,000 employees and more than 80 million domains managed.
But this is not a popularity contest...
… Instead, I am about to review GoDaddy, so that you know what to expect from their performance, what the deal is with their support and how much it will really cost you - spoiler alert, their pricing can get confusing.
You can check out our video-review if you don't want to read the full review:
Let's dive in now.
What Products Does GoDaddy Offer?
GoDaddy offers dozens of products and comes with many available plans. So, first let me tell you a bit more about their hosting offer.
GoDaddy is one of the largest domain name registrars. With them you can get almost any domain extension you are looking for: .com, .net, .org, .law or even .today. A .com domain will cost you $14.99 the first year and $19.99 after, not the cheapest (domain name prices vary).
At GoDaddy, there are shared hosting plans available too. It’ll cost you between $9.99 and $34.99 at renewal. With this type of hosting service, you’ll share a server with other clients. It’s suitable for small and medium projects that don’t need top-performing servers.
Like many other hosting providers, GoDaddy has a WordPress optimized shared hosting service. They seem to prepare their servers for a higher WordPress performance, offer WordPress pre-installed and have a selection of themes available. Nothing too exciting if you ask me. It starts at $9.99 a month when you renew.
GoDaddy VPS plans are for those with special server configuration needs. With the root (administrative) access you’ll be able to configure your server to your preferences. They also come with a higher performance than shared hosting plans. VPS plans at GoDaddy start at $6 a month (self-hosted) and can go all the way up to around $100 per month.
If the higher performance of a VPS is not enough for your site, a dedicated hosting package is your best next option. With these, you’ll have your own server for yourself and won’t have neighbors interfering with your project. But you’ll need a budget for that, as dedicated servers start at $130 per month at GoDaddy.
GoDaddy also offers email hosting plans, so you can have a professional-looking address like info@your-business.com. They start at $5.99 per user per month for 10 GB of email storage.
For the less tech-savvy users, they also have a website builder to create your site with. To be honest, it’s not my favorite site builder as some features come up a bit short (e.g. the blog). Other alternatives like Weebly, Wix or Squarespace seem to me more well-rounded.
But their offering doesn’t stop there, among others they also have a hosting reseller program so you can sell hosting plans to your clients, web design services and SEO consulting.
GoDaddy Pricing
Price Increases on Renewal
The prices above are the cost per month (if you pay for a year in advance), once the introductory prices end (after the first year).
Almost all web hosting providers make very low-priced introductory offers for the first year, to lure you in. Your plan will automatically renew at a higher rate after the first year, and the higher rate is what you will pay from then on.
Since these higher rates are what you will continue to pay (and since the introductory offers vary widely), when comparing different providers, it is always best to look at the renewal prices.
In the chart below, you can see the different introductory prices compared to the renewal prices of all the hosting providers we test.
As you can see, although GoDaddy’s introductory prices may seem quite high compared to other providers, the increase on renewal is quite modest.
So in the end, GoDaddy woks out a little bit cheaper than a lot of the competition.
What Do Their Shared Plans Include?
Economy | Deluxe | Ultimate | Maximum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Websites | 1 site | 10 sites | 25 sites | 50 sites |
Support | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 |
CPU Memory | 1 CPU 512 MB | 1 CPU 1 GB | 2 CPUs 1.5 GB | 2 CPUs 2 GB |
Max. files amount | 250,000 | 250,000 | 250,000 | 250,000 |
Bandwidth | Unmetered * | Unmetered * | Unmetered * | Unmetered * |
Storage | 25 GB | 50 GB | 75 GB | 100 GB |
Database Max. DB size | 10 1 GB | 25 1 BG | 50 1 GB | 100 1 GB |
SSL certificate | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Backup | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | Paid add-on |
First-year special price | ||||
Renewal price | $9.99 a month | $13.99 a month | $17.99 a month | $34.99 a month |
* Even if officially they don’t limit the traffic you can get, if your website gets too much traffic or uses too many resources, they’ll request that you upgrade. For more information, check our article on GoDaddy pricing.
The Economy plan is for those only looking to host 1 website (1 domain) and don’t need more than 25 GB of storage. It also comes with a database limitation of 10. An SSL certificate is included now, though.
The Deluxe tier comes with the same specs and features as the Economy package, but you’ll be able to host 10 sites and have 50 GB of storage. It also comes with free SSL certificates now.
If you need a higher performance (e.g. 2 CPUs and 1.5 GB of memory) you can purchase the Ultimate plan. It also comes with free SSL certificate for all your sites. 25 sites and 75 GB of storage are allowed.
With the Maximum tier, you’ll get 2 GB of memory, 50 sites and 100 GB of storage.
I don’t like that some basic features you’ll need aren’t included with the shared hosting plans. For example, if you want to have your sites backed up, it’ll cost you around $3 extra a month for 5 GB of storage.
GoDaddy Review: Do I Recommend It?
Overall, I think GoDaddy offers a solid product to host small websites. I liked:
Their decent speed
Apart from classic Linux hosting, they also offer Windows-based hosting services – not many providers do
Their easy to follow and intuitive interface
Their unlimited bandwidth and generous storage
However, it has a couple of hidden downsides that you should know about. Some basic features like backups aren’t included in their already pricey plans – in the end, GoDaddy can get expensive.
Advanced features like staging areas are also missing, and they don’t offer migration services for new accounts. This may be a deal-breaker for developers or agencies. Sadly, it’s less than stellar uptime record makes this provider not a good choice for larger sites.
> Try GoDaddy 30 days without risk or read more in our guide to the best web hosting!
I hope you found this GoDaddy review interesting. But if you have any question, please leave comment and I’ll try to help you out.
