Ecommerce and website hosting don’t mix, they say. If you’re planning on having an ecommerce store then we’re going to show you the best solution for hosting it, stay tuned. What is a web host? A web host is a business that provides hosting services for websites and web applications. Hosting companies provide the hardware, bandwidth, and data center on which their clients’ sites and applications are located.
A business must have a website to be successful. It is an integral part of a company’s image these days. Customers look for information about your products on the Internet rather than talking to a sales representative. So you need online sales and everyone wants to generate more leads for their business as well. For this, you require a website that attracts potential customers and converts them into paying customers. To do this, you might want to explore the option of web hosting.
Choosing the best free web hosting for your site can be a difficult task. The majority of free hosts are filled with advertisements and popups. The few good ones don’t have enough space or bandwidth for you to do anything serious. However there are still many things worth considering when selecting the best ecommerce web hosting provider, this article will help you find the best free web host where you can build your website, blog or store with best ecommerce platform like wordpress, open cart, drupal etc.
You are about to start your ecommerce web site and you are looking for a good, reliable web hosting service. A hosting service is the place where you can store all your images, text, videos, and if needed software. You might have heard about shared hosting or VPS hosting or dedicated hosting. There are lots of options when it comes to selecting a good web host and most of them seem good on the surface. But there’s one problem with these companies: they promise too much. They make it seem like they are your best friend who only want what is best for you, but in reality they are out to make money off you by selling products which aren’t worth anything at all in the first place.
The “Truth” About Free Website Hosting Service
Building a website has become the most important way to get your message out in the world. However, when you are first starting, you may not want to spend money on making a website.
Most people simply want something quick, easy, and free.
There are tons of free website hosting companies in the market. But as a smart consumer, you should know that there is no such thing as free lunch.
There is always a catch.
Running a website hosting service costs a lot of money.
The companies offering free website hosting need to make money somehow, or they will go out of business.
They do that by either displaying ads on your website, limiting your website traffic, causing downtime, locking you in their platform, and/or upselling their other services. Some of the ads displayed may not represent your brand well, and it can even be your competitor’s advertisement.
Except for a test website, it’s almost always a bad idea to use free website hosting. We have 36 reasons why free websites are bad idea, specially for businesses.
But what if you’re on a small budget?
Maybe you’re a non-profit who is looking for free WordPress hosting or maybe you want free website hosting for students. Don’t worry, we have a solution for you in this article.
As the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners, it is our job to highlight the fine-prints, so you’re making the RIGHT decision.
Every free website hosting company in our list guarantees that you can keep your website for free as long as you want. However we recommend anyone who is serious about their website to strongly consider using a low-cost full-featured website hosting provider.
Majority of these shared hosting companies will give you a free domain, free emails, free SSL, eCommerce functionality, and a lot more for $2.75 – $5 per month.
That’s basically “almost free” considering you will make a lot more money from your website.
Paying this small amount gives you access to expert support and overall better service. Most importantly, it gives you complete control and ownership of your website. This means you can choose to show no ads on your website, and keep it 100% ad-free to offer the best user experience.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best almost-free website hosting companies first. After that, we will look at the best free web hosting sites.
Wix — Best Free Hosting with Easy Website Builder
- 1 site, 500MB storage, 500MB bandwidth
- Wix ads
- Assigned Wix domain
- Drag-and-drop website builder
Wix is one of the best website builders out there. With their builder, they also offer free web hosting.
It’s one of our favorites. In fact, we recommend them to any beginner starting out with a blog or ecommerce store. Their highly intuitive UI makes it easy for anyone to create an attractive website to meet their needs.
They also come with 24/7 customer support. That’s downright essential when it comes to hosting a website.
However, their offerings are limited when it comes to their free plan. Expect half the storage and bandwidth of some of the other offerings on this list. You also won’t get a custom domain and your site will have Wix ads throughout it.
Overall, though, it’s a top choice if you’re looking for free hosting.
More Wix specs
Online payments not included, Google Analytics not included. Get started with Wix right now.
Awardspace — Best Free Web Hosting With No Ads
- 1 site, 1GB storage, 5GB bandwidth
- No ads
- Domain registration
- Limited customer support ticketing, live chat, online documentation
Awardspace is well-known for their fantastic free web hosting. For more than a decade, they’ve provided a great hosting service.
They stand out for offering a full gig of storage (more than most others). We personally spoke to a rep at Awardspace and they said they also offer up-to-date versions of PHP and MySQL.
Awardspace also offers the Zacky drag-and-drop website builder, plus an easy-to-use WordPress and Joomla installer.
Note: If your site receives no traffic for 12 months, it will automatically be set to inactive. After two more weeks of notices, it will be deleted.
More Awardspace specs
PHP 7.2, MySQL 5.7, 30MB database storage, 1 email account, no SSL
Atspace — Best For Unlimited Bandwidth and 24/7 Customer Support
- 1 site, 1GB storage, unlimited bandwidth
- No ads
- Domain registration
- Limited 24/7/365 customer support, live chat, limited ticketing, online documentation
Atspace has nearly identical stats to Awardspace. The difference? Atspace offers unlimited bandwidth (as opposed to Awardspace’s 5GB) and a claim of 24/7/365 support.
Digging deeper, though, Atspace lists that support as “limited 24/7/365 support” so take that with a big fat grain of salt.
Atspace also uses the Zacky website builder and app installer for apps like WordPress and Joomla.
More Atspace specs
PHP 7.2, MySQL 5.7, 30MB database storage, 1 email account, no SSL
Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world. They are an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
They have agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and 63% discount on web hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.
Their hosting plans include free branded email addresses, unlimited disk space, free SSL certificate, one-click WordPress install, and more.
From their control panel, you can enable additional add-ons like site builder, Cloudflare CDN, SEO tools, and other powerful website features.
Bluehost is perfect for building personal websites, small business websites, and blogs.
To learn more about Bluehost, see our complete Bluehost review where we evaluated their hosting performance, features, and services.
SiteGround
Siteground is another great alternative to free website hosting. They are known for their awesome support and blazingly fast performance. SiteGround is also an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
They are offering WPBeginner users up to 73% discount on hosting. Basically, you’ll be able to get started for $3.99 per month.
SiteGround’s hosting plans come with a website builder, 1-click installer for WordPress and Joomla, SSD storage, unlimited email accounts, superior customer support, and more.
They have also built advanced website performance features such as Ultra-fast PHP and MySQL databases, site optimization, and security plugins.
SiteGround has data centers all across the world (4 continents), and they offer a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
SiteGround is perfect for creating your own website for your small business or store. As your website grows, you can switch to their VPS web hosting plan to get faster speed and scalability.
HostGator
HostGator is one of the top hosting service providers in the market. They have been around since 2002 and gradually grew to become one of the largest hosting companies in the world.
Their incredible growth can be credited to their low-price, reliable web hosting, and quality customer service.
Their hatchling plan starts from $2.64 / month. Each plan includes free domain, unlimited subdomains, unlimited email addresses, free HTTPS / SSL, unlimited FTP accounts, unlimited storage (diskspace), and unmetered bandwidth.
All hosting accounts come with a cPanel that has auto installer for WordPress and other popular website building software.
DreamHost
DreamHost is one of the oldest web hosting companies, started in 1997. They currently host more than 1.5 million websites.
Their starter plan costs $2.59 per month. It includes a free domain name, free domain privacy, free SSL, unlimited emails, 1-click installers for popular website builders, and more.
Hostinger
Hostinger is another low-cost alternative to the free website hosting companies. They offer shared hosting plans perfect for creating a starter website.
You can basically get started for $1.99 per month. Their starter plan which costs $2.99 also comes with a free domain name, free business email addresses, ability to create up to 100 websites, and 1-click install for CMS software like WordPress.
WooCommerce via Bluehost
Right up at the top among the best eCommerce platforms is WooCommerce. It is a free and open source ecommerce plugin that integrates perfectly with WordPress (both WordPress sites and most WordPress plugins). Even though “a plugin” might not sound like much, WooCommerce is actually a fully-featured tool that has all the eCommerce features you might need. Plus, there’s also a huge ecosystem of extensions that let you build on top of WooCommerce’s main offering and make it fit your needs perfectly.
Free plan
There’s a lot you can do with the free WooCommerce plugin:
- Sell anything: physical or digital goods, including subscriptions
- Easy installation and use
- Adding your products is straightforward
- There are many free WooCommerce themes to help you design your store the way you want it
- Flexible and secure payments
- Multiple currencies to sell globally
- Integrates with multi-channel shipping options
- Stripe plugin available if needed
WooCommerce is a delight for advanced users as it gives you complete control over your eCommerce platform. As for beginners, it’s a complete solution to start your online store, scaling up and learning as you grow.
Free plan limitations
The base plugin with free add-ons should more than suffice for most online stores that are just starting out. However, if you want to use additional payment gateways, integrate with certain shipping solutions directly, or have WooCommerce help you with handling taxes, then this will require additional investments in some extensions. There are a lot of those available.
Price & transaction fees
Here’s something important to note – WooCommerce, by itself, is totally free; so is WordPress – the CMS that WooCommerce works with. However, as with setting up any website, there are other costs involved – mainly web hosting and domain name. That being said, there are some very budget-friendly options to choose from for those who want to minimize the costs as much as possible. For example, Bluehost will give you an optimized web hosting space, a free domain name for the first year, and a quick single-click WordPress and WooCommerce installation. All of that for the price of $2.75 / month.
Transaction fees:
If you end up using the native WooCommerce Payments module, the transaction fees are 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction made with U.S.-issued credit or debit cards. For cards issued outside the U.S., there’s an additional 1% fee.
If you choose to use PayPal, that is also around 2.9% and $0.30 per transaction. Other payment methods have their own rates and fees.
Ecwid
Want a store that plugs into your existing site? If that’s a yes, it’s Ecwid for you. No website? Not to worry, you’ll get an instant starter site too for free.
Free plan
Ecwid has a free plan that’s very usable. Once you sign up, you can set up a fully functional free eCommerce website that sells up to ten products in two categories. Here’s what you get:
- Mobile responsive customizable online store with product options
- Mobile responsive shopping cart
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Add it easily to WordPress or any other website
- Sell simultaneously on multiple sites
- Facebook Pixel
- Built-in support for SSL certification, security, server configuration, and hosting
- 40+ payment methods in multiple currencies
- Real-time shipping rates from some carriers
- Built-in Google Analytics integration
Free plan limitations
You won’t get access to digital goods, staff accounts, or promo codes. These features, along with many more, are available only in premium plans.
Other key features
- Sell on the go with Ecwid mobile
- Store management app
- Multiple sales channels like Facebook, Instagram, or other POS
- Unlimited products, including digital goods
- Inventory management, automated tax calculation
- Order creation, product filters, and variations
In short, Ecwid’s free plan can be a fine option for small merchants who have basic selling requirements.
Price & transaction fees
Beyond the free plan, three paid plans are available:
- Venture – $15 per month
- Business – $35 per month
- Unlimited – $99 per month
Transaction fees:
None of them are charged directly by Ecwid, but your chosen payment processor will likely charge fees.
Free Web Hosting Alternatives for Subdomain Sites
If you’re okay with a subdomain (as opposed to a custom domain) your options for free hosting increase. That’s because lots of great website builders offer freemium versions of their platforms when you use a subdomain — for example, our URL would be quicksprout.wordpress.com or quicksprout.wix.com.
Obviously, a subdomain lacks the professionalism of a custom domain, and free versions of any website builder product or platform tend to be pretty stripped down. But if you’re interested in launching content quickly, subdomains offer a really low barrier of entry.
Most can launch in just a few minutes. Even better, if you envision a more robust web presence in the future, starting for free on the platform you ultimately want to use means you’ll have everything already built. You’ll just need to upgrade.
Conclusion
Everybody wants to build a website without spending much money. The trouble is, most of the time it’s a false economy. If you use one of those cheap hosting providers, you run the risk of your business website not working or being hacked. It’s the old saying – buying cheap is usually expensive!
Most people want to start an online business for free and looking for ‘free web hosting’. Sometimes we get easily sucked into the free hosting especially when you are new to the whole thing of building website. Hosting could be a necessary part of your E-commerce business. Since it is a crucial part of your E-commerce business, you should not take chances or compromise on Free Web Hosting. Choosing the correct Web host will determine the success or failure of any site.