5 Best Cheap cPanel Hosting Providers

Hosting plans come with some sort of control panel included for managing your domain names, email addresses, databases and other management related aspects of your website like security, logs, third-party apps, etc. cPanel is considered the industry-leader in web-based control panels, and it’s included for free in the hosting packages of several hosting companies. cPanel has gone through several changes and its interface has been polished and re-polished several times in a quest to achieve better usability, automation of several administrative tasks, and to offer extensive capabilities to its users, regardless of their technical experience.

cPanel has a straightforward and clean interface, all the while being abundant in features. If, for whatever reason, you want to purchase this control panel independently of any hosting plan, you can choose between two licensing plans – cPanel & WHM VPS for $20/month and cPanel & WHM Dedicated for $45/month. Reseller hosting plans will include both cPanel and WHM (Web Hosting Manager, which allows admin access to cPanel’s back-end), and allows you to customise cPanel to your client’s needs, create and manage several cPanels, etc. Different hosting companies will have different versions or customised versions of cPanel, but its core features usually remain the same (Files, Domains, Databases, Email, Security, Logs, etc.).

cPanel hosting plans are so popular and sough-after that hosting companies will include it even in their cheapest hosting plans, that is, their shared hosting plans. So even if you’re looking for a shared hosting plan, chances are that you’re going to see free cPanel included with these plans too.

How to Choose the Best Cheap cPanel Hosting?

The fact that the type of control panel used by a web hosting company can make or break a web hosting is a generally accepted belief in the industry. Without a control panel that can offer a smooth server management experience, a web server can sometimes be pretty useless. So the value of the web server is strongly correlated with the type of control panel that’s pre-installed on it. This is not to say that other aspects don’t matter, they absolutely do, but the ability to easily carry out and even automate server administration task also has a pivotal role. Migration wise, it’s also better to go from a cPanel host to another cPanel host, than migrating to and from hosts that use different control panels.

If the hosting companies that you’re checking out all have cPanel hosting, telling them apart may be difficult, however, in your attempt to find the best cPanel hosting you may want to take the following factors into account:

• Look for enhanced/improved cPanel – cPanel hosting may include a custom cPanel that has been customized by the hosting provider to include other features as well or to have a different interface. These changes may not necessarily be better from the customer’s perspective, however, companies usually have a demo page/test drive feature, which allows users to see the web hosting company’s take on cPanel. It’s a good idea to check these demos out and compare them with the ones offered by other companies, and choose the one that is best tailored to your needs.
• Look for other free features – the number of hosted websites, bandwidth, storage space allotment, support, uptime and pricing aside, you can compare how generous each hosting company is in terms of the free features they include with their plans. Some companies may include a free domain name, free backups, free site builders (here too, you can compare the type of site builders they offer), others may have better money-back guarantees or free advertising credit offerings.

There can be subtle or even huge differences between the different cPanel hosting plans of different providers, so it doesn’t hurt to take your time and dig into the details.

What’s our take on which are the best cheap cPanel hosting providers? Let’s get down to it!

Best Cheap cPanel Hosting Providers

The hosting companies we’ve decided to cover all have cPanel included with their shared hosting plans, some of which have custom cPanel. These are the cheapest cPanel hosting providers with some of the best web hosting plans in terms of features and resource allotments.

BlueHost

BlueHost is another affordable cPanel hosting that comes with a customized cPanel that has an enhanced interface and additional tools included. You can test drive BlueHost’s cPanel version and see the different features that are included.  BlueHost is also a full-service hosting provider, with several shared hosting plans and the possibility to easily upgrade to other types of hosting plans.

BlueHost’s cheapest cPanel hosting costs $2.95/month, it only offers unmetered bandwidth, 50 GB storage space, hosting for one website, 5 email accounts with storage limited at 100MB for each, but it includes a free domain. BlueHost’s other two shared hosting plans are unlimited plans, meaning that they have unlimited website hosting, unlimited storage, bandwidth, email accounts and storage. They also include a free domain, $200 worth of marketing offers, and 1 SpamExperts, as well as Domain Privacy and Site Backup Pro in the highest tier shared hosting plan. The Plus plan costs $4.45/month, while the Prime plan costs $10.95/month.

These plans come with SSH access too and the possibility to enable CloudFlare on your websites for free. If you outgrow your shared plans, BlueHost allows one-click upgrading to their other hosting plans.

InMotion Hosting

InMotion is another hosting company with a cPanel control panel. They also offer the possibility to see a demo version of their cPanel. InMotion offers SSD based hosting and their shared hosting plans are marketed as business shared hosting plans.

InMotion hosting is one of the most feature rich hosting providers and their plans come with a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is quite rare in the industry. They also offer three shared hosting plans, which are unlimited in terms of bandwidth and disk space. The plans are different in the number of websites and MySQL and PostgreSQL databases they allow you to host. All plans include $250 worth of advertising credit, free data backups, free domain registration and transfer, one-click installs with access to over 300 applications, email spam protection, SSH access, WP-CLI enabled, free website builder (BoldGrid) with free themes, and several other useful features.

The Launch plan is priced at $4.19/month, the Power plan costs $5.39/month, while the Pro plan is priced at $8.99/month.

HostGator

HostGator’s shared cPanel hosting plans are very similar in terms of features with BlueHost’s plans, but unlike BlueHost they don’t offer a free domain with any of their shared hosting plans. HostGator also allows you to check out a demo of their cPanel, and see all the tools that are included with it.

HostGator’s shared plans are unlimited in terms of bandwidth and disk space, and some plans also allow you to host unlimited websites. The Hatchling plan costs $3.45/month, the Baby plan costs $4.95/month, while the Business plan costs $5.95/month, and it includes a dedicated IP, a private SSL, and an own toll-free number. All plans are backed up by a 45-day money back guarantee, and feature instant backups, 24/7 support, Google AdWords/Yahoo/Bing advertising credit, SSH access, unlimited emails, Spam Assassin included, hotlink protection, IP Deny Manager, shared SSL, free migration assistance, etc.

HostGator plans are e-commerce ready, they support one-click installs, and their shared plans are suitable for hosting WordPress sites and blogs.

HostMonster

HostMonster’s shared hosting plans come with free cPanel included, which you can test drive to see how it has been improved by HostMonster. All three shared hosting plans have unmetered bandwidth, include a free domain name, include free site builder (Weebly), and access to Mojo Marketplace with more than a hundred open-source apps, themes and plugins with 1-click install. HostMonster also offer free advertising credit for Google AdWords and Bing, 30-day money-back guarantee, and 24/7 support.

The Basic plan costs $4.95/month and features hosting for 1 website, free domain name included, and 50 GB website space, 5 email accounts with 100 MB storage each. The Plus plan offers hosting for up to 10 websites, 150 GB website space, 100 email account with 500 MB storage for each, spam prevention, 1 free domain and $150 in marketing offers. The Pro plan is an all-unlimited plan (bandwidth, storage, websites, email, etc.) that costs $14.95/month. It includes a free domain, 1 SSL certificate, 1 dedicated IP, 1 Domain Privacy, $300 in marketing offers, 2 Spam Experts, and 1 Site Backup Pro.

eHost

eHost has a single shared cPanel hosting, which costs $2.75/month. It has unmetered storage and unmetered bandwidth, allowing you to host unlimited domains, free email addresses, and of course cPanel included. You can find these features at other hosting companies as well, but eHost doesn’t stop here, and provides a free personalized domain name, free marketing tools and credit ($100 on Yahoo/Bing), free drag and drop site builder with thousands of templates, blogging and eCommerce tools (e.g. PayPal integration), WordPress tools, CMS tools, load balanced servers, email spam filters and virus checking. These are the most notable features offered by eHost’s cPanel hosting plan.

In terms of support, you can contact eHost 24/7 via phone, email and chat. eHost also offers a 45-day money-back guarantee. eHost offers a single hosting plan, without any options to upgrade, those who have websites that are expected to develop and grow may want to opt for a more full-service hosting provider, although migrating from a cPanel hosting is not difficult either. For this monthly price, eHost is also one of the cheapest shared hosting providers.

Conclusion

Each of the above cPanel hosting companies have affordable shared plans, but with different configurations and included perks, and you choosing one over the other will be largely influenced by what are your website’s current and future hosting requirements (e.g. whether you want to have the option to seamlessly upgrade your hosting account to a different hosting plan), and which extra features you prefer over others (e.g. you may like BoldGrid better than Weebly), or which hosting provider’s cPanel version you like best.