WebHostingPad Review
Pocket-friendly shared hosting is WebHostingPad’s main focus, but the company doesn’t limit its services to shared hosting only – plenty of VPS and WordPress-optimized hosting options are available for those with different hosting needs. Besides web hosting, email hosting and domain registration also feature as ancillary services offered by WebHostingPad.
WebHostingPad Overview
The company was founded in 2005 by seasoned veterans of the web hosting industry. They are best known for their affordable and beginner friendly shared hosting that includes a free domain name, and many unlimited features like domain hosting and web space.
Their WordPress plans are also on the affordable side of hosting, offering built-in content delivery network and automatic malware removal. For users that need dedicated resources, WebHostingPad offers six VPS plans, which may not be the cheapest on the market, but they do come with some great specs and features.
WebHostingPad Plans & Pricing
At WebHostingPad, shared hosting can cost as low as $1.99/month, but here’s the catch – only if you sign up for 48 months, that is, 4 years. You don’t have the option to pay month-to-month for shared hosting plans as the shortest commitment period is 12 months, which comes out to $3.99/month. This plan is the Power plan, which offers unlimited web space and bandwidth, and a free domain.
The Power Plus plan costs $7.99/month with the 1-year plan or $4.99/month with the 4-year plan. Both the Power and the Power Plus plans feature unlimited website hosting, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited email accounts, etc. A free Weebly website builder, cPanel control panel and several other free tools are included with both plans.
What distinguishes the Power Plus plan from the Power plan is that the latter includes an advanced spam filter, a Free SSL certificate, advanced web stats, SSD database storage, more computing power, automatic malware scanner and quarantine, premium backup service, and SSH access.
Those looking for a hosting plan for their WordPress blog or website can choose from 3 WordPress optimized hosting plans – WP Basic at $2.99/month with 3-year plan or $4.99/month with 12-month plan; WP Pro at $3.99/month with the 3-year plan or $5.99/month with the 1-year plan; and WP Premium at $5.99/month with 3-year plan or $7.99/month with the 1-year plan. All WordPress optimized plans come with a built-in CDN, unlimited email accounts and storage place, as well as automatic malware scan and removal. Some plans feature premium backup service, expert WP help, free SSL certificate.
WebHostingPad’s VPS hosting offers the most plans – a total of 6 VPS hosting plans powered by VPSDepot.com. All plans include cPanel and WHMCS. In this category month-to-month, 3-month and 6-month plans are all available. The entry-level plan costs $29.95/month (based on a six-month commitment), while the most advanced plan in this category is priced at $99.95/month and has the following specs: 300 GB disk space, 3 TB bandwidth, 3 CPU cores, 8 GB RAM, and 3 IP addresses.
There are a few unlimited features with these plans as well, such as the number of databases, email accounts, domains, cPanel accounts and FTP accounts you can create and host on a single account.
WebHostingPad’s email hosting service, the PadMail, starts at $40/year.
WebHostingPad Hosting Features
Despite dedicated server options missing from WebHostingPad’s product offering, their shared, WordPress and VPS plans offer a good variety of options and resources. In the Plans & Pricing section of this WebHostingPad review we’ve discussed some of the resources and features available with each hosting category. Here is an overview of the best hosting features of WebHostingPad:
- cPanel/WHM included with all plans;
- Free domain name with shared hosting accounts;
- Built-in global CDN with WordPress plans;
- Automatic malware scan and removal;
- 1-click script installs via Softaculous;
- Unlimited hosting features (domains, databases, bandwidth, disk space, etc.);
- 24/7 support;
- 30-day money-back;
- 99% uptime;
- SSD storage on some plans;
- Premium backup service with some plans;
- Free site transfer;
- Free reseller account with VPS plans;
- Several add-on options (Spam Firewall, SSL certificate, Wildcard SSL, Malicious Traffic Protection Seal, Premium Backup Service, One Time Backup Restore, etc.).
You can add these extra services at check-out, but while they may prove useful to some, they can drive up the costs of your monthly plan.
WebHostingPad Customer Support
WebHostingPad customer support is easily accessible via live chat or ticket submission. A knowledgebase organized into different categories and a video tutorial section can get you up to speed with the essentials of WebHostingPad’s hosting services. While there are some complaints about the proficiency of WebHostingPad’s customer support, positive reviews about their support team also exist.
Pros & Cons of WebHostingPad
Now for the pros and cons of WebHostingPad:
Pros
- Attractive shared hosting packages;
- Unlimited hosting features (domain, emails, storage, bandwidth);
- 24/7 live chat;
- User-friendly Weebly website builder;
- WordPress optimized hosting packages;
- cPanel control panel;
- Free domain name with shared hosting.
Cons
- Long commitment times to enjoy lower prices (4 years);
- No month-to-month shared hosting plans;
- No dedicated hosting packages;
- Uptime issues;
- Lots of upsells.
Unfortunately, WebHostingPad does not shine when it comes to uptime. They promise 99% uptime, however, complaints about the reliability of their service prove otherwise. While they promise a lower uptime than other budget-friendly hosting providers do (most promise a 99.99% uptime), WebHostingPad falls short of their promise.
WebHostingPad Review Conclusion
WebHostingPad’s “unbeatable prices” slogan is indeed backed up by attractive pricing, however, you do need to make a serious long-time commitment to their services to benefit from low prices. Besides budget shared hosting plans, they also offer a wide range of VPS hosting plans in collaboration with VPSDepot.com, however, these plans no longer fall into the pocket-friendly hosting category.
If high availability and the possibility to upgrade to a dedicated server are important to you, WebHostingPad may not be the suitable web host for you. If you’re looking for beginner-friendly shared hosting for affordable rates, and long-term commitments are not an issue for you, then you can rely on WebHostingPad’s shared hosting plans to provide everything you need to get online.
