Finding the web hosting plan that’s right for you mostly depends on the scope and purpose of your website. For single operators, small businesses, and personal hobbies a cheaper, lower level of hosting is probably just right. Larger businesses, massive outreach projects, and large databases will require a much greater share of bandwidth, server space, and active management to ensure their content is getting to consumers quickly and easily.
So how do you know how big your project is? You want lots of people to see it and you want it safe, so is it wise to take the low road even if it might be only a few pages of content? Any good hosting service will provide a basic level of security, bandwidth, and management/customer support on any hosting plan they offer. If you’re not trying to conduct business on a national level then even a basic hosting plan would provide you with more storage space, bandwidth, and support than your site would likely be able to use. However if you do plan on making your website into a big project, then don’t skimp on its infrastructure. Paying a little extra for a higher level plan is worth the investment for the added resources and support that a large-scale web project deserves.
One other thing to consider when choosing a plan is the add-ons and extra features your hosting service offers. The more free services, or basic services that you can lump together, in your hosting plan the better. Options like Free SSL and associated email hosting are cost effective when paired with hosting and can give you much greater flexibility in what you want to do with your site. Naturally it’s probably not necessary to buy a web-service “just in case” since most hosting services will allow you to upgrade your hosting plans later on, but a good way to assemble your hosting budget is to decide early on what online services seem right for your web project.
