Plan vs plan
Bluehost Starter vs Business
Bluehost’s Basic and Choice Plus plans are gone; the lineup is now Starter and Business. Starter is $3.99 a month on a 36-month term and renews at $9.99, the lowest renewal rate of any mainstream shared host. Business is $6.99 renewing at $13.99, about $156 more over four years, and buys five times the sites and storage, phone support and a stronger security bundle. For one or a handful of small sites, Starter is the better deal; Business is for people who will actually use 50 sites or need to phone someone.
Both plans run on Bluehost’s cPanel-based platform with NVMe storage, a free domain for the first year, free SSL and CDN, WordPress staging and 36-month promotional terms. Neither includes daily backups: Bluehost’s own documentation describes weekly backups that overwrite the previous one and are provided as a courtesy. That applies to both tiers and is the main reason to keep your own.
Basic and Choice Plus, translated
For years Bluehost sold Basic, Plus, Choice Plus and Pro. Those names no longer appear on Bluehost’s plan pages. The current shared lineup is Starter (the Basic slot), Business (roughly the Choice Plus slot, with more sites), eCommerce Essentials, and a separate “High-Performance” range where the Pro name survives. If a review you are reading compares Basic with Choice Plus, it is describing plans you can no longer buy; the tiers below are what checkout offers today.
What each really costs
| Plan | Intro | Renews at | Year 1 | 4-year cost | 6-year cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter (was Basic) | $3.99/mo | $9.99/mo+150% | $48 | $264 | $503 |
| Business (was Choice Plus) | $6.99/mo | $13.99/mo+100% | $84 | $420 | $755 |
Intro price for the 36-month term paid upfront, then the 36-month renewal rate. Renewing on 12 months costs more ($11.99 and $15.99); monthly renewal costs $15.99 and $20.99. Verified September 2026.
Bluehost is unusual in one respect worth stating plainly: its renewal rates are the least aggressive of the three hosts we track. Starter’s +150% jump is modest next to SiteGround’s +502% on StartUp. If you plan to keep a site for years, the Bluehost renewal price is the argument for Bluehost.
Every difference that matters
| Starter (was Basic) | Business (was Choice Plus) | |
|---|---|---|
| Websites | 10 | 50 |
| Storage | 10 GB NVMe | 50 GB NVMe |
| Traffic guidance | ~40,000 visits/mo | ~200,000 visits/mo |
| Backups | Weekly, overwritten; fee to restore | Same |
| Support | 24/7 chat | 24/7 chat plus phone |
| Security | Malware scanning and removal | AI-powered detection and removal, web application firewall, DDoS protection |
| Domain privacy | Bluehost’s own pages disagree (one says included first year, one says not) | Free first year |
| WordPress staging | Yes | Yes |
| Free domain, SSL, CDN | Yes | Yes |
| Refund window | 30 days (domain cost deducted at the regular rate) | Same |
The rows that matter: phone support, which Starter does not get at all; the security bundle, which on Business includes a firewall and DDoS protection rather than scanning alone; and capacity, where ten sites and 10 GB is plenty for most people and 50 and 50 GB is for someone hosting clients. Backups are identical, and identically weak, on both.
Which one to pick
Starter, if…
- You run up to a few small sites and are comfortable with chat support
- You take your own backups, which you should on either tier
- You want the lowest long-term price of any mainstream host: $264 over four years
Business, if…
- You want to phone someone when things break
- You host sites for other people, or more than ten of your own
- A site takes payments and the firewall and DDoS protection are worth $4.00 a month to you
Bluehost adds upsells during signup; untick them. And if you take the 30-day refund, the free domain is charged back at its regular $23.99 rate, not the discounted one. Details in does Bluehost refund the free domain?
Check current Bluehost pricing
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Read the guide →Related questions
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- Does Bluehost refund the free domain?
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Sources
Every factual claim on this page is checkable on the provider’s own site. Prices and policies were verified September 2026 and change without notice.