Head to head
Bluehost vs SiteGround
On four-year total cost, Bluehost is cheaper by about $420 — comparing each provider’s least expensive plan to own over that period. Whether that settles it depends on what SiteGround gives you for the difference, which is what the rest of this page is about.
What each one costs
| Host & plan | Intro price | Renews at | Promo term | 4-year true cost | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BluehostStarter | $3.99/mo | $9.99/mo+150% | 36 mo | $264 | 10 GB NVMe10 sites |
| BluehostBusiness | $6.99/mo | $13.99/mo+100% | 36 mo | $420 | 50 GB NVMe50 sites |
| SiteGroundStartUp | $2.99/mo | $17.99/mo+502% | 12 mo | $684 | 10 GB1 site |
| SiteGroundGrowBig | $4.99/mo | $29.99/mo+501% | 12 mo | $1,140 | 50 GBUnlimited sites |
Intro prices require paying the full promo term upfront. “4-year true cost” is the promo term at the intro rate plus the remaining months at the renewal rate — the number the pricing page does not show you. Verified September 2026. See the screenshots these figures were read from.
Where they actually differ
The feature lists are close to identical. These are the differences that show up in practice.
| Bluehost | SiteGround | |
|---|---|---|
| Backups | Weekly, on a random day, overwriting the previous backup. Bluehost describes them as a courtesy and disclaims liability for your data. Restoring one incurs a fee. | Daily, free, with 30 days of history on every plan. The best backup offering of the three by a clear margin. On-demand backups on GrowBig and GoGeek. |
| Support | 24/7 live chat and help centre. Phone is not 24/7 — 7am to midnight EST. | 24/7 live chat, 24/7 phone with regional numbers, and tickets. Entirely in-house, no outsourcing. Priority support is a GoGeek-only feature. |
| Migration | A free self-service WordPress migration tool, which Bluehost’s own documentation says has “a success rate of at least 85%”. If it fails, staff migration costs $149.99 per site. | Free, via SiteGround’s own WordPress Migrator plugin — automated and self-service rather than staff-performed. |
| Refund window | 30 days on Shared, VPS and Dedicated. Cloud hosting and monthly terms are excluded. If your plan included a free domain, Bluehost deducts the domain’s regular cost from your refund — $23.99 for a .com, not the $12.99 signup rate. | 30 days on shared hosting, but only 14 days on cloud. Domain fees may be charged on cancellation even where they were waived as part of a promotion. |
| Free domain | Free for one year; .com renews at $23.99/yr. Domain privacy $15. New domains cannot be transferred away for 60 days. | Free for one year. Renewal is billed separately from hosting, at roughly $22.99/yr for a .com based on SiteGround’s stated regular price. |
| Control panel | cPanel, reached through Bluehost’s own account portal. | Site Tools (proprietary). SiteGround dropped cPanel entirely. |
| Datacenters | Region choice is offered on VPS and Dedicated plans. It is not part of the shared hosting signup. | Eleven locations: Ashburn, Council Bluffs, Dallas, Los Angeles, London, Madrid, Eemshaven, Frankfurt, Paris, Sydney and Singapore. Chosen at signup and fixed thereafter. |
| Owner | Owned by Newfold Digital, a private-equity-backed group (Clearlake Capital and Siris Capital) that also owns HostGator, Network Solutions, Domain.com and Yoast. | SiteGround Hosting Ltd., privately held, headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria. Independent. |
Choosing between them
Pick Bluehost if…
- $9.99 renewal on Starter is the lowest mainstream shared rate we track
- cPanel, which is familiar and portable if you leave
- Ten sites on the entry plan
Pick SiteGround if…
- Free daily backups with 30-day retention on every plan
- In-house 24/7 support including phone, widely regarded as the best of the three
- Eleven datacenter regions, chosen at signup
What would put us off each
Bluehost: backups are weekly, overwritten, disclaimed as a courtesy, and cost a fee to restore.
SiteGround: startup renews at $17.99 — a six-fold increase, and the steepest here.
Check Bluehost pricing Check SiteGround pricing
Read the full reviews
Bluehost
Buy Bluehost for the renewal rate, which at $9.99 is the lowest of any mainstream shared host — then be careful at…
Read the review →SiteGround
The best support and by far the best backups, attached to the steepest renewal pricing in the category. Worth it if the …
Read the review →Related questions
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- How do I avoid the hosting renewal price increase?
- How do I cancel Bluehost and get a refund?
- Can I transfer my domain away from Bluehost?
All hosting questions, answered →
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.