Are you looking for affordable hosting? Just Host probably came up several times in your search.
This provider looks not only affordable but also boasts a lot of features and free extras for your shared hosting.
And no wonder that companies are trying to attract new customers with additional discounts and a lot of features “out of the box” – the competition is fierce.
But does Just Host keep its promises?
Let’s find out about it in this Just Host Review.
Just Host Review: Background
Just Host offers virtual, dedicated, VPS, and reseller hosting. It has a single data center in the US.
Just Host is one of the biggest players in the industry, with over 1 million users. It focuses on providing hosting for small businesses, newcomers, and freelancers.
Thus, you will find hosting plans at very competitive prices and attractive features such as unlimited domains, free website builder, and other tools.
Just Host Pricing Review
Just Host offers four price levels starting from $3.95 per month for the BASIC plan. The PLUS and PRIME plans cost $6.95 per month, but the renewal price will differ after the initial period. You can upgrade to a PRO plan for $14.95 per month.
- With the BASIC plan, you will receive hosting for one website, 50GB of disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and five email accounts.
- With the PLUS plan, you will receive hosting for ten websites, 150GB of storage, and 100 email accounts.
- PRIME provides unlimited websites, disk space, and email accounts.
- The PRO plan is entirely similar to the PRIME in terms of limitations. However, it comes with several enhancements such as dedicated IP, domain privacy, and site backup. Besides, you get sites hosted on a high-performance server for more speed.
But is this the real price?
Unfortunately, Just Host follows the worst industry practice of all – super expensive updates.
What is it?
The advertised price is a discounted price (and, as a rule, is available only in a long-term contract). That means that the first year is super affordable, but the extension of the selected hosting package is much more expensive.
All advertised prices of Just Host are only for 36-month contracts. Besides, they are reduced in the first year.
That means that if you want to get hosting for $3.95 as promised, you would have to pay $142.20 upfront and $292.45 after the first year.
| Advertised | 1-month price | To be paid in advance | Renewal for 36 months | |
| BASIC | $3.95 | $7.99 | $142.20 | $341.64 |
| PLUS | $6.95 | $14.99 | $214.18 | $395.64 |
| PRIME | $6.95 | not available | $214.18 | $539.64 |
| PRO | $14.95 | $24.99 | $538.20 | $899.64 |
Moreover, the company offers a lot of takeoffs, the prices of which pile up quickly. I’m sure many newcomers fell in love with their pricing scheme and eventually paid hundreds of dollars for simple shared hosting.
Another interesting point is that the SiteLock security package is supposedly free with all plans. Surprisingly, they ask to pay for SiteLock 1.99 dollars a month during the ordering process. That is a pretty sneaky takeoff.
Besides, it doesn’t offer a free trial.
You can ask for a refund under the 30-day money-back guarantee, but if you sign up for hosting and choose an additional domain, you will be charged $15.99 non-refundable.
If Just Host still interests you, compare the plans in the table below:
| BASIC | PLUS | PRIME | PRO | |
| Disk Space | 50GB | 150GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Domains allowed | 1 | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Email accounts | 5 | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Customer support | 24/7 Chat, email, and phone | |||
| Free automated back-ups | No | No | Yes | Yes |
In general, the prices of a simple owner are shadowy: ups, advertising long-term prices of both monthly and expensive updates.
Just Host Features Review
Just Host comes with cPanel, already included in the startup package, which makes setting up your first site very easy.
In just a few clicks, it’s possible to deploy a website and focus on expanding your internet project.
You will also find a website builder with hundreds of templates to choose from. That is, of course, a great addition for beginners who do not have extensive coding skills.
Just Host provides quite a few features for CMS, such as WordPress, Concrete5, Joomla, and Drupal, as well as for e-commerce platforms such as TomatoCart, Concrete5, and Magento.
But there are other possibilities.
One of them is the SiteLock Protection package, and this can be a big advantage. Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, it is very unclear which part of the SiteLock offer is included for free and what you will get in their 1.70 €.
I believe that this confusion should not happen – mainly that they advertise SiteLock right on their home page.
Another feature of Just Host’s offerings is customer support, which is available 24/7 via chat, email, and telephone.
Although I had to wait about five minutes for someone to show up for a live chat, all questions were fully answered, and the staff was very polite.
Besides, live chat support is available for both existing and new customers.
Just Host Performance Review
The host does not provide any guarantees of uninterrupted operations that have already become standard in the industry.
Instead of providing a percentage to their users, they simply promise to restore any problems within 15 minutes of they occur. Of course, assuming that these are not extreme problems. And that is not the most professional approach.
It’s just that both claims that his performance is “unfulfilled.”
“Outstanding” is not quite the same as saying 99.9%.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell me anything. Are 15 minutes of downtime every month is still considered “outstanding”?
Without a serious guarantee of trouble-free operation, it is hard to judge server performance.
On top of that, the network itself is quite slow. The server speed was rated as below the average testing tool we used.
The C evaluation, it is well below many of its competitors.
However, if you are in the U.S. or Europe, the response time should not slow you down as they are even lower than the industry average of about 400ms.
Just a review by the host is not what was promised.
It’s just that the host doesn’t deliver on its promises of excellent hosting for small businesses, individuals, and beginners. What he’s really doing is the other way around.
Just Host Review Summary
As we understand from this review of Just Host, it attracts new and inexperienced users at a reasonable price, which in the future will jump much higher.
And Just Host is not reliable in terms of performance.
So what should we choose? When it comes to shared hosting, you can easily find tons of the best hosting providers!
Pros
- cPanel
- Good support
- Website creator
Cons
- Shady Upsells
- No guarantee of uninterrupted operation.
- Poor performance
- Confusion in pricing