GoDaddy Hosting Review 2024: Features, Pros And Cons

GoDaddy is many things: domain registrar, web host, website builder and website services provider. GoDaddy hosts more than 84 million domain names and it’s constantly innovating—it’s one of few web hosts that’s now offering SMS support. It has become one of the most popular choices for individuals and small businesses alike and one of the overall best website hosting companies.

GoDaddy serves its customers in a number of ways, including as a web host, domain registrar and web services provider. You can sign up with GoDaddy and it will host your website and its necessary files and data on its physical servers.

If it’s your first time building a website, you can get everything you need with a shared web hosting package from GoDaddy to get started. Whether you’re an individual who wants a space to share your hobby, photos or family events, or you’re a business owner who wants customers to easily find your store or services, a website is super important these days.

In addition to shared web hosting, GoDaddy gives you a free website builder, which is great for new users who may not be comfortable with cPanel or even WordPress. With GoDaddy’s site builder, you don’t need to have website building skills. The builder has walk-throughs that guide you through each step from adding content to publishing your first website.

GoDaddy gives you a free domain for your first year, but if you already “own” a domain that you’d prefer to use, simply follow the instructions to change your domain name system (DNS) provider records. As with any web hosting service, GoDaddy lets you transfer a website from or to its server using its site migration tool.

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1

Bluehost

Starting price

$1.99 per month

Storage Limit

Unmetered bandwidth, SSD storage starts at 10GB

Standout Features

Free domain name & SSL for a year

1

Bluehost

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On Bluehost.com's Website

2

Hostinger

Pricing

$2.69/month + 3 months free

Offer

Extra 10% discount with code: FORBES10

Standout Features

Free domain, Free email, Free Unlimited SSL

2

Hostinger

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On Hostinger's Website

3

HostGator

Starting Price

$2.75 per month (for first 36 months)

Money-Back Guarantee

30 days

Standout Features

Free SSL certificate, free website transfer

3

HostGator

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On HostGator's Website

4

Web.com

Starting price

$2.75 per month

Website Building

Yes

Standout Features

Customizable templates, Easy drag-and-drop technology, SSL certificate

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Web.com

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On Web.com's Website

Not all web hosts offer as many services as GoDaddy. The site builder is easy for anyone to use. Choose one of more than 175 free templates, and then fill in with your own images, text and business logo. The editor is intuitive, with point-and-click navigation from the right-side menu.

If you want to get hosting with the GoDaddy site editor, you’ll have slightly different pricing and features. The regular cost is $9.99 to $19.99 for standard hosting and site building and $24.99 for an online store. These plans come with an SSL, search engine optimization (SEO) tools and some marketing features.

One of the biggest benefits of choosing GoDaddy as a web host is the free domain name registration. Many of GoDaddy’s competitors offer the first year free for your domain, but GoDaddy goes a step further. You can get domain registration free for your first full term, whether that’s one year or three years.

While there is a lot to like about GoDaddy, it’s not without its disadvantages. First, it’s not the most competitively priced web hosting service on the market—for introductory rates and renewal rates. Its entry-level plan equates to $5.99 per month and includes 25GB of storage. The biggest downside is the long commitment required; GoDaddy charges $215.64 up front, which is the equivalent of 36 monthly payments of $5.99.

Additionally, GoDaddy hosting plans come with Microsoft 365 business email for free (a $69.99 value per year)—but only for your first year. Meanwhile, many of the leading web hosting plans include free business email hosting. While one free year of Microsoft 365 might be a good value for some, comparatively, one year of free business email is not as good of a value as free email for as long as you are a customer.

There are a few options for web hosting services from GoDaddy. Shared hosting is the most common because it’s an entry-level collection of plans for hosting one or more small websites. It’s good for those starting out, whether you’re running a small business or want to host a website for fun.

WordPress hosting plans are a little pricier ($11.99 to $17.99 per month), but these are fully managed, so you don’t have to worry about updating your content management system (CMS) or online store platform. Advanced hosting options include virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, which is what you may want if your site grows too big for the disk space allowed on shared servers or you’re running a high-traffic website.

The VPS plans range from $9.99 per month to $49.99 per month on a three-year term (paid up front). Dedicated servers are much more expensive and will cost around $159.99 per month to $469.99 per month for a one-year term (paid up front).

Types of Web Hosting Available

GoDaddy offers a variety of web hosting plans to suit a wide range of web hosting needs. For example, it offers shared hosting plans for budget-strapped businesses seeking an affordable hosting solution. It offers Windows hosting for ASP.NET, ASP, .NET Core and SQL server users. It uniquely offers its Web Hosting Plus plan that combines the best of both worlds between a virtual private server (VPS) with a user-friendly control panel (cPanel).

For more tech-savvy users seeking more power and control, there are VPS hosting plans and for maximum control, performance and security, it offers dedicated hosting plans.

• Shared hosting: The most affordable type of web hosting is shared hosting. This is because, as the name implies, resources are shared among a number of websites. It’s generally low-cost and offers a reliable option for startups and small businesses. Shared hosting plans from GoDaddy start at the equivalent of $5.99 per month with three years paid up front ($215.64). Learn more about the best shared hosting plans.
• Windows hosting: Those who use ASP.NET, ASP, .NET Core and SQL servers will find the best option is to use Windows hosting because it’s designed to meet your needs. In doing so, it will help improve your site’s performance and speed. Windows hosting from GoDaddy is very affordable with plans starting at $5.99 per month with a three-year contract.
• Web Hosting Plus: This is a unique web hosting plan from GoDaddy that gives users both VPS hosting and an easy-to-use cPanel. In other words, it gives users the best of both worlds in that it gives the power of a server without the need to understand it from a technical standpoint. Plans start at $17.99 per month with three years billed up front ($647.64).
• VPS hosting: For tech-savvy users looking for enhanced power and control, GoDaddy offers VPS hosting plans starting at $9.99 per month with a three-year contract. This is a very competitive price for a VPS hosting plan, making it a good option for those who are seeking affordable VPS hosting. Learn more about the best VPS hosting plans.
• Dedicated hosting: For those who want a web hosting plan that offers top-notch performance and maximum control and security, GoDaddy offers dedicated hosting plans starting at $159.99 per month with annual billing. It’s best for sites that require high security and high performance, such as large business sites with very high traffic volumes and those that process highly sensitive information, such as popular e-commerce sites. Get the full breakdown of the best dedicated hosting plans.

For more information, check out our complete breakdown of the most common types of web hosting plans.

Storage and Bandwidth Limits

The economy plan from GoDaddy is more generous than even some of the best hosting services—25GB goes quickly, though. You can upgrade to one of the higher-priced tiers for 50GB, 75GB or 100GB, respectively.

Along with some web hosts today, GoDaddy doesn’t label its bandwidth allowance as “unlimited,” rather it’s unmetered. This means that it isn’t going to monitor how much data transfer you’re using unless it becomes a problem for others on the same server as your website. If you do use more than what GoDaddy deems appropriate for your plan level, it may request you upgrade your service or the company could suspend your website.

Extras and Inclusions

GoDaddy offers a free domain name for new accounts, but it goes further than most web hosting services. Your free domain name is free for your first term, so if you sign up for two or three years, it’s yours that entire time before you have to pay for the renewal.

You’ll get a free secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate, which secures your site (it’s what gives you the lock icon in your URL) and its data. It’s only for the first year, though. You also get daily backups, which is new to GoDaddy’s offerings.

Ease of Use

Although many web hosts advertise one-click installs of CMS apps, it’s rarely one click. You have to find apps in cPanel, click the app you want, fill in a form and then click to install. Access WordPress through cPanel or through the typical wp-admin login on your site (you can also change that login page, if you prefer).

With all that said, GoDaddy is fairly easy to use and it isn’t fair to judge the company on cPanel. If you’re looking for the easiest route to a website, choose GoDaddy’s website builder option because it walks you through everything you need to do to publish a website.

User Dashboard/cPanel

Setting up GoDaddy is simple whether you choose to go with the site builder option or you want the classic cPanel dashboard. Assuming you opt for shared hosting on a Linux server, just fill out a form when prompted with a username and password and GoDaddy will set up WordPress for you (it’s the CMS the web host suggests).

Security

GoDaddy includes a few security features for your website in its web hosting plans, such as SSH access, hotlink protection, leech protection, IP blocker and the ability to manage API tokens. It also includes a basic SSL certificate for free for the first year, daily backups and GoDaddy provides network security for its own servers (24/7 monitoring), but if you want more security, you’ll have to pay.

There are three site security plans that include tools such as malware scan, backup recovery, site cleanups and a web application firewall. These range in price from $6.99 per month to $19.99 per month, with a two-year contract (renewal costs $12.99 per month to $29.99 per month).

	Economy	Deluxe	Ultimate	Maximum
Introductory Pricing	$83.88 for one year (renews at $219.87)	$119.88 for one year (renews at $116.88)	$179.88 for one year (renews at $215.88)	$263.88 for one year (renews at $299.88)
Storage	25GB	50GB	75GB	100GB
Bandwidth	Unmetered	Unmetered	Unmetered	Unmetered
cPanel	✔	✔	✔	✔
Free Domain Name	✔ (For first full term; renews at the current annual price)	✔ (For first full term; renews at the current annual price)	✔ (For first full term; renews at the current annual price)	✔ (For first full term; renews at the current annual price)
Free SSL Certificate	✔ (For first year; renews at $99.99 per year)	✔ (For first year; renews at $99.99 per year)	✔ (For first year; renews at $99.99 per year)	✔ (For first full term; renews at the current annual price)
Security	Daily backups, 24/7 server monitoring	Daily backups, 24/7 server monitoring	Daily backups, 24/7 server monitoring	Daily backups, 24/7 server monitoring
Business Email	Two Microsoft 365 mailboxes (free for first year; renews at $2.99 per user, per month)	Three Microsoft 365 mailboxes (free for first year; renews at $2.99 per user, per month)	Five Microsoft 365 mailboxes (free for first year; renews at $2.99 per user, per month)	Five Microsoft 365 mailboxes (free for first year; renews at $2.99 per user, per month)
Uptime Guarantee	99.90%	99.90%	99.90%	99.90%
Money-Back Guarantee	48 hours (monthly plans); 30 days (annual plans)	48 hours (monthly plans); 30 days (annual plans)	48 hours (monthly plans); 30 days (annual plans)	48 hours (monthly plans); 30 days (annual plans)
Customer Support	24/7 phone, live chat, SMS	24/7 phone, live chat, SMS	24/7 phone, live chat, SMS	24/7 phone, live chat, SMS

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GoDaddy Economy Plan

Budget-conscious individuals and businesses can get started with this cheap web hosting plan. It includes a free domain name, SSL certificate and business email, if you sign up for at least a one-year term. It allows you to host a single website with daily backups and unmetered bandwidth. The 25GB of disk space is generous for an entry-level plan.

GoDaddy Deluxe Plan

With GoDaddy’s Deluxe plan, you get all the same features as the Economy plan, including daily backups and support access. Your disk space is doubled to 50GB and you get one more free email. It increases capacity to 10 websites, three free emails for your first year, and up to 25 databases.

GoDaddy Ultimate Plan

If you need more space, the Ultimate plan from GoDaddy may be a good fit. You get 75GB of space and you’ll get five free email accounts. Data transfer remains the same across all plans in that it’s unmetered, but if your site proves to have extremely high traffic, GoDaddy may ask you to upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server.

GoDaddy Maximum Plan

Currently the largest shared hosting plan that GoDaddy offers, the Maximum plan allows you to host up to 50 websites and offers 100GB of storage. Generally speaking, this is an enterprise solution for businesses that operate multiple brands.

GoDaddy’s 24/7 support doesn’t apply to every country or avenue of support. But for many countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, you can get phone support 24/7. And for most, live chat is available 24/7, but hours may be limited for some countries.

Wait times for phone or live chat are typically quick, but we’ve experienced up to an hour-long hold for a representative. You have to fill out a secure form with your chosen PIN and your customer number. With two-factor authentication (2FA) set up, you may need to give a code to an agent, which doesn’t feel very secure. All of these steps are necessary before you can even talk to a representative about your issue.

Getting a refund took about 40 minutes and though it was a long wait and required several steps, it wasn’t a hassle. The agent was helpful, patient and friendly.

A standout feature of GoDaddy customer service is that it offers help via SMS. You can send a text message to a support phone number any time of day or night.

In addition to web hosting and domain registration, GoDaddy offers packages for e-commerce businesses and marketing tools and services. Some of these services you can use for free, but for help from marketing experts, there will be a monthly fee.

E-Commerce

If you want to build an online store, you can do so with GoDaddy’s e-commerce packages. The company’s commerce plan runs at 20.99 per month. However, all plans include a website builder with e-commerce-ready templates, built-in payment processing and an online appointment builder.

Marketing Services

There are three GoDaddy marketing services plans from which you can choose: Basic, Standard and Premium. The Basic plan costs $85 per month and gets you help with search engine optimization (SEO), website optimization and website updates.

The Standard plan is $185 per month and includes everything in the Basic plan plus social ad campaigns, $50 worth of ad spend and social posts.

The Premium plan costs $500 per month, includes everything in the Basic and Standard plans and you get email marketing, reputation management, a professional photo shoot and a brand guide.

	GoDaddy	IONOS	SiteGround	Bluehost
Rating	3.5	4.5	3.5	4.5
Introductory Pricing	$6.99 per month	$1 per month	$2.99 per month	$2.95 per month
Renewal Pricing	$18.32 per month	$10 per month	$17.99 per month	$11.99 per month
Contract Length	36 months	One month, 12 months	One month, 12 months, 24 months	12 months, 36 months
Starting Storage Limit	25GB	10GB	10GB	10GB
Bandwidth Limit	Unmetered	Unlimited	Unmetered (10,000 monthly visitors max.)	Unlimited
Free Domain Name	✔ ($19.99 per year after first year)	✔ ($40 per year after first year)	✔ ($19.99 per year after first year)	✔ ($19.99 per year after first year)
Free SSL Certificate	✔ ($99.99 per year after first term)	✔	✔	✔
Business Email	✔	✔	✔	$2.49 per month
Uptime Guarantee	100%	99.90%	99.90%	N/A
Money-Back Guarantee	30 days	30 days	30 days	30 days
Customer Support	24/7 phone, SMS, live chat	24/7 live chat, phone, ticket system	24/7 live chat, phone, ticket system	24/7 live chat, limited hours phone support
Learn More	On GoDaddy’s Website	On IONOS’ Website	‘-	On Bluehost’s Website
Read Reviews	‘-	Read IONOS Review	Read SiteGround Review	Read Bluehost Review

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GoDaddy vs. IONOS

Pricing is starkly different between IONOS and GoDaddy if you compare introductory pricing. However, renewal pricing is about the same. What gives IONOS the edge here is that it doesn’t charge anything for an SSL certificate (GoDaddy makes you pay after the first year) and IONOS gives you business email for free (again, GoDaddy charges you after the first year). GoDaddy does offer more disk space on the entry-level plan than IONOS.

GoDaddy vs. SiteGround

GoDaddy and SiteGround are very similar in their offerings but SiteGround is more expensive upon renewal and gives you less disk space to start. Where SiteGround shines is in the features you can’t readily see, specifically in its caching and performance to ensure you have fast page load times.

GoDaddy vs. Bluehost

Bluehost is as well-known as GoDaddy for its web hosting service, but Bluehost made a name for itself for being one of the cheapest web hosts with its very low introductory rate. Storage space is lower with Bluehost than GoDaddy, but both offer unmetered bandwidth. Perhaps the biggest difference in a comparison of GoDaddy vs. Bluehost is that Bluehost no longer offers a service level agreement (SLA) uptime guarantee, while GoDaddy promises at least 99.9% uptime.

Related: HostGator Vs. GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a reliable and affordable web hosting service that offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, a no-hassle money-back guarantee and lots of free extras with all hosting plans. It hits hard with renewal fees and charges you later for the freebies it pulls you in with, but it isn’t lacking the basic services you need to build a website. The dashboard is easy to understand and with the right hosting plan, you get cPanel access with simple installation of CMS apps, such as WordPress.

We found no trouble getting up and running with GoDaddy, and when we were stuck with something we found that GoDaddy offered plenty of resources to help us find our way. You don’t have to be a technical expert to make an attractive website with the platform, which is a large factor in why it’s been a popular hosting service for so long.

Most small businesses would do well with GoDaddy for web hosting. It’s important that you know what you’re getting into with a GoDaddy plan. Most importantly, you should take note of what’s free only for the first year or term and understand that renewal prices will always be higher.

GoDaddy Is Best For:

• First-time site builders would do well with GoDaddy as a web host. You get everything you need to get started in the low-tier plan for shared hosting, including an SSL certificate, domain name and an easy-to-use site builder.

GoDaddy Is Not Recommended For:

• While you can get a good deal from GoDaddy, it tends to bury the renewal pricing and paid add-ons in fine print. If you’re looking for more transparency, free extras and don’t want to deal with upsells, GoDaddy might not be right for you.

Most small businesses would do well with GoDaddy for web hosting. It’s important that you know what you’re getting into with a GoDaddy plan. Most importantly, you should take note of what’s free only for the first year or term and understand that renewal prices will always be higher.

GoDaddy Is Best For:

• First-time site builders would do well with GoDaddy as a web host. You get everything you need to get started in the low-tier plan for shared hosting, including an SSL certificate, domain name and an easy-to-use site builder.
• Businesses that are seeking high-quality and highly affordable VPS hosting plans.

GoDaddy Is Not Recommended For:

• Businesses that are looking to pay as little as possible, as it does not have the lowest-priced introductory rates in the market. For example, shared hosting with DreamHost starts at $2.59 per month (with a three-year contract) and IONOS has hosting plans starting at $1 per month for your first term. However, keep in mind that each of these ultra-low-cost plans renews at a higher rate than GoDaddy’s entry-level plan.
• While you can get a good deal from GoDaddy, it tends to bury the renewal pricing and paid add-ons in fine print. If you’re looking for more transparency, free extras and don’t want to deal with upsells, GoDaddy might not be right for you.