For the sake of this article, we’ll assume you’ve already found a relatively affordable hosting provider. However, if you haven’t that’s fine. I’ll make some suggestions along the way. This guide is for people looking to get discounts on various hosting plans. This works for pretty much any hosting company, but some more than others.
First, I want to share the various ways to get discounts on your hosting plan.
- Temporary promotions (Holiday Special, for example)
- Prepaid subscription (annual subscription will end up costing less than if you paid by the month)
- Cutting out certain features
- Discount code from employee
Temporary promotions can be hard to find all the time, but you can always check the various hosting companies around the holidays. Many companies offer these specials. They do so because people have time off and might want to start up an internet project, but also because bonus checks may give people the extra cash to start something they may have never tried.
A prepaid subscription can be a good idea, but only if you’re sure you want to stick with a hosting company for a long period of time. For an example of how much money you could save, I recommend checking out the following page.
Here is a page full of Shared Servers. As you can see, the Shared Mini plan costs $1 per month. After talking with the Sales Team there, I found that a yearly subscription would come out to $10.20 per year. This is only $0.85 per month. So you save some money there. With larger plans, the amount you save becomes much more.
Cutting out features from plans can be tricky, but it’s not impossible. For this, you’d have to speak with an employee of the hosting company. In some cases, certain features cost a lot of money. If you don’t need them, it’s possible to get them out of the plan, thus reducing the amount you pay!
Discount codes from employees may be different for each hosting company. However, I know that the one I work out we are allowed to give them out under certain circumstances. Furthermore, discounts are not always available for each type of package. At the same time, it’s important to ask. Why not? The best thing to do is get in Live Chat, and say what you need (or ask). At the end, asking for possible discounts can be a very wise move.
Often, discount codes are provided when employees feel that a client will go elsewhere if they can’t get a discount.
You can also look for pages that offer a full list of discounts/coupons. This page here includes many.
Disclosure: I work for Nuovawebs, which is a hosting company. I have linked to our Shared Servers page in this article.