Turns out that one size doesn’t always fit everyone’s needs. While Dreamhost started off as a hosting company that only offered shared hosting, they’ve kept up with the times and they’ve got plans to fit every websites needs – and budget!
I’ve been running websites from a Dreamhost hosting account since 2008, and I did upgrade to a VPS somewhere along the line. Since then, I must admit that I haven’t paid too much attention to their additional offerings, but it turns out that they’ve got plans and options for everybody. I’ve had good experiences and upgraded from a shared plan to a VPS a few years in, and if you’re interested in learning more you can read my full review of the services here.
All listed prices are confirmed as of August 2020, and the monthly rates are based on the price you can get with the available promotional coupons. The exact details of these discounts and promos will vary from month to month and season to season, so check back often to get the latest deals!
With that said, let’s take a look at Dreamhost’s offerings:
Table of Contents
Summary of the Dreamhost pricing and plan options available in 2020:
| Hosting Plan | Features | Annual Price ($/month) | Sign up: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared Starter | Basic Hosting | $2.59/month | Sign up here |
| DreamPress | WordPress Managed | $16.95/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Basic | 1 GB RAM / 30 GB SSD | $13.75/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Business | 2 GB RAM / 60 GB SSD | $27.50/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Professional | 4 GB RAM / 120 GB SSD | $55/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Enterprise | 8 GB RAM / 240 GB SSD | $110/month | Sign up here |
| Dreamhost Dedicated | Intel Xeon 4-Core | $150/month | Sign up here |
| Dedicated Enhanced | Intel Xeon 12-Core | $279/month | Sign up here |
Now let’s get in to a little more detail about what that all means!
Shared Starter
This is the classic shared hosting plan at Dreamhost, and it’s cheaper than ever. Your site(s) will share server space with other customers in a sort of on-demand environment. This is a great place to start because a brand new website won’t make too many demands on the server. By the time you’re seeing more traffic, you’ll probably need to upgrade, but hopefully some of that traffic is providing more than enough revenues to do so!
DreamPress
DreamPress WordPress Hosting is a unique product from Dreamhost. Designed and optimized to deliver the fastest WordPress hosting experience, Dreampress comes with everything you need to handle as many as 100,000 visitors per month. Users will get unlimited email, 30GB of SSD storage, SSl certificate pre-installed, and several useful server management options like daily backups, a built-in WordPress site builder, and unlimited bandwidth for traffic and other data transfers.
DreamPress also scales: the Plus and Pro options are designed to handle monthly traffic of up to 300,000 and 1,000,000 users, respectively!
VPS Basic
The Dreamhost VPS Basic account is designed for small and new websites that may scale up in the future, but want full access and control now. Subscribers will receive access to a virtual machine with 1 GB of dedicated RAM and 30 GB of SSD storage. What you do with that is up to you, because each account can host unlimited domains, unlimited websites, and as much traffic as the RAM and processor can handle. Free SSL certificates are also available, and can be easily installed and updated through the intuitive user interface.
VPS Business
The VPS Business plan is similar to the one listed above, except it provides twice the resources with 2 GB of dedicated RAM and 60 GB of SSD space provisioned. It still comes with unlimited email, free SSL certificates, and as much bandwidth as you can use.
VPS Professional
VPS Professional Hosting at Dreamhost was designed with large, busy, and complex websites in mind. If you’re making a lot of database calls each minute and that data has to be processed on a constant basis, it might be time to look in to some serious horsepower for your hosting. VPS professional is ready for the challenge.
VPS Enterprise
And if your large, complex website is also processing large, complex tasks from multiple users at once, you might be ready to upgrade to Dreamhost’s Enterprise Level VPS. With 8 GB of RAM and 240 GB of SSD disk space, this plan is ready for just about anything you can throw at it.
Dedicated Hosting (Standard)
If support and access is key to your website’s success, the next step would be to look in to Dreamhost’s Dedicated Hosting plans. These accounts come with a 100% network uptime guarantee and include 24/7 technical support and server monitoring. That’s right: if and when your website hits a snag, Dreamhost’s tech support staff will let you know – and they’ll even help get everything going again.
Each standard Dedicated Hosting account provides a dedicated machine with the following specifications:
- Intel Xenon 4-Core 8-Thread CPU
- 4 GB RAM
- 1 TB HDD
- Raid 1 Storage
- Root Access
- Local MySQL
- Ubuntu
- Anti-DDoS Security
Dedicated Hosting (Enhanced)
And if that still isn’t enough, Dreamhost also offers an enhanced version of their Dedicated Hosting plan that dramatically increases the available resources for your machine:
- Intel Xenon 12-Core 24-Thread CPU
- 16 GB RAM
- 2 TB HDD
- Raid 1 Storage
- Root Access
- Local MySQL
- Ubuntu
- Anti-DDoS Security
Whew! That’s a lot to remember. Here’s the handy summary table, again:
| Hosting Plan | Features | Annual Price ($/month) | Sign up: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared Starter | Basic Hosting | $2.59/month | Sign up here |
| DreamPress | WordPress Managed | $16.95/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Basic | 1 GB RAM / 30 GB SSD | $13.75/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Business | 2 GB RAM / 60 GB SSD | $27.50/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Professional | 4 GB RAM / 120 GB SSD | $55/month | Sign up here |
| VPS Enterprise | 8 GB RAM / 240 GB SSD | $110/month | Sign up here |
| Dreamhost Dedicated | Intel Xeon 4-Core | $150/month | Sign up here |
| Dedicated Enhanced | Intel Xeon 12-Core | $279/month | Sign up here |
Other expenses & considerations
Hosting prices listed above do not include domain registrations. Registrations for .COM, .NET, and .ORG domains tends to vary within a range of $10.99-$15.99 per year. At this particular moment, Dreamhost is running a sale that will allow you to register .COMs for just $7.99 for the first year, but there’s no saying how long that will last! Renewals are billed at the normal price: $15.99 per year.
All information provided and confirmed accurate as of February 12, 2020.
Affiliate Disclosure: In addition to being a long time Dreamhost customer, I’m also an active member (and huge fan) of their affiliate program. Affiliates can earn revenues by referring new customers, and the Dreamhost affiliate team has always been a pleasure to work with. Not only do I recommend them as a web hosting provider, but I also recommend them as an affiliate partner!
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