How to Choose a Web Hosting Plan (Without Guessing at the Numbers)
Sagar Sethi is the founder of Web Hosting People and Xugar, and the author of The Business Knight.
Published 19 October 2026 Last reviewed 19 October 2026 Getting started online
A hosting plan bundles two different things, and they are chosen in two different ways. The first is the platform: the control panel, the mailboxes, the certificate, the backups. That list is usually identical on every plan a provider sells. The second is capacity: disk space, memory and CPU. That is the only part that changes between tiers, and it is the only part you are really choosing.
So the work is not comparing ten companies. It is confirming what is included, then sizing capacity against a site you can actually measure. Price rank answers neither question.
What a plan is, and what the name on it means
Plan names are provider labels, not standards. Starter, Business, Enterprise, Max order the tiers inside one provider's range and nothing more. Another provider's Business plan can carry a fraction of the capacity of a third provider's Starter, so a table of plan names from three companies compares nothing.
That gives you two separate comparisons, and they are usually run on one table by mistake.
Inside one provider, compare the tiers by capacity, because the platform is the same and the price gap buys disk, memory and CPU. Across providers, compare what is included and how the limits behave, because that is what changes between companies. Trying to do both at once is why so many plan comparisons end in a decision nobody can explain afterwards.
If you are still working out what the shared model means for those limits, what shared hosting means in practice covers the part that matters here: your site shares a server, so the numbers on the plan card are a share of something, not a private machine.
Size it from your own site, before you look at any plan
Almost nobody does this, and it is the only part of the decision that can be measured rather than guessed.
Four figures are worth collecting, and if you already have a website, three of them are sitting in your current control panel.
- Disk used by the site. Files, uploads and the database together, not the size of the folder on your laptop. The figure includes every image ever uploaded and every plugin.
- Disk used by mail, if mail is on the plan. Mailboxes are the quiet consumer, and an owner who has never deleted an attachment since 2019 is often surprised by the number.
- What the site does on each page load. A page assembled from a database query, a store that recalculates a cart, or a members area that checks a login costs more per visitor than a page of text.
- What grows. A catalogue that gains fifty products a month, a podcast, a gallery. Growth in files is the easiest thing in hosting to predict and the most common thing to ignore.
Write the numbers down. The disk figure is your floor for the new plan, and the growth figure tells you how quickly you will need the tier above it.
Reading the capacity figures
Three numbers carry the decision, and each fails in a different way.
Disk space is the easiest to understand and the easiest to overrun. It holds files, uploads, databases and mail, and it fills without anyone noticing until an upload fails.
Memory is what a single request can use. It is the figure that decides whether a page builder, a plugin stack or a store with a large catalogue loads comfortably or runs out. Two plans with identical disk space can differ entirely here, and this is the number people forget to look at.
CPU is the processing allowance for the account. The percentage on a plan card is not a speed rating and cannot be compared with a percentage from another provider without asking what it is a percentage of. Ask the question directly. A host that cannot explain its own unit is telling you something useful.
Monthly bandwidth rarely decides a shared plan. A traffic spike is more likely to hit CPU or memory first, and a plan sold on traffic alone is selling the number that matters least.
Four questions that decide the tier, not the provider
These are the questions that separate one tier from the next within the same provider. They are not the same as the questions you ask about a host, which are covered in the eight criteria that separate a good host from a cheap one.
Does every tier include the same platform? If mailboxes or the certificate appear only from the middle tier, the entry tier is a different product, and the cheap plan is not the same purchase.
What happens when you reach a limit? A throttle slows the site, an error page stops it, and an extra invoice arrives quietly. Ask which of the three applies, because it decides how bad a wrong choice turns out to be.
Can you change tiers later without moving the site? A plan change on the same platform should be a change of limits. If changing tiers means a migration, the tier you pick is much harder to correct.
Does the smallest tier have a cap the site will reach? Mailbox counts, database counts and addon domains are sometimes capped on entry plans and unlimited above them. That matters more than the disk figure for a business with several addresses.
Buying too small, and buying too large
Both are real costs, and only one of them is usually discussed.
A plan that is too small shows itself in specific ways: the admin area is slow, plugin or theme updates time out, image uploads fail, and the site throws resource limit errors when several people are on it at once. Each of those is a symptom of a limit being reached, not a bug in the site.
The cost is not the upgrade. It is the afternoon the site fell over during a campaign, and the migration if the host cannot move you up in place.
A plan that is too large costs money every month and returns nothing. Nobody's site gets faster from a number they are not using.
The sensible position is the tier your numbers support, with one step of headroom if you know a store, a catalogue or a members area is coming. Not two.
One plan, several sites
A plan that includes addon domains and subdomains can carry more than one website, which changes the sizing question completely. Two sites on one plan share one set of limits, so the ceiling arrives at roughly half the traffic, and the disk fills at twice the rate.
That is genuinely useful for a business running a brochure site and a small shop from one account. It is not a way to host a dozen separate businesses, because the limits are shared either way.
Before you order
Three things, and only the first takes any effort.
- Export your current usage. Disk, mailboxes, databases. Keep the numbers, because they are the only measurement this decision has.
- Know the next tier up, and what it adds. Knowing the escape route before you need it tells you how expensive a wrong choice would be.
- Confirm what the tier includes, not only what it measures. What each plan includes is the list to hold any plan against, including ours.
Where our plans sit
We sell five Australian shared hosting plans: Starter, Business, Enterprise, Max and eCommerce. The platform is identical on all five, which includes cPanel, unlimited databases, addon domains, subdomains and email accounts, an AutoSSL certificate and hourly Acronis backups on the domestic plans. The tiers add disk space, memory and CPU, and the domestic servers are in Sydney.
The plans and their current capacity are on the Australian shared hosting plans.
Frequently asked questions
How much disk space do I need? Start from what your site and mailboxes use today, add the files and images you expect in the next year, and treat that as the minimum. A plan with room to double is usually the right size for a site that is still growing.
Is a more expensive plan faster? Only if the site is reaching a limit on the cheaper one. Extra memory and CPU do nothing for a site that already loads comfortably, and nothing fixes a slow page like removing the plugin that makes it slow.
Can I start small and move up later? That depends on the host, so ask before you buy. A plan change on the same platform should be a change of limits rather than a migration, and that is worth confirming in writing rather than assuming.
Do I need the eCommerce plan for an online store? The plan sold for stores and product catalogues is the one built for the database work a catalogue creates. A very small shop can run below that, but the sizing question is the catalogue, not the word store.
Does the plan include email? Every Australian plan includes unlimited email accounts, so mailboxes are not a separate purchase. What changes between plans is capacity, not the mailbox count.
Match the plan to the site
A plan is a capacity decision sitting inside a platform you should not have to think about twice. Measure what you have, read the three capacity figures, ask what happens at the limit, and pick the tier your numbers support.
If you would rather describe the site and be told which plan fits, the link below is the shorter route. If the answer is not obvious, tell us what the site does and how much mail it carries and we will give you a straight answer rather than the largest plan on the page. Phone 1300 565 610, 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, or email hello@webhostingpeople.com.au, which is answered 24/7.
Primary action: Match a plan to your situation