Web hosting for business: what it really costs

The question everyone asks wrong

You search for web hosting and find offers at €2.99 per month. Then others at €49. Then agencies charging €150 monthly for a simple business site. And you have no way to know which one is expensive.

The problem isn't that prices vary. It's that you're comparing three different things. Hosting isn't a product, it's an assembly. What you pay for is infrastructure plus services plus human time. A hosting price alone means nothing if you don't know what's included and what's missing.

The three pricing tiers, in 2026

There are three types of professional hosting, each with its use case and price. You don't upgrade for fun: you upgrade when the lower tier can't handle the load or doesn't meet your constraints anymore.

Shared hosting: €3 to €10 per month

Your site shares a server with dozens, sometimes hundreds of others. The host manages everything: operating system, security, updates. You get a control panel to install WordPress, create email addresses, view statistics.

For whom. A business site under 20 pages, traffic below 5,000 visits per month, no sensitive data. That's what you find at OVH (Perso plan: around €3.50 excl. tax/month), O2Switch (single plan around €7 excl. tax/month), Hostinger (Premium at €2.99 first year, €7.99 after).

What you can't do. Install system software, modify server configuration, guarantee stable performance if a neighbor consumes all the RAM.

VPS: €5 to €40 per month

Virtual Private Server: you rent an isolated portion of a physical machine. You have admin rights, install what you want. The host provides hardware and connection, everything else is on you.

For whom. A custom site with specific dependencies, an e-commerce generating 10,000 to 50,000 visits per month. OVH VPS Starter: around €4 excl. tax/month, Contabo VPS M: €6 excl. tax/month, DigitalOcean basic Droplet: around €6/month. Prices climb fast when you add RAM or SSD storage: you easily reach €20 to €40 for a serious production VPS.

What you pay extra, in time. Security updates are on you. Server monitoring is on you. Restoring a backup if the disk crashes is on you. If you don't know what a web application firewall is or how to patch an OpenSSL vulnerability, delegate.

Managed hosting: €20 and up per month

Same infrastructure as a VPS, but the host handles system maintenance: security, updates, backups, monitoring, performance optimization. You keep technical access if needed, but you're no longer solely responsible for site availability.

For whom. A site that generates revenue, a strong availability constraint (99.9% uptime guaranteed), a need for responsive support. Kinsta: from €30/month, WP Engine: from €25/month, Cloudways: around €26/month for a basic managed server.

What you gain. Time, security, peace of mind. If a vulnerability is discovered, it's patched within hours. If traffic spikes, infrastructure adapts.

The five costs everyone forgets

You take hosting at €5 per month, thinking it's settled. Three months later, you're paying double.

The domain name. €10 to €15 per year for a .fr or .com, to renew annually. Some hosts offer it free the first year, then charge €15 to €20 at renewal.

The SSL certificate. Free if the host offers Let's Encrypt (most modern plans do). Paid if you need an Extended Validation certificate: budget €50 to €200 per year. For a standard business site, Let's Encrypt is enough.

Professional email addresses. Your hosting often includes email addresses, but they're rarely reliable for daily use. Google Workspace costs around €6 excl. tax per month per user. Microsoft 365 Business Basic: €5 excl. tax per month per user. If you have three business mailboxes, add €15 to €18 per month.

Automated backups. Some shared plans include daily backup. Others charge €5 to €20 per month for it. On an unmanaged VPS, you have to configure it yourself. A backup that's never been tested isn't one.

Maintenance and monitoring. The real hidden cost. Even on shared hosting, you need to update WordPress, plugins, monitor intrusion attempts. On a VPS, add system updates, certificate management, uptime monitoring. Either you do it yourself (budget one to two hours per month), or you delegate. A serious maintenance plan rarely starts below €50 per month.

Take a shared hosting advertised at €5 per month. Add €15 per year for domain (€1.25 monthly), €6 for email, €10 for external backup, €50 for maintenance. You're at €72 per month, nearly fifteen times the advertised price.

Why the advertised price doubles at renewal

You see an offer at €2.99 per month. In small print, it says "promotional rate valid first year, renewed at €8.99 thereafter." You pay three times more from year two.

It's the industry's standard practice. The host sells at a loss or zero margin the first year to capture the customer, then charges the real price on automatic renewal. Most users discover the change six months later, and don't migrate because migrating a site takes time.

How to read a hosting quote. Look for the "renewal price" or "from year 2" line. Calculate the cost over three years, not one. An offer displayed at €3 that jumps to €10 at renewal will cost you €276 over three years (€36 first year, €120 the next two). A stable offer at €7 will cost you €252. The second is cheaper.

Our approach to hosting

We host all sites we build on managed servers. OVH infrastructure or equivalent, automatic SSL, daily backups tested quarterly, security updates within 48 hours of publication, uptime monitoring every five minutes.

In the Sérénité plan, hosting and maintenance are included in the €149 monthly fee. No bad surprises at renewal, no hidden surcharges. If you already have a site built elsewhere and just want to delegate maintenance, the plan starts at €199 per month depending on complexity.

For a site delivered autonomously (€1,190 one-time package), we transfer hosting access after launch. You take your own contract with the host of your choice, we explain how to configure backups and updates, and you manage from there.

For whom it's worth it, and for whom it's not

Shared hosting is enough if your site generates less than 5,000 visits per month, processes no payment data, stores no sensitive customer information, and you or someone on the team knows how to update WordPress once a month. Real cost with domain and email: €15 to €25 per month, maintenance not included.

You need to upgrade if you do e-commerce, if your business depends on the site (a three-hour outage costs you sales), if you're subject to strict GDPR obligations, or if you have no one in-house to intervene when problems arise.

Delegating maintenance becomes profitable as soon as time spent monitoring, updating and fixing exceeds two hours per month. If your hour costs you €50, two hours per month represents €1,200 per year. A maintenance plan at €100 monthly saves you time and protects you against security flaws.

What to remember

• A hosting price alone means nothing. What counts is the real cost over three years with domain, email, backups and maintenance included.
• Shared (€3-10), VPS (€5-40), managed (€20+): you don't upgrade out of snobbery, you upgrade when the lower tier can't handle the load.
• Promotional offers double at renewal. Calculate over three years, not one, to compare two quotes.
• Maintenance is the heaviest hidden cost. Either you do it yourself (budget two hours per month minimum), or you delegate starting at €50-100 monthly.
• Our plans include hosting and maintenance from €149 per month, or €1,190 one-time if you prefer to manage afterward.

Hesitating between managing yourself and delegating? We'll look at your current site and honestly tell you what requires regular monitoring and what can run on its own. The FAQ also answers the most common questions about hosting.