Having a website or email domain for your brand is a critical aspect of business in today’s age, and South African companies have a range of hosting providers from which to choose.<\/p>\n
Several providers in South Africa offer entry-level website packages for as little as R19 per month and email-only hosting plans from R30 per month.<\/p>\n
South African businesses used to be able to access entry-level hosting services for under R10 per month,\u00a0but most companies have done away with those very cheap entry-level services.<\/p>\n
Important considerations to make when choosing a hosting provider include the cost of the service and features such as website builders, databases, email addresses, and storage space.<\/p>\n
MyBroadband compared entry-level website and email hosting packages available in South Africa based on these factors.<\/p>\n
We selected the cheapest options from providers like Afrihost, Absolute Hosting, Domains, Mweb, Xneelo, and 1-grid.<\/p>\n
Absolute Hosting offers the most affordable entry-level hosting package in South Africa at R19 per month.<\/p>\n
This includes one MySQL database, a free domain, and a website builder.<\/p>\n
Its nearest competitor is\u00a0Afrihost’s Linux Silver package for R59 per month, which provides 1GB of storage, 50 email accounts, one MySQL database, a domain, and a website builder.<\/p>\n
Xneelo’s Basic package is priced at R99 per month. Subscribers will get 5GB of storage, 100 email accounts, five MySQL databases, and ten domains.<\/p>\n
However, they must pay an additional R39 monthly for access to a website builder.<\/p>\n
Priced at R99 per month, Mweb’s 10GB package offers 10GB of storage and one free domain.<\/p>\n
For R10 more per month, 1-grid’s Small plan offers similar specs bar the email account allocation. It offers 100 email accounts, while Mweb only supports 5.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Mweb’s 10GB package provides five MySQL databases, compared to one on 1-grid’s plan, and a free website builder, while 1-grid Small customers must pay R119 a month extra to use one.<\/p>\n
Domains.co.za’ Sitebuilder Lite is the most expensive and most feature-rich of the lot at R109 per month. It offers 10GB of storage, 100 email accounts, five MySQL databases, and five domains, and it includes a website builder.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that Absolute Hosting and Afrihost have similarly priced products with slightly different sets of features.<\/p>\n
For example, Absolute Hosting offers a package for R105 per month with 10GB storage, 4 domains, 200 email accounts, and 4 databases.<\/p>\n
All of the entry-level hosting packages compared offer unlimited traffic.<\/p>\n
| Entry-level website hosting comparison<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Feature<\/strong><\/td>\n| Absolute Hosting Directadmin SSD Silver<\/strong><\/td>\n | Afrihost Linux Silver<\/strong><\/td>\n | 1-grid Small<\/b><\/td>\n | Xneelo Basic<\/strong><\/td>\n | Mweb 10GB<\/strong><\/td>\n | Domains Sitebuilder Lite<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Storage<\/strong><\/td>\n | 500MB<\/td>\n | 1GB<\/td>\n | 10GB<\/td>\n | 5GB<\/td>\n | 10GB<\/td>\n | 10GB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Email accounts<\/strong><\/td>\n | 10<\/td>\n | 50<\/td>\n | 100<\/td>\n | 100<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n | 100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Traffic allowance<\/strong><\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | MySQL databases<\/strong><\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Domains<\/strong><\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n | 10<\/td>\n | 1 (for 1 year)<\/td>\n | 5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Website builder<\/strong><\/td>\n | Free<\/td>\n | Free<\/td>\n | R119\/month<\/td>\n | From R39\/month<\/td>\n | Free<\/td>\n | Free<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Price per month<\/strong><\/td>\n | R19<\/td>\n | R59<\/td>\n | R89<\/td>\n | R99<\/td>\n | R99<\/td>\n | R109<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n | \n Basic email hosting<\/h2>\nAbsolute Hosting’s Silver-tier Email Only package is the cheapest compared to Afrihost, Domains, and 1-Grid’s offerings.<\/p>\n Priced at R30 per month, it provides ten email accounts and 5GB of storage, and includes a free email domain.<\/p>\n For R9 more per month, Afrihost’s Bronze package also offers ten email accounts. However, it doesn’t include an email domain and offers 4GB less storage.<\/p>\n Domains’ Email Hosting 10 package offers similar specs to Absolute Hosting’s plan for R49 per month.<\/p>\n For the same price, 1-Grid’s Email Basic package provides 10GB of storage and a free email domain for one year.<\/p>\n 1-Grid doesn’t specify how many email accounts it allocates for its Email Basic customers.<\/p>\n Xneelo and Mweb don’t offer email-only hosting plans.<\/p>\n \n |