Bluehost recently introduced a new website builder, built on WordPress, which is meant to help you build a professional website without any technical knowledge. The drag and drop website builder offers a simplified, intuitive and streamlined interface. You also have the freedom to switch to the WordPress builder, which is an incredibly useful and necessary feature. This is because while the website builder will help beginners and new users alike, those familiar with the malleability of WordPress will find its offerings pretty basic. With the integration between the two, you can set up parts of your website using Bluehost's website builder and other elements using WordPress. But there is also a downside to this approach. WordPress is almost infinitely customizable thanks to the availability of a large number of plugins. However, if a feature is added to a website through a plugin that is not provided natively with the Bluehost website builder, such as an eCommerce store, you must use WordPress to customize this feature. Bluehost's website builder is powered by Smart AI, to help you refine the design and look and feel of your website based on key questions that identify the nature of the business. HostGator also provides a similar set of features with Gator, their website builder. While Bluehost only offers online store features with their premium plan, Gator offers an online store with all plans.
Bluehost Website Builder Pricing (Image Credit: Bluehost)
Bluehost subscription options:- 12-month plan: € 2.75 per month (total cost € 33)
Prices and payment methods
Along with all the other hosting plans on offer, Bluehost offers three plans for its website builder. You should carefully consider each plan before choosing one, as they have different abilities. By their own admission, the basic plan is for personal websites and blogs, while the other plans are for businesses and store owners. Priced at €2.95 per month, for a 12-month subscription, the basic plan renews at €10.99 per month. It includes a lot of useful hosting essentials like free SSL and domain name, though only for the first year. If you want to implement an online store, you have to choose between the Pro and Online Store plans. The former includes WooCommerce and will help you accept payments for your store and host unlimited products. However, if you want additional store features like subscription services, in-cart customization, discount code generator, etc., you should go for the online store plan. The Pro plan is priced at €9.95 per month, for a 12-month subscription, and renews at €14.99 per month. The online store will also cost you €24.99 per month for the same time period and renews at €39.95 per month. Each plan includes an extensive photo library and free email marketing. While the former will help you create a professional looking website, the latter is essential if you want to increase visitor engagement by running email campaigns. All plans also provide blog post management, allowing you to quickly add a blog to your website, and you can also manage posts from within the website builder itself or from the traditional WordPress interface. Money Back Guarantee Bluehost offers a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee. Their refund policy is quite simple and explicitly mentions the different services for which they offer partial or full refunds, such as SSL, Dedicated IP, etc. Some add-on features have their own cancellation deadlines, so please contact customer service if you need specific information. Bluehost accepts all major credit cards as well as PayPal instant payments, which means that your bank account or credit card must be directly linked to the PayPal account. The provider does not accept payments via non-reloadable prepaid credit cards, gift cards, PayPal balance payments, or bank transfers. For now, Bluehost also does not accept payments via cryptocurrency, without saying if it ever will.
Alternatives
- Wix
Wix also offers website building services along with hosting. Seven plans are offered, divided into website plans and business and e-commerce plans. The cheapest plan starts at € 4.50 per month, but will add ads to your website. Other more expensive plans allow you to remove Wix ads. You can try Wix for free for a period of 14 days.
- HostGator
HostGator offers a choice of three plans for its Gator website builder. Plans start at € 3.84 per month and include most of the hosting essentials as well as email marketing tools and also a € 200 search engine marketing credit. Additionally, all plans allow the user to create and host an online store.
- Square space
Squarespace also includes domain in all plans, which are expensive compared to the competition. The cheapest plan starts at € 12 per month for a period of one year and includes unlimited bandwidth and storage, subject to an acceptable use policy. There are 4 plans in total with specialized plans for online stores.
- Web.com
While one might be attracted to the introductory price of € 1.95 per month, keep in mind that this is only for the first month. After that, you will be billed at the renewal rate, which is € 10 per month. Web.com sets itself apart from the rest by giving you the option to have the experts build the site for you, rather than playing with the creator yourself.
New Bluehost Page Template (Image Credit: Bluehost)
Features
All three Website Builder packages on offer come with "hosting included." Unfortunately, the provider's website does not include any details of what hosting package is offered with the various plans.
For the Basic package, which we have chosen, the services offered are the same as for the Basic Shared Hosting package. This includes CDN, domain, SSL, etc. free for the first year, plus 50 GB of SSD storage.
However, the Pro Website Builder plan, despite its name, does not include all the features of the Pro Shared Hosting plan. For example, features like Codeguard, Domain Privacy, etc. which are offered as part of the Shared Hosting Pro plan, must be purchased separately when opting for the Website Builder Pro plan.
Bluehost Website Builder is based on WordPress and serves to provide a more streamlined and optimized interface for creating websites using WordPress.
Novice users will appreciate the drag and drop website builder that allows you to build solid websites with technical knowledge, coding skills, or even familiarity with WordPress.
The interface is minimalist in design and you can create pages and add different components to them by dragging the required elements from the section menu.
Building a Website Once you have completed the registration and domain registration paperwork, you are ready to build your website with Bluehost. Click the Create Website button to get started.
You have three options: “No help needed”, “Little help needed”, and “Built for you”. The names are self-explanatory and describe the level of skill and familiarity with which you work with WordPress. Search for "Little help needed" if you want to use the Smart AI system to build your website.
You'll be asked to answer a few basic questions, then you'll be asked if you want to install WordPress or Bluehost Website Builder. If you choose the latter option, it will still install WordPress automatically, but it will also give you access to the new website builder.
You will then be asked questions to help you identify the nature of the business and the type of website you want to implement. This is important because a restaurant or cafe website will be nothing like a tech startup website, which is quite different from a photo gallery.
You will be redirected to the website builder interface after answering these few questions.
This interface is divided into three panels. The panel at the top allows you to switch between the desktop view and the mobile view of your website. The left panel gives you access to the entire website and pages, while the right panel gives you the option to change the properties / elements of the selected page.
All website building plans include various business-oriented features such as landing pages, social post buttons to help visitors share content on their favorite social media platforms, social review templates to help visitors to see reviews from Yelp, Google, etc.
Bluehost Website Builder Control Panel (Image credit: Bluehost)
About Bluehost
Based in Utah, USA, Bluehost is one of the most popular web hosting providers, hosting over two million websites. Unlike some of its peers, like HostGator, who delight in sharing stats like starting with just three servers and going as high as 12,000, Bluehost is stingy with those details. Despite being a global giant, Bluehost.com stands out from its peers because its data centers are located only in Utah, United States. Launched in 2003, the company began offering WordPress-focused solutions in 2005. It reached 500.000 domain registrations in August 2007, and by June 2008 it hosted over a million domains. Bluehost was acquired by Endurance International Group (EIG) in November 2010 and began offering VPS and dedicated hosting solutions in April 2013. Earlier this year, investment firm Clearlake Capital Group completed an acquisition of Endurance International Group by €3 billion and, in association with Siris Capital Group, created a new company called Newfold Digital, a provider of web presence solutions focused on SMBs. Newfold Digital is now home to some of the most popular hosting providers, including HostGator, BlueHost, Domain.com, iPage, and more. By their own admission, WordPress recommended Bluehost due to their customer service and experience. Since 2014, Bluehost has been offering hosting plans optimized for WordPress. While our...