Writer: Laura Bernheim
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Alexandra Anderson
Whether you’re learning how to code, want to communicate with students online, or need to build your professional online presence, web hosting for students and teachers offer an affordable and flexible path online. Even better, many web hosts offer discounted or free services to those in education.
Back in my day (cue wavering old-person voice), back-to-school shopping meant Trapper Keeper binders and Lisa Frank folders. As the number of computer science classes and online education opportunities are on the rise, however, a web hosting service now often makes the supplies list.
The nuances of various web hosting plans can be difficult for non-technical people to understand, but we’ve compiled a list of the best options that balance storage, speed, security, and support with the tight budgets of students and teachers. Read on for our recommendations, or click on the links below to skip ahead:
-
Navigate This Article:
Best Web Hosting for Students & Teachers (Overall Winner)
Just as you wouldn’t write a paper off the cuff or teach a class without a lesson plan, starting a web hosting account requires a bit of research. Although you can find hosting plans that bill monthly, most lock you in for a full year — and bill upfront. To help mitigate costs and support education, however, many hosts offer special discounts to educators and pupils.
SiteGround, for instance, caters to both students and teachers with heavily discounted — and sometimes free — services, including 24/7 support, daily backups, and upgraded performance through a content delivery network.
Most hosting providers only require a new customer to sign up with their .edu email address to access the discounted rates, but you might need to verify your status with a phone call or email. For more information about SiteGround, along with the other best-value hosts we recommend, check out our reviews below:
SiteGround.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.99
- FREE website transfer service to get started
- 99.9% uptime guarantee and unlimited traffic
- User-friendly WordPress installation
- 24/7 support featuring custom systems
- 4 caching options plus staging and Git
- Get started on SiteGround now.
Providing hosting with the perfect balance of technological innovation and superior customer support, SiteGround offers a range of affordable hosting services to meet your needs. In addition to the expected cheap web hosting perks — a free website builder and unlimited bandwidth — the company specializes in custom-built tools to deliver strong and positive user experiences. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB SSD – 40 GB SSD | FREE (1 Year) | 6 minutes |
Another host that’s quick to move to the top of its class, Bluehost has been in business since 1996. The web host is known for welcoming first-time website owners with affordable pricing and helpful onboarding features such as an easy-to-use website builder (Weebly) and complimentary domain name registration. We routinely recommend Bluehost as one of the best cheap hosting providers for beginners.
Browse our expert’s review for more info on Bluehost as a hosting option for students or teachers:
Bluehost.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.99
- Cheap shared hosting from a trusted provider
- Ideal for hosting a WordPress website
- FREE Weebly website builder and Cloudflare CDN
- Unlimited traffic and 24/7 live chat support
- Get 75% off today with our Bluehost coupon
- Get started on Bluehost now.
Bluehost pricing is about as competitive as the industry offers. Sign up for a shared hosting plan for as little as $1.99 per month, and WordPress hosting packages are consistently priced; a VPS plan starts at around $31.99 per month; and the dedicated hosting rates are as little as $91.98 per month. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB SSD – 100 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
See other cheap hosting plans »
Free Website Builders for Students & Teachers
Personal and professional websites are easier than ever to obtain. Although many hosting plans come with super-simple site builders for free to help customers get online quickly, two of the leading platforms will handle hosting and drag-and-drop design for free.
The user-friendly platforms supply users with customizable templates and design tools that teachers can adjust to best communicate with students, and parents. Students can quickly create professional portfolios to show prospective employers, as well. If you’re OK with putting your site on a subdomain (e.g., yourname.wix.com or yourname.weebly.com), then explore these free and low-cost options:
Wix.com
Monthly Starting Price $0.00
- Start designing for FREE
- FREE domain with most plans
- Drag-and-drop templates, specific to industry
- Exhaustive knowledgebase of articles
- Huge app market available
- Get started on Wix now.
Wix is known as a web-leading site builder service that’s one of the most affordable — because getting started is absolutely free and about as easy as processes get. You can log in via Facebook or your Gmail account and be editing your new web property within minutes. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-day FREE trial | 2 GB – Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
Weebly.com
Monthly Starting Price $0.00
- All-in-one hosting and drag-and-drop builder
- Start designing for FREE, upgrade whenever
- Easily build a blog, personal site, or online store
- 100s of FREE templates for websites
- $100 credit toward Google advertising
- Get started on Weebly now.
Weebly is a well-known name in the cheap shared hosting space — not necessarily due to competitive pricing but because several of the web’s leading low-cost hosting providers have opted to include Weebly software for free, adding value to their existing offerings. It’s worth noting Weebly does offer a free plan, but websites are found on a Weebly subdomain and display Weebly advertising. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 500 MB – Unlimited | FREE (w/ paid plans) | 3 minutes |
See other top website builders »
Free Web Hosting for Students & Teachers
We get it — with the cost of college textbooks rising more than four times the rate of inflation over the past 10 years, there’s not much left to spend on additional supplies. We tend to encourage new or aspiring site owners to seek out “almost-free” hosting from more reputable providers that offer more in terms of value and security, instead of sometimes-suspicious free hosting. Fortunately, some of our favorite hosts offer education discounts that allow students to have the best of both worlds.
Free for Students
Save your money for pizza or beer (er, we mean for tutors and writing utensils). Finding a hosting home for your website doesn’t mean you need to take on more roommates to help split the rent. These two hosts offer massive discounts to students — but don’t sacrifice the number or quality of features.
AccuWebHosting offers free student hosting, but the company requires a few too many hoops to jump through (social media follows and a two-minute video). Instead, we recommend taking advantage of AccuWebHosting’s already low prices and well-rounded services.
Learn more about the perks these two particularly student-friendly hosting providers offer customers by reading our full review of the hosting provider’s regular shared hosting services:
AccuWebHosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $3.52
- FREE RVsitebuilder & 400 templates
- Unlimited domains and databases
- Scalable shared cloud server option
- CloudLinux OS and LiteSpeed server
- Multiple DDoS protections
- Get started on AccuWebHosting.
The Swiss Army knife of shared hosting providers, AccuWebHosting showcases diversity and flexibility at the basic level of hosting. The provider offers three flavors each of Windows and Linux hosting services, plus additional configurations for applications such as WordPress, Node. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB SSD – 50 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
Free for Teachers
Whether you plan to teach an online course or you’re looking for an online home for supplementary resources, many hosting providers would like to help. What’s more, these two companies will enable you to pass discounts on to your students so that no one has to worry about the added expense.
SiteGround gives teachers a free shared hosting account (minus the domain name) and will create a custom signup page for students to take advantage of the same deal. The masters of customer support will take care of technical details and let you focus on your class.
InMotion Hosting supports educators with cost-free shared hosting, along with discounts on both virtual and dedicated servers. In addition to scores of one-click installation scripts, InMotion Hosting comes with easy access to the BoldGrid site builder for WordPress.
With two of the best hosting providers in the industry clamoring to help you teach the next generation, you can feel safe exploring these online options. Dig down into the nitty-gritty details of the two companies by reading our reviews of SiteGround and InMotion.
Free Domain With Web Hosting
For the cash-strapped student or teacher, domain name registrations are actually some of the easiest savings to unlock. Most hosting plans come with one year of a free domain, which typically costs around $10 or $15. Buyer beware, however — these registration fees renew every year.
If you do some digging around, however, you should uncover a few hidden gems. For additional savings, keep an eye out for hosts that include free domain privacy protection.
Hostinger.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.24
- Lowest domain prices in the industry
- FREE registration on most plans
- Host up to 100 domains on most plans
- Domain privacy protection safeguards your info
- 99.9% uptime guarantee and automatic backups
- Get started on Hostinger now.
Don’t be turned off by Hostinger’s remarkably low prices. The company’s insanely low pricing model extends to domain name services, as well as its premium support and impressive list of features. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 100 GB SSD – 200 GB NVMe | FREE (1 year) | 3 minutes |
IONOS.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.00
- Register domains for $1 (or FREE with hosting)
- FREE domain privacy to protect your information
- Easy setup with domain lock and 2GB email inbox
- 99.9% uptime, plus daily backups and recovery
- FREE SSL certificate for safer data transfers
- Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.
While many popular hosts reserve free domain registrations for its higher-tie plans, 1&1 IONOS gives every customer the perk — along with free domain privacy, email inbox, and SSL certificate. Trust your site with a company that hosts more than 12 million domains on its platform. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB – Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
A2Hosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.75
- Easy domain registration and transfer services
- DNS management and custom nameservers
- Unlimited email addresses and domain names
- Advanced security features and FREE HackScan
- 24/7/365 help from the A2 Guru Crew
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
There are plenty of excellent cPanel shared hosting providers out there, so what sets A2 Hosting apart from the rest. Not only does the company offer a ton of features, but it has custom-built its packages for enhanced performance, speed, and security — putting your priorities above pricing. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 100 GB SSD – Unlimited SSD | New or Transfer | 4 minutes |
See other top hosts for domains »
Moodle Hosting for Students & Teachers
Hosting for your online classroom doesn’t necessarily mean much without a learning management system (LMS). LMS platforms, such as Moodle, help teachers organize and manage students in a collaborative online environment. With roughly 60% of students taking at least one online course, easy software installations are a must-have for most educators and those they’re teaching.
Particularly with Moodle, performance is key. The hosts reviewed later in this section offer a premium balance between speedy page loads and affordability. Even better, a couple of these hosting providers offer special programs for students and teachers:
A2 Hosting features more than 15 eLearning software options on SSD-powered hard drives that can be supercharged by upgrading to the company’s Turbo servers, which boast up to 20-times faster speed.
InMotion Hosting gives teachers a free SSD shared hosting account and enables them to offer 50% discounts to their students. A true industry veteran, InMotion is known for extremely helpful customer support.
To learn more about A2 and InMotion’s hosting features — or to explore an extremely cost-effective alternative in iPage — read through our in-depth reviews below:
A2Hosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.75
- FREE Cloudflare CDN and SSD speed boost
- Optimized caching and 1-click installs
- Unlimited email, domains, and databases
- Advanced security and FREE HackScan
- 24/7 support via phone, chat & tickets
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
There are plenty of excellent cPanel shared hosting providers out there, so what sets A2 Hosting apart from the rest. Not only does the company offer a ton of features, but it has custom-built its packages for enhanced performance, speed, and security — putting your priorities above pricing. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 100 GB SSD – Unlimited SSD | New or Transfer | 4 minutes |
SiteGround.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.99
- FREE website transfer service to get started
- 99.9% uptime guarantee and unlimited traffic
- User-friendly WordPress installation
- 24/7 support featuring custom systems
- 4 caching options plus staging and Git
- Get started on SiteGround now.
Providing hosting with the perfect balance of technological innovation and superior customer support, SiteGround offers a range of affordable hosting services to meet your needs. In addition to the expected cheap web hosting perks — a free website builder and unlimited bandwidth — the company specializes in custom-built tools to deliver strong and positive user experiences. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB SSD – 40 GB SSD | FREE (1 Year) | 6 minutes |
iPage.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.95
- Easy setup and superb reliability since 1998
- FREE domain and Google marketing included
- Unlimited bandwidth, storage, and emails
- FREE site builder and shopping cart
- Get more than 63% off today (was $7.99/month)
- Get started on iPage now.
Whether you’re a first-time website owner or a web veteran, iPage’s excellent hosting services and a fantastic list of extras make the brand one of the best values in web hosting. Unlimited disk space, scalable bandwidth, and emails are just a part of what makes iPage’s shared hosting plan a great deal. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
Get the Right Hosting for Your School or College Projects
Phew — that was a lot of cramming. Think you’re ready for the test?
Regardless of which side of the desk or lectern you’re on, web hosting deals abound for those in the education world. Whether your website will house learning materials or interactive projects, we’re confident that your soon-to-be new website will make your learning life easier. As you’re choosing which plan to get started with, look closely at features such as design templates, discussion forums, and easy software installations.
Be prepared to spend a few days or weeks getting your site set up and ready, but those who exhibit patience and a studious approach will be ready to graduate to more and more complex web projects in no time. Happy hosting!
HostingAdvice.com is a free online resource that offers valuable content and comparison services to users. To keep this resource 100% free, we receive compensation from many of the offers listed on the site. Along with key review factors, this compensation may impact how and where products appear across the site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). HostingAdvice.com does not include the entire universe of available offers. Editorial opinions expressed on the site are strictly our own and are not provided, endorsed, or approved by advertisers.
Our site is committed to publishing independent, accurate content guided by strict editorial guidelines. Before articles and reviews are published on our site, they undergo a thorough review process performed by a team of independent editors and subject-matter experts to ensure the content’s accuracy, timeliness, and impartiality. Our editorial team is separate and independent of our site’s advertisers, and the opinions they express on our site are their own. To read more about our team members and their editorial backgrounds, please visit our site’s About page.
