Web hosting price per year in Kenya averages Ksh 2,000 but in most cases, the price varies depending on resources each website consumes.
Bloggers have the option of hosting their websites with Kenyan companies or migrating them to foreign web hosting companies like Bluehost.For small websites, hosting within the country is cheap and convenient.
There are over 10 popular web hosting companies in Kenya, they include:
- Truehost
- Kenya Website Experts
- Safaricom
- Sasa Host
- Movetech
- Bitsimba
- Movehost
- Host Pinnacle
- Ehost Kenya
- Mambo
- EAC Directory
Each of these web hosting companies charge varying amount in regards to hosting. But generally, there are 4 types of hosting in Kenya:
- Shared Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Server
- Cloud Hosting
Shared Hosting Plans and Cost in Kenya
Shared Hosting package is the cheapest among all the packages offered in Kenya. One can spend as little as Ksh 500 per year. The most you can spend is Ksh15,000 per year.
About 85 % of the websites in Kenya are hosted under Shared Hosting plans, these are the sites that draw less than 100,000 readers per month.
The average cost of hosting under this plan by each company is summarized as follows:
| WEB HOSTING CPMPANY | ANNUAL COST(KSH) |
| Truehost | 0-3499 |
| Kenya Website Experts | 2,100-14,100 |
| Safaricom | 0-9,000 |
| Sasa Host | 2,500-10,500 |
| Movetech | 500-15,000 |
| Bitsimba | 1,300-15,000 |
| Movehost | 500-19,000 |
| Host Pinnacle | 1,500-10,000 |
From the table above, it’s clear that the cost of hosting a website in Kenya is Ksh 500 to Ksh15,000 per year. From my own experience, if a website attracts less than 5,000 readers per day, the annual cost is less than Ksh 2,000
VPS Hosting costs
VPS hosting plan is more advanced as compared to shared hosting. While in shared hosting hundreds of websites are hosted in one server,VPS hosting has a couple of sites. It’s when a site starts going viral that the owner is advised to upgrade to VPS hosting. For this plan, one spends Ksh10,000 to Ksh 20,000 per year.
With VPS Hosting, a site receiving over 100,000 visitors per month will be hosted without issues.
Dedicated Server/Cloud Hosting
Dedicated Server and cloud hosting are almost similar in regards to features. When a website grows too being, it is hosted in a separate server that’s not shared with any other site. For instance, if your site becomes viral to the extent of getting over 500,000 visitors per month, you will be forced to upgrade to dedicated server or Cloud Hosting plans. In this category, you pay Ksh 5,000 to Ksh 20,000 every month. The good thing is that your server space is not shared with any other site.
Dedicated server hosting is only economical when a site is huge. Never upgrade to this plan if your site does not draw page views in excess of 500,000 per month.
The sad thing is that it’s only Safaricom which has its own servers, others are on reseller packages which are sourced from UK or US companies. Even if dedicated server indicates that resources are limited, sometimes a site can be limited especially if it uses excess bandwidth.
Generally,the hosting amount required per year in Kenya range between Ksh 500 and Ksh 10,000 unless a website is big enough not to be hosted in Shared Hosting packages.
For a new website, one can host for free at Safaricom,Bluehost Kenya and Sasa Host, but there are conditions you have to fulfill, like buying a domain from the hosting companies.
