bluehost is a popular domain registrar and one of the leaders in its industry. The company currently hosts more than 2 million domain names.
An entrepreneur named Matt Heaton founded Bluehost in 2003. In 2010, Newfold Digital (formerly Endurance International Group) acquired Bluehost. Newfold is a web hosting conglomerate that owns several web hosting services.
We tested Bluehost to give you a detailed, unbiased review. We evaluated the domain registrar based on specific criteria including features, pricing, customer support, ease of use, etc.
Subscriptions and Prices
Bluehost charges different fees for domain names, generally $10 to $200 per year. Domain names with generic extensions such as .COM and .NET cost between $15 and $20 per year. These extensions are the most bought by people and Bluehost offers them for a relatively affordable price. However, some extensions can get expensive. Rare ones like .CREDIT and .LOANS cost over $100 a year.
You must pay $15 annually to enable privacy protection for your Bluehost domain. This protection blocks your contact information from the public WHOIS database.
Depending on the country you live in, Bluehost will add VAT (Value Added Tax) to the base prices. This situation mainly affects customers living in the European Union (EU).
Domain registration fees are non-refundable on Bluehost.
Functions
A domain name is the first step in helping people find your website. Therefore, it is a critical consideration for any website owner. Bluehost allows you to register multiple domain names on one account. You can use multiple domains on different sites or point them to one website.
There are three classes of domain names available on Bluehost; original top level, country code and new generic top level.
Original top-level domains are the most common on the Internet; .com, .net, .biz, .info, and .org.
Country code domains are domains specific to a particular area or country, for example .ca (Canada), .me (Montenegro), and .co.uk (United Kingdom).
New generic top-level domains refer to all other domain extensions except those mentioned above. This category is the widest and most expensive on Bluehost. This mainly concerns unusual domains, such as .academy, .clinic, .clothing, .finance, etc.
After registering a domain on Bluehost, it is wise to enable the auto-renewal feature so that it doesn’t expire even if you forget to renew manually. Any domain that is set to auto-renew for your account will attempt to auto-renew for another year (as the expiration date approaches) using the card assigned to your Bluehost account.
If the automatic renewal was successful, you will receive an invoice by e-mail as confirmation. If not, you will receive an email informing you of the failed payment. If you fall into the latter, you can always proceed to pay manually within your Bluehost dashboard.
You should try as much as possible not to let your domain name expire, because restoring it is a lot of work. If your domain expires, Bluehost will hold it as a service for up to 30 days, pending renewal. After 30 days it is placed in a so-called Redemption Period. During this period, the domain name is not accessible to the public and cannot be registered elsewhere. You can still restore your domain at this time, but it requires a $70 fee in addition to the associated renewal fee.
Bluehost does not offer refunds for domain registrations, but does offer refunds for other services. Therefore, make sure that you make the best choice beforehand. There’s no going back once you’ve bought the domain, which we see as a downside of the platform. Many competing registrars offer refunds to their customers.
You can also transfer a domain name registered elsewhere to the Bluehost platform, but only for some extensions; com, net, org, us, co, info, and biz. Any domain you want to transfer must be at least 60 days old with the registrar. The transfer process can take up to five days, so please be patient.
Each domain name usually has public information about its owner and this information can be accessed through the WHOIS database. However, you can prevent your information from being publicly available (for an annual fee) through Bluehost.
Interface and in use
Bluehost is quite easy to use, starting with the signup process. Just go to the official website and find the application form to create an account. You must select a product before doing this. After that, you can buy multiple domain names from one Bluehost account.
Bluehost has a modern, user-friendly interface that people without much technical knowledge can easily navigate through. Therefore, it is an excellent hosting choice for beginners.
Customer service
Bluehost offers customer support via live chat and telephone 24/7 and via Twitter (@Bluehostsupport). There is also an official Knowledge Base with extensive details on navigating the platform.
The competition
Bluehost’s main competitors are Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Ionos. Bluehost offers similar services to these rivals, but has more expensive plans, especially for low-volume users.
final verdict
Bluehost is a reliable domain registrar. Buying a domain name on the platform is simple and straightforward, just like transferring from a third-party registrar. The company provides excellent customer support to its customers through live chat and phone all around. However, we found some drawbacks such as the constant upselling to buy additional services.