A good web host is might not be cheap. Yet the reverse may be true as well, an expensive web host might not be good. In the web hosting field especially, there seems to be little correlation between the price of the web host, and the quality. The only exception being supposedly “free” web hosting services which usually employ some underhanded advertising on your pages.

So how do you find a quality web host on a budget? You may be surprised, some of the best web hosting services, universally praised for their customer service and features, are among the cheapest as well. Companies such as Hostgator, DreamHost, and JustHost have reputable services that offer abundant web hosting features.

Going for a cheap host alone is not the way to save money. After all, signing up for a nefarious service that ends up with extra added fees or bad customer service may end up costing the customer. Good customer service is critical, and most of the time, web hosting prices are relatively comparable to each other.

Only once customers reach the dedicated hosting arena do prices start to have a tremendous impact on the decision process. As far as the consistently cheap go, 1&1 hosting leads the way. With over 7 million customers voting with their dollars, 1&1 is the most popular web host by that measure.

As far as customer service however, the internet’s opinions on 1&1 range from the lukewarm, the bad, and the ugly. Keeping in mind that if 1&1 displeases only 1% of their customers that means 70,000 angry ex-customers, it may be right to give them some slack. But other large web hosting services have quite the opposite reaction on the web.

That’s where Hostgator comes in. With a nearly universal praise of their services, Hostgator has taken the web by storm. Their CEO Brent Oxley has taken a very customer focused approach, paying customer service reps based on how well customers rate their responses, as well as personally intervening in special cases often times. Hostgator is quite reasonably priced as well, similar to 1&1, albeit perhaps a dollar or two more.

But the difference can be staggering, and can mean the difference between waiting an hour on the phone to talk to an outsourced customer service rep, as some suspect of 1&1 or other large hosts on occasion, or finding a genuinely informed and courteous support team with web hosts such as Hostgator, JustHost, or DreamHost.