How Are AI Websites Hosted? Hosting, Domains and Email, Explained

Right after "Should I get an AI website?" (here's that post), the next question I get is: "Do I have to pay for hosting?"

Short answer: yes. Every website lives somewhere, and somebody pays the rent. Sometimes it's bundled into a monthly plan so you never see the word "hosting." Sometimes it's its own bill. And sometimes it's quietly on the credit card of a web person you haven't talked to in three years.

Here's how website hosting actually works, in plain English, so you can make a smart call.

AWS (Amazon's cloud) has a good plain definition: "Web hosting is a service that stores your website or web application and makes it easily accessible across different devices such as desktop, mobile, and tablets." (AWS — What is web hosting?)

The short version

• Hosting is where your website lives. Every site has it, AI-built or not.
• There are five main ways AI-built sites get hosted: inside a website builder, inside a vibe coding tool, on traditional web hosting, on a modern cloud platform, or directly on a big cloud provider like AWS.
• Your domain and your email are separate from your hosting, and they're often three different bills.
• Know which price you're comparing. Unmanaged hosting (just the space, you handle the rest) runs from free to roughly $10–$50/month for most small businesses. Managed hosting (someone maintains, updates and fixes it for you) costs more, from around $50/month to several hundred for complex sites.
• The most important questions aren't about price. Who owns the account? What does it cost after the intro deal? Can you take your site with you?

Hosting, domain and email: three different things

I spent almost two decades in construction, so here's how I explain it:

• Your domain is your address (yourbusiness.com). It tells people where to find you.
• Your hosting is the building where your website actually lives: the servers that store it and send it to every visitor.
• Your email is the mailbox (you@yourbusiness.com). It uses your address, but it's a separate service.

Your domain. You register a domain; you don't buy it forever. ICANN, the organization that coordinates domain names, puts it this way: "When you register a domain name, it's yours for the period of time you registered, which is typically between one and 10 years." And "you have to renew it with your registrar before it expires," or "you risk losing it for a short time or possibly for good." (ICANN — Renewing Domain Names)

Two tips from experience: register the domain in your business's name and account, not your web designer's. And turn on auto-renew with a card that won't expire next month.

Your email. Business email usually runs through something like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, billed per person. Some web hosts include email; some don't. When you switch website hosting, make sure your email doesn't accidentally go with it.

The five ways AI websites get hosted

1. Inside an AI website builder (hosting included)

If you built your site with Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Durable or a similar builder, hosting is part of your monthly plan. You don't set anything up.

• Pros: nothing to manage, security of the platform is handled for you, one bill.
• Cons: your site lives on their platform. You pay as long as it's live, and moving somewhere else later usually means rebuilding instead of copying files over.
• Ballpark: roughly $10–$50/month for most small-business plans. (Wix plans, Squarespace pricing)

2. Inside a vibe coding tool (one-click publishing)

Tools like Bolt, Lovable and v0 can publish what you build with one click. For example, Bolt's free plan includes website hosting, with Bolt branding on the site. (Bolt pricing)

• Pros: fastest way to get an idea live. Great for prototypes.
• Cons: check what's included before a real business depends on it: custom domain, uptime, backups. And as I covered in the AI website post, security of what the AI wrote is on you.
• Ballpark: free to start; paid plans often around $25–$30/month. (Bolt, v0)

3. Traditional web hosting (the classic setup)

This is where most WordPress sites live: hosts like SiteGround, GoDaddy and others. You (or your web person) rent space on a server and install your site there. SiteGround, for one, is a well-regarded host a lot of good websites run on.

• Pros: flexible, works with the huge WordPress world of themes and plugins, and email is often included.
• Cons: someone has to keep the software, plugins and security up to date. And watch the renewal price: intro deals are often a fraction of the regular rate. For example, SiteGround's entry plan is advertised at an intro price of a few dollars a month, with a regular price several times higher. (SiteGround pricing)
• Ballpark (unmanaged): a few dollars a month to start, commonly $15–$45/month at regular rates, more for high-traffic hosting.

4. Modern cloud platforms (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare)

Custom-coded sites, including a lot of AI-assisted builds, often run on platforms like Vercel, Netlify or Cloudflare Pages. Your site gets built into fast, ready-to-serve files and delivered from a global network close to your visitors. Changes go live automatically when the code is updated.

• Pros: speed, security features built in, easy scaling if traffic spikes, and preview links for testing changes before they go live.
• Cons: built for code-based sites, not drag-and-drop editing. You'll want a developer or agency involved.
• Ballpark (unmanaged): free tiers exist, and paid team plans start around $20/month. (Vercel, Netlify)
• Read the fine print on "free": Vercel's free Hobby plan, for example, is "restricted to non-commercial personal use only." A business site needs a paid plan. (Vercel — Fair Use Guidelines)

5. Straight on a big cloud provider (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure)

These are the big cloud providers many large companies build on. You can host a website directly on them. AWS, for example, offers Amazon Lightsail, a simple server with "a low, predictable price," and AWS Amplify, which hosts code-based sites on a pay-for-what-you-use basis.

• Pros: nearly unlimited power and scale, very reliable, and you control everything.
• Cons: you control everything, which means someone has to set it up, secure it, update it and watch the bill. Pay-as-you-go pricing is cheap for small sites but can surprise you if traffic spikes or something is misconfigured.
• Ballpark (unmanaged): Lightsail plans start around a few dollars a month; Amplify has a free tier for new customers, then charges by usage. (Lightsail pricing, Amplify pricing)
• Best for: companies with a developer or IT team. For most local businesses, it's more power (and more responsibility) than they need.

Managed vs. unmanaged: the difference that changes the price

This is where most price comparisons go wrong. Two "hosting" quotes can be completely different products:

• Unmanaged hosting is just the space. The host keeps its servers running. Everything about your website is on you: updates, plugins, security patches, backups, fixing things when they break, and figuring out why the contact form stopped sending.
• Managed hosting (sometimes called a website care plan) is the space plus a person or team who handles all of that for you.

For a simple site, managed hosting often runs around $50–$100/month. For WordPress sites with a lot of plugins, integrations or e-commerce, where one update can break three other things, several hundred dollars a month is common, because it takes real hours to test and maintain. Those are ballparks from what I see in the industry; your quote will depend on how complex your site is.

Neither one is "better." If you (or someone on your team) likes handling updates, unmanaged is cheaper. If you'd rather never think about it, managed is what you're paying for: time, and someone to call.

Ballpark costs, side by side

These are unmanaged prices, meaning the hosting itself. Add a care plan if you want someone maintaining it. Prices change constantly and intro deals come and go, so click through and check.

Hosting option	Ballpark cost	Who manages it	Best for
Website builder	~$10–$50/month, hosting included	The platform	Simple sites you edit yourself
Vibe coding tool	Free to ~$30/month	You	Prototypes and tech-comfortable builders
Traditional hosting	A few dollars/month intro, ~$15–$45/month regular	You or your web person	WordPress sites
Cloud platform	Free tiers; ~$20/month and up for business use	A developer or agency	Custom-coded, performance-focused sites
Big cloud provider (AWS, etc.)	A few dollars/month and up, often usage-based	A developer or IT team	Companies with technical staff
Managed hosting / care plan	~$50–$100/month simple; several hundred for complex sites	Your agency or web team	Owners who want it handled

Don't forget the other two bills: your domain (renewed yearly) and your email (usually per person, per month).

Why we chose Vercel at JDS1

Transparency, as always: there's no single "best" host for everyone. A WordPress site on a good traditional host is still the right answer for plenty of businesses. For our High-Performance Websites, which are custom-coded, we chose Vercel for a few specific reasons:

• Speed. Sites are served from a global network, and speed matters for search. Google says: "We highly recommend site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals for success with Search and to ensure a great user experience generally." (Google Search Central — Core Web Vitals)
• Safer changes. Every change gets its own preview link first. Vercel describes previews as a way to "deploy and test changes in a live setting, without affecting your production site." (Vercel — Environments) We check the change, then it goes live.
• Security built in. Every plan includes a web application firewall and DDoS mitigation. (Vercel pricing)
• Credibility. The same platform runs sites for companies like Stripe, Notion, eBay, Chipotle and United Airlines, according to Vercel's customer page. A local business gets the same infrastructure the big brands use.

This site you're reading runs on it too.

The questions to ask before you pick (or right now)

1. Whose name is the hosting account in? It should be yours, or clearly documented if an agency manages it.
2. Whose name is the domain in? Yours. Always.
3. What does it cost after the intro price? Get the regular rate in writing.
4. Are backups and SSL (the padlock) included?
5. Is this managed or unmanaged? Who handles updates and fixes: you, the platform, or your web person?
6. If I leave, can I take my site with me?
7. Is my email tied to this hosting? If you move hosting, what happens to email?

If you can't answer those today, that's your to-do list. It's boring work, and it saves a lot of pain later.

Your next step

Log in to wherever your domain is registered and check two things: that it's in your business's name, and that auto-renew is on. Five minutes, and you've protected the most important address your business has.

If you're weighing a new website, start with Should You Get an AI Website?. And if you'd like a second set of eyes on your setup, JDS1 Marketing offers a Visibility Snapshot, or you can book a call with me.