Wealthy Affiliate vs. Namecheap Comparison
Wealthy Affiliate or Namecheap? Which is the better overall solution? In this deep dive, we'll go into the pros and cons of creating a website with Wealthy Affiliate and Namecheap — costs, buying domains, hosting, add-ons, convenience, customer support availability, and more.
Contents
1. Cost – Which is Cheaper?
Wealthy Affiliate
Namecheap
1.1 .com domains:
Wealthy Affiliate: $13.99 – Cost per year of a .com domain on Wealthy Affiliate
Namecheap: $10.98 – Cost per year of a .com domain on Namecheap
However, it's important to keep in mind that there are more than just the domain cost to consider. You also have a whole slew of other add-ons you'll need to think about.
1.2. Hosting
As we go through this review, let's keep in mind that with Wealthy Affiliate, you pay $49 per month ($29.92 if you pay yearly), however, this comes with a ton of premium add-ons you'll need to pay for with Namecheap and includes up to 25 websites.
Wealthy Affiliate: $49 or $29 – Cost per month of hosting and other add-ons with Wealthy Affiliate (monthly vs. yearly).
Namecheap: $5.88 – Monthly cost of shared hosting on Namecheap.
One thing to keep in mind is that this price reflects Namecheap's shared hosting plan, which is much cheaper than their dedicated $39.44 per month plan.
Wealthy Affiliate hosting on the other hand, comes with dedicated servers hosted by Amazon and features higher speeds than shared hosting.
1.3. SSL (Site Security)
These days you need to have SSL on your website. Otherwise, your risk falling in Google's search results.
Wealthy Affiliate includes SSL for all your sites as part of your monthly payment.
With Namecheap, you receive the first year free and then pay $6.88 per year, per domain after that.
Wealthy Affiliate: $49 or $29 – Cost per month of SSL and other add-ons with Wealthy Affiliate.
Namecheap: $6.88 per year per domain – Yearly cost of SSL per domain on Namecheap.
So far, while Namecheap certainly boasts lower overall costs for one website, they start to add up when you factor in multiple domains.
Remember that Wealthy Affiliate's price remains the same whether you have one site or 25.
1.4. Dedicated Email (@yourdomain.com)
Having dedicated email is great for making your site look more professional. If you have mailing lists, your subscribers will want to see you@yourdomain.com rather than @gmail.com.
Wealthy Affiliate's monthly fee includes dedicated email for all sites.
Getting a private email with Namecheap will set you back $9.88 per year, per domain.
Wealthy Affiliate: $49 or $29 – Cost per month of dedicated email and other add-ons with Wealthy Affiliate.
Namecheap: $6.88 per year per domain – Yearly cost of private email per domain on Namecheap.
1.5. Cost Conclusion
We've covered what I believe to be the bare minimum as far as essentials and add-ons go.
While there are other add-ons we'll go into for overall quality purposes, we'll stick with what's been covered so far when evaluating the cost of Wealthy Affiliate vs. Namecheap.
Wealthy Affiliate: 25 sites, $49 or $29 total – Cost per month of 25 websites with Wealthy Affiliate and all add-ons.
Wealthy Affiliate: 1 site, $49 or $29 total – Cost per month of 1 website with Wealthy Affiliate and all add-ons.
Namecheap: (25 sites), $34.55 total – Cost per month of 25 websites on Namecheap with the add-ons described above.
Namecheap: (1 site), $7.03total – Cost per month of 1 website on Namecheap with the add-ons described above.
On cost alone, it looks like Namecheap is the winner here.
One thing to consider though is that Wealthy Affiliate is only $29 a month if you pay yearly.
This would make Wealthy Affiliate the winner on cost basis alone if you have a large number of sites.
Namecheap (on cost): 4.5/5
Wealthy Affiliate (on cost): 4/5
2. Ease of Use
Namecheap: Uses cPanel, a backend interface that, while flexible, can have a very-steep learning curve. You will likely need to talk to customer support (we'll go into that next) to get help with some things. For example, setting up one of my WordPress sites required customer support to manually go in and modify the site's .htaccess file.
This took about an hour with customer support and is only the tip of the iceberg. From a technical perspective, you could be in very deep waters with Namecheap.
Namecheap Ease-of-Use Rating: 2/5
Wealthy Affiliate: Using Wealthy Affiliate's Site Manager is a breeze. WordPress comes pre-installed – you simply plug in your domain name, pick your theme, and you're off to the races. There's no complex backend to deal with, as Wealthy Affiliate handles it all for you.
Wealthy Affiliate Ease-of-Use Rating: 5/5
The Winner of this round by a large margin is Wealthy Affiliate.
3. Customer Support
Namecheap: Features live-chat and support ticket systems. The live-chat system works very well and their agents are helpful and knowledgeable. Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year. However, there is no phone number you can call.
Namecheap Customer Support Rating: 4/5
Wealthy Affiliate: Like Namecheap, Wealthy Affiliate offers 24/7/365 support. However, they do not have a livechat system; only a ticket submission system. On the plus side, the tickets are typically answered within a few minutes. However, the lack of a phone number or live-chat system can leave you feeling a bit in the dark while waiting.
Wealthy Affiliate Customer Support Rating: 3.5/5
The Winner of this round by a slight margin is Namecheap.
4. Features
Namecheap: Comes with very few features out of the box. Nearly everything extra will cost you.
- SSL? Free for the first year, then you pay.
- Private email hosting? Pay up.
- Backups? You'll need to perform them manually via the backend (not easy to do and easy to forget) or you'll need to pay for that as well.
- Anti-spam? Extra (via third-party plugin, not offered with Namecheap)
- More speed? You'll need dedicated hosting at that point, which becomes very expensive.
Namecheap Features Rating: 1.5/5
Wealthy Affiliate: Wealthy Affiliate ships with just about everything you need out of the box. You can operate your site without any other paid plugins whatsoever. With Wealthy Affiliate, you get a whole host of features:
- Free SSL
- Redundancy (site is double hosted, or mirrored)
- Daily Backups
- Free Domain Email
- Anti-Spam Included
- Dedicated Servers
- Free to Get Started
Wealthy Affiliate Features Rating: 5/5
The Winner of this round by a resounding margin is Wealthy Affiliate.
5. Performance
Last but not least is performance. Factors such as page load times and site uptime are critical to a site's health.
Fast loading sites will rank higher on Google and will prevent visitors from leaving the site. Site uptime is crucial for Google's rankings — if a crawler attempts to index your site while it's down, it will plummet in search results.
Namecheap: You'll get performance if you pay for it. Otherwise, if you're on a shared hosting plan, expect much longer load times. Additionally, Namecheap guarantees 99.9% uptime (about 45 minutes of downtime a month).
Namecheap Performance Rating: 3/5
Wealthy Affiliate: With dedicated “large” Amazon servers and their free “Sitespeed Plus” add-on, Wealthy Affiliate-hosted sites typically see much faster load times (average 1.3 seconds). Additionally, 99.99% uptime is guaranteed (or less than 5 minutes of downtime each month).
Wealthy Affiliate Performance Rating: 5/5
The Winner of this round is Wealthy Affiliate.
6. Final Ratings
Wealthy Affiliate
Cost: 4/5
Ease of Use: 5/5
Customer Support: 3.5/5
Features: 5/5
Performance: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
Namecheap
Cost: 4.5/5
Ease of Use: 2/5
Customer Support: 4/5
Features: 1.5/5
Performance: 3/5
Overall: 3/5
Overall, Wealthy Affiliate is the best option, especially considering that it is only $29 a month when paid yearly. With all the features and performance add-ons out-of-the-box and an easy to navigate Site Manager, Wealthy Affiliate is the winner in this head-to-head with Namecheap.
Plus, it's FREE to get started with Wealthy Affiliate! You won't pay a dime if you don't like the service.
Note – this post contains affiliate links, from which I may receive a commission at no cost to you.
Normally, if we think of someone who wants to buy hosting, what is done is to rent a piece of the server. In other words, it can take at least 200 sites according to a server feature. However, in dedicated hosting, you rent the server completely. Consequently, the price is also very high. Owning a dedicated server, of course, has a disadvantage in terms of price as well as advantages in other matters.
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