Short answer: Choose website hosting by what your site does: a 5–10 page brochure site runs fine on shared hosting at about NT$2,000–6,000 a year, while members, payments, bookings or campaign peaks call for a VPS or cloud server at about NT$300–5,000 a month. If you don't want to manage a server, choose managed hosting and hand updates, backups and monitoring to a vendor.
A handmade-soap brand ran its site on a NT$1,800-a-year shared hosting plan without trouble. Before Mother's Day it spent NT$50,000 on ads; when traffic arrived, the site went blank, and the host replied only that "your plan has reached its resource limit." Half the ad budget burned with no orders to show for it. Website hosting isn't better because it's cheaper or more expensive; it has to match what the site does.
The bottom line: 4 hosting options and their annual cost
Most small businesses only need shared hosting or a small VPS.
| Type | Like | Per year | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | A shared flat, resources split among tenants | NT$2,000–6,000 | 5–10 page brochure sites, blogs |
| VPS | A private studio, resources are yours | NT$4,000–18,000 | Small e-commerce, member or booking sites |
| Cloud hosting | A hotel where you can add rooms anytime | NT$18,000–60,000+ | Peak traffic, ERP or app integrations |
| Managed hosting (with operations) | A managed rental where the landlord fixes things | Hosting fee + from NT$2,000/month | Companies without IT staff |
Full cost breakdown: four costs beyond the server
A hosting bill is rarely just the server.
- Server: shared hosting NT$2,000–6,000 a year; for VPS, AWS Lightsail's official pricing starts around US$5 a month, and commonly used specs run about NT$300–1,500 a month.
- Domain: .com or .com.tw about NT$500–1,000 a year.
- SSL certificate: free Let's Encrypt certificates are enough in most cases; organization-validated ones start around NT$3,000 a year.
- CDN and protection: Cloudflare offers a free plan that blocks basic attacks and speeds up images.
- Maintenance and management: updates, backups and monitoring; ScriptWalker's website maintenance starts at NT$2,000 a month.
The real risks of the wrong host: slow, down, or dragged down by neighbors
Choosing the wrong host often costs several times a year of hosting fees.
- Slowness: server response time drags down the whole page load; web.dev recommends a time to first byte (TTFB) of 0.8 seconds or less, which shared hosts often exceed at peak.
- Crashing under traffic: like the soap brand, ad money is wasted and the bad impression lingers.
- Bad neighbors: if another site on your shared server is hacked or blacklisted, your emails may land in spam too.
- No one patching: on a VPS or cloud server, system updates are your job, and neglect means security holes.
- Renewal shock: many hosts discount the first year heavily and revert to full price on renewal, so the bill can double or triple; check renewal prices before signing.
- Account not in your name: if a former vendor registered the hosting under their account, you may not get your data back when switching.
Self-managed or managed hosting? It depends on whether someone can spare 4 hours a month
If nobody can reliably spend 4 hours a month on the server, choose managed hosting.
- Self-managed fits: a brochure site on shared hosting where the host handles updates, or a company with a Linux-savvy IT person.
- Managed hosting fits: sites with members, payments or custom systems; incidents that need a response within 4 hours; owners who don't want to handle hosting accounts and renewals.
- Ask vendors 3 questions: whose name is the hosting account in, how often are backups made and restore-tested, and how fast do you respond when the site goes down?
FAQ
These are the questions owners ask most; the first sentence of each answer is the answer.
Does a brochure site need a VPS?
Usually not. A 5–10 page site without members or payments runs fine on shared hosting at NT$2,000–6,000 a year.
How is managed hosting different?
Managed hosting adds system updates, backups and monitoring on top of server space, so someone is responsible when things break.
Can I switch hosts later?
Yes. Moving files and databases plus updating DNS takes about 1–3 days for a brochure site; watch SEO and email settings.
Whose name should the hosting account be in?
Your company's. Vendors can manage it through delegated access, so switching vendors never locks you out.
Next step: get a free hosting check
ScriptWalker (a Taiwan-based Laravel/Flutter custom development studio) offers website maintenance and managed hosting from NT$2,000 a month, including system updates, daily backups and uptime monitoring. Send us your URL and we'll check your current hosting specs, speed and renewal date, then tell you whether to stay, upgrade or move.
- Email: [email protected]
- Phone: 0916-224-047
- LINE: @ufv9089p