Sometimes that four or five dollar price tag on the best green hosting sites can blind you to the facts and make you buy a web hosting package that’s not even worth five cents, let alone five bucks. If you don’t feel like hassling with it and would rather just get started today, there are plenty of free sites to choose from. If you’re going to be spending anything on your web hosting package, be it five dollars or just the change in your pocket, it should at least include…

Unlimited Space
The notion of limited space is kind of a joke. There’s no reason for a web host to ever cap you off at so much space except to get you to pay for more space. This is why a lot of free hosts limit you to a gig or so until you’re ready to upgrade the experience. If you are spending five bucks on the hosting package, the least they can do is not try to bamboozle more money out of you for something you should be getting for free.

Unlimited Bandwidth
This should be unlimited by default, too. Look, Youtube is a free content host, and they don’t charge you for extra bandwidth, nor do the hit you with fees and fines if your video is a hit. You shouldn’t have to spend extra to keep from getting hit with fees, you should be allowed to compete with everyone else on the web for your five dollar entrance fee alone.

Ads on Your Terms
Free website hosts typically feature their own ads on your site because that’s how they keep the servers running. This is fair, seeing as the site you’re managing is, well, free, after all. If you’re handing them money, though, then that means that they should leave you alone and let you run your site as you please.

You can’t expect the world for five bucks, but you should at least expect five bucks worth of service for it.