It totally depends on your requirements.
It is a bit like saying 'I am thinking of buying a car. How much are they?'
What are you looking to host? Do you own the domain name or need that registered. Are you looking to handle email traffic?
Is it a static brouchure website or does it sit on top of a database?
How much traffic (in terms of users per hour and / or bandwidth) are you anticipating?
How important is reliability? If the site was down for an hour, say, how much would this cost you in lost revenue? The answer varies very much from person to person.
You quote $11.95 a month as expensive, but obviously someone like Amazon.com would spend vastly more than this, but their requirements are most likely not yours.