Why does good hosting feel impossible for us PH freelancers?

Been freelancing digital marketing stuff for a year now - emails, social campaigns, the usual. But scaling my own landing pages?
Every cheap host I try ghosts me with downtime or throttles my traffic when a promo hits. Lost a potential client last week 'cause my demo site buffered like a bad Zoom call. Here's the thing, though - I just switched to linux server hosting and it's actually holding up. Full root access, picked CentOS for familiarity, unmetered bandwidth so no more surprise bills. Not perfect (setup took an afternoon), but way better than the alternatives I've burned cash on. Anyone got similar war stories or better picks for Linux setups that won't bankrupt a solo hustler?