In cost terms, virtual is much cheaper to start off with - you can get a 2.5 GB disk space and 50 GB bandwidth package for as little as $4.99 these days (hit me up if you want to know more), and until you're actually making money there's probably not a lot of point in forking out $100 per month for a dedicated server that is just going to be overkill for what you need.
That said, if you do want a bit more power and flexibility than virtual, you could always get a VPS; but on most VPS' you'll have to install the OS and configure everything from the ground up, which is no easy task for somebody new to server management or even something like the shell envrionment. However, if you can get your head around the technical side of it, VPS packages can nearly be as cheap as virtual -
VPSLink offer 2 GB disk space and 100 GB bandwidth per month on theirs, but the resources for that package are pretty scarce, and as with all VPS providers, you are pretty much on your own if something you've installed goes wrong, so you'll have to optimise the living crap out of any software you install.
Hope I haven't confused you even more.