Imagine you’re opening a clothing store in your town. You’ve hired employees, obtained all of the items you’ll sell, planned your store’s layout, finalized your branding, and purchased your POS system. But wait… you haven’t signed a lease on a storefront. You don’t actually have a physical space for your store yet.
This is what it’s like to have a website without a web hosting service. Your domain and web page files exist, but visitors won’t be able to find your website on the internet. Similarly, your retail store’s customers won’t have anywhere to visit and shop if you don’t have the physical space.
Most Reputable Web Hosting Companies
The hosting providers listed below all include multiple options, making them great for small businesses up to medium and large companies in need of more powerful hosting.
1. CMS Hub
Pricing: Starter Plan; $23/month, Professional Plan; $360/month, Enterprise Plan; $1,200/month
CMS Hub is a web hosting and content management system built on HubSpot’s CRM platform. It provides all the tools you need to easily create and manage beautiful, optimized websites according to your needs.
With CMS Hub, you can easily create, manage, and optimize website pages to host your content securely and effectively for search and mobile with automatic responsive design and secure sockets layer (SSL). And you’ll enjoy the ability to personalize user experience (UX) based on information about your contacts with smart content or CTAs and design site pages with pre-built or customized website templates.
What We Like: You can integrate the CMS Hub with other marketing, sales, and service tools seamlessly to create an all-in-one platform for your business.
2. Bluehost
Pricing: Basic Plan; $2.95/month, Plus Plan; $5.45/month, Choice Plus; $5.45/month, Pro Plan; $13.95/month
Bluehost is a web hosting service that provides users with the ability to manage different types of websites. From hosting a shared, VPS, dedicated or WordPress hosting, it’s an ideal option for small businesses looking to improve digital marketing needs on a budget.
Users can take advantage of a free domain name for the first year of use and access reliable support 24/7, making it even more convenient for its customers.
What We Like: In addition to its wide range of web hosting services, Bluehost provides marketing training, SEO services, social media marketing, content creation, graphic design services, email, domain names, and local business listings to grow traffic.
3. SiteGround
Pricing: Startup Plan; $2.99/month, GrowBig Plan; $6.69/month, GoGeek Plan; $10.69/month
The web hosting company, SiteGround, offers three shared hosting plans that adjust to the needs of most users. Whether you’re starting from scratch or scaling, you can choose whether you want to work with the easy-to-use site builder to launch your small business website, or simply migrate your website.
SiteGround is equipped with the latest technology like Google Cloud infrastructure and LiteSpeed web servers to automatically backup your sites daily, maintain fast load times, and offer a reliable web hosting service customers are looking for.
What We Like: SiteGround displays an authentic commitment to helping its customers succeed by including its own malware/virus scanning software and isolation technology. This feature prevents infected websites from taking down other websites on a given server.
4. GoDaddy
Pricing: Web Hosting; $4.33/month, WordPress Hosting; $8.99/month, WordPress Ecommerce Hosting; $20.99/month, Business Hosting; $19.99/month, VPS Hosting; $4.99/month
If you are looking to get a website set up quickly and fairly painlessly, GoDaddy may be the answer for you. You can choose between several different types of hosting that are offered including shared, business, VPS, dedicated, and WordPress. And since GoDaddy is more popularly known for its domain registration, they offer a free domain to those who purchase any of its web hosting options.
GoDaddy offers amazingly responsive customer service 24/7, quick load times courtesy of its multiple data centers around the world in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
What We Like: The How-To section on GoDaddy’s website is an extensive resource unlike any other hosting provider. It has playlists of video guides that go beyond troubleshooting, and help your website succeed through things like how to plan your online presence, how to set up your email, marketing basics, and much more.
5. HostGator
Pricing: Hatchling Plan; $2.75/month, Baby Plan; $3.50/month, Business Plan; $5.25/month
With HostGator, you can start any site on a budget. It’s widely accessible for entry-level beginners searching for a low barrier to entry hosting service. And yes, they have plenty of customer support available, along with a live chat feature you can tap into at any time.
Not only is the hosting provider known for affordability, but they also offer free WordPress migrations, SSL certification, and a domain name at no extra cost to you.
What We Like: New customers can use $150 worth of Google Ads and $100 worth of free pay-per-click Bing ads to help give your business the visibility it deserves.
6. Google Cloud
Pricing: Available upon request
Google Cloud web hosting is a versatile service for static and dynamic websites with the same hosting infrastructure used by major websites like Google and Youtube. Users pay for exactly what they use in the Google Compute Engine, to click and deploy over 100 web-serving solutions.
Google Cloud also helps businesses start from scratch by providing website basics like getting a domain name, business email, web building without code, and setting up online ads built for the world’s most popular search engine.
What We Like: Google Cloud hosting is unrivaled in network throughput. A recent comparison of the top three cloud providers showed Google Cloud VMs have nearly three times the network throughput of their AWS and Azure counterparts. Google’s bottom-performing network throughput machine performed 65% and 105% better than AWS’ and Azure’s top-performing machines.
7. Squarespace
Pricing: Personal Plan; $14/month, Business Plan; $23/month, Basic Commerce Plan; $27/month, Advanced Commerce Plan; $49/month
Squarespace is a website building and hosting service designed to help people build their own websites and showcase their work, no matter the level of technical ability. You can choose from dozens of professional and creative website template options for small businesses, ecommerce sites, and more.
Squarespace gives you everything you need for your business to succeed from the very beginning. Not only can you use Squarespace’s designs to create a unique website, but it makes your life easier through tools like premade email campaigns, built-in analytics, Ecommerce functions, SEO tools, and integrations with G Suite and PayPal.
What We Like: Alongside unlimited storage and bandwidth, Squarespace comes with free SSL, no matter the plan you choose.
8. WP Engine
Pricing: Startup Plan; starting at $19/month, Professional Plan; starting at $47/month, Advanced Solutions available upon request
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, offering fully optimized, managed plans for the platform. As pioneers in the managed WordPress hosting industry, the business boasts an impressive customer list including Yelp, Asana, National Geographic, PBS, and MyFitnessPal.
It offers quick and easy migrations from your old host, a free secure socket layers (SSL) certificate for security, support for setting up staging sites, and plenty of performance tracking and diagnostic options.
What We Like: WP Engine has a page performance solution that tests your site for SEO and helps you make improvements, and GeoTargeting to optimize your site for specific regions of your choosing.
9. Wix
Pricing: Combo Plan; $16/month, Unlimited Plan; $22/month, Pro Plan; $27/month, VIP Plan; $45/month
Wix is a web hosting and drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy to create a professional website, without having to know how to code. With over 800 professionally designed templates and tools, Wix lets you create and sell through your site.
Beginner-friendly and scalable, Wix is suitable for anything from personal online portfolios to small business websites, with easy-to-use SEO tools to help your site rank better and load faster (with the help of its 15+ servers located around the globe).
What We Like: Using Wix is especially advantageous for small businesses selling online, as it charges no transaction fees, and helps you reel lost customers with abandoned cart recovery features even at the lowest pricing plan.
10. A2 Hosting
Pricing: Startup Plan; $2.99/month, Drive Plan; $5.99/month, Turbo Boost Plan; $6.99/month
If you’re building a website for the first time or starting an online company, A2 will help you do just that. It’s fast and offers both excellent customer service and competitive pricing on long-term, standard shared hosting plans, with a reliable money-back guarantee.
A2 Hosting offers shared and managed WordPress hosting, VPS Hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated hosting. A2 Hosting also provides e-commerce hosting, which is essential if you plan to make an online store. They are compatible with various e-commerce software and solutions that make it easy to set up an online store.
What We Like: A2 Hosting is known for its “high powered hosting”, making speed and reliability its top priority. The provider calls its solid-state drives (SSDs) “Turbo Servers” that can load pages up to 20 times faster than a typical non-SSD server with the purchase of the Turbo Plan.
11. Hostinger
Pricing: Web Hosting Plan; $2.99/month, Cloud Hosting Plan; $9.99/month
Whether you’re creating a new home on the web or looking for an upgrade over your current hosting provider, Hostinger is a wonderful option to check out. This service provider is known for quick hosting speeds, across its shared hosting, VPS hosting, and WordPress hosting options.
Not only do you get blazing fast site speeds on a Hostinger plan, but those plans come at some of the most competitive price points around. And it’s easy to use too, with over 100 templates to drag and drop your way to a beautiful webpage design without knowing how to code.
Best web hosting for WordPress
1. SiteGround (www.SiteGround.com)
Best overall WordPress host ($2.99/mo)
No list of best WordPress hosting could be complete without SiteGround playing a prominent role. The company has been making a name for themselves in the WordPress community for a while now. And not without a reason. Their hosting platform is strong when it comes to for-WordPress optimized servers, plus they offer managed WordPress hosting at price points that are unheard of (read: you won’t find a cheaper managed host of the same quality anywhere else).
What’s also worth pointing out is that SiteGround is one of the few officially recommended hosts by WordPress.org.
For the tests, we went for the StartUp package. Although for a generally more WordPress-optimized package, we’d recommend the GrowBig or GoGeek plan. They are a tad more expensive, but come with additional perks such as advanced caching (custom-built by SiteGround), staging, premium wildcard SSL certificates, and free PCI compliance – should you want to run an e-commerce store.
WordPress installation
Getting WordPress up and running with the built-in installer took just a few clicks. There really isn’t anything more to say here … the installation process really was as seamless as possible.
During this setup process, you also get to choose your server location. There are five data centers available – in USA, Asia and Europe.
Customer support
SiteGround offers what they call “unmatched” support (via chat, phone, tickets, social media), and it’s hard to argue with that, honestly. Apart from being able to access your account and fix any issues, the support agents are also knowledgeable about WordPress and WordPress hosting, and can help you out with a range of other issues that might not be strictly hosting-related.
In our little test, the SiteGround customer support was able to help us get a temporary URL working quickly and efficiently.
Special mention has to go out to the slickness of their customer support software and the extra mile the staff were prepared to go in offering detailed account advice and providing screenshots. (This makes it a great HostGator alternative, for instance, if you want a more refined support environment.)
2. Bluehost (www.Bluehost.com)
Top value-for-money WordPress hosting ($2.75/mo)
We went for the basic package here. As you can see, a very cheap WordPress hosting option – a shared WordPress hosting plan, to be exact.
One immediate point to note is that Bluehost is the only alternative on the list that doesn’t offer a monthly package. Twelve month commitments are the minimum, though that is offset somewhat by a strong money back guarantee policy that I have personally invoked without issue.
WordPress installation
In addition to the standard cPanel options in place, Bluehost’s one-click WordPress installations are handled by a service called MojoMarketplace.
The MojoMarketplace interface for installing WordPress left a lot to be desired. It was possible to install multiple instances accidentally, and overall feedback on what was happening at any given point was inconsistent and confusing. (For instance, when we look at Bluehost vs SiteGround, the latter gives you WordPress installs in just a few clicks.)
On the plus side, this gave us an instant opportunity to talk to support!
3. DreamHost (www.DreamHost.com)
WordPress-endorsed hosting ($2.59/mo)
We selected the standard shared hosting package with DreamHost, which was the most expensive of the base offerings we tested. Still, a very popular WordPress website hosting in the market.
Overall account signup with this shared WordPress hosting provider was slick and painless, and I was eager to see how DreamHost’s much-touted SSD servers would perform.
WordPress installation
The one-click install options in the backend worked straight out of the gate and the interface was generally straightforward to navigate.
Customer support
We needed some help in configuring a temporary URL as a subdomain on the main DreamHost domain. Customer support was easily reachable via chat and able to help us clear the issue up quickly.
4. Kinsta (www.Kinsta.com)
Best performance among managed hosting ($29.17/mo)
Kinsta is a boutique hosting provider for WordPress that focuses mainly on optimized managed hosting setups. However, them being “boutique” doesn’t mean that they can’t handle the load.
In fact, Kinsta has the full power of the Google Cloud Platform behind it. They take Google’s infrastructure and make it more accessible and easier to use. Kinsta doesn’t use the traditional cPanel UI, but instead gives users a custom panel that puts focus on what’s important while hiding everything else.
The fact that this host is “managed” means that it’s Kinsta who handle every server-management-related task for you.
WordPress installation
As you’re setting up your account, you can tell Kinsta to install WordPress on your hosting account for you. All you need to do is tick one box.
Customer support
Kinsta offers 24/7 chat and ticket support. The representatives know WordPress and can help with anything you might be struggling with.
Plus, the fact that you don’t have to deal with cPanel will also reduce the number of times you need to contact support in the first place.
5. Hostinger (www.Hostinger.com)
Cheapest WordPress hosting on the market ($1.99/mo)
Hostinger is a very appealing option when it comes to best WordPress hosting, and their entry level pricing has a lot to do with that. At just $1.99 / month, you get to build one website and welcome up to 10,000 visitors (/mo). You also get one email account and a free SSL.
Hostinger also has a handful of WordPress-specific features for you. These include a guided installation with a site-building wizard to speed things up.
With WordPress running, you don’t have to do much maintenance of your own. Most things like core and plugin updates are handled by Hostinger and happen automatically. To make sure that your site runs fast, Hostinger uses LiteSpeed Cache and has it pre-configured.
For those who want to tinker under the hood, there’s a whole database of WordPress tutorials, plus you get access to WP-CLI.
WordPress installation
Hostinger offers one-click installation, so there’s not much to talk about in this department.
What’s worth mentioning, however, is that you do get to choose from eight data center locations around the world – in the US, UK, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Lithuania.
Then, when you log into your user panel for the first time, you can also go through the site-setup wizard. You’ll get to choose from Hostinger’s collection of pre-approved themes and pick the one that suits you best.
Customer support
Hostinger offers 24/7 support. The support team is easy to contact and they will help you with general inquiries (WordPress related and otherwise). Though, you might have to wait a couple of minutes before getting a response.
Service via chat support was fast and friendly and helped us with clearing up the initial WordPress installation problems and setting up a temporary URL to view our site.
Most secure web hosting
Bluehost
Best Overall Hosting
Bluehost is a large website host well-known in the industry for its WordPress expertise. It is also popular for its variety of “one-stop-shop” solutions and services, as well as bargain prices. Bluehost currently powers over 2 million sites worldwide, mainly out of its huge data center in Utah. Also, the company offers almost every website hosting service that you might possibly need, such as advanced hosting like VPS, managed WordPress hosting and dedicated server. Besides offering a complete range of website hosting services, the company provides SEO services, marketing training, social media marketing, graphic design services, and content creation.
Bluehost also has an advanced and reliable WordPress hosting category called WP Pro. Note that WP Pro is available in 3 tiers. It is an excellent managed WordPress offering that gives your website back end the coveted white-glove treatment and also includes amazing social media, SEO, and email marketing tools. And WP Pro’s 3 plans (Grow, Build, and Scale) all feature unlimited website hosting, domains, monthly data transfers, and storage, which is great.
WP Engine
Best Managed WordPress Hosting
WP Engine doesn’t offer standard web hosting, so they aren’t the right provider for you if you’re looking for Windows servers. What they offer is managed WordPress hosting, and they can help you create everything from blogs to enterprise-level websites. They also offer a free WordPress development environment called Local, which you can install on Windows, Mac, and Linux devices to build, test, and deploy WordPress sites. When you’re ready to go, you can connect it to WP Engine and deploy your sites.
WP Engine’s Startup plan costs $25 per month and supports a single website, with 10 GB storage, 50 GB bandwidth, and up to 25,000 visits per month. Growth starts at $95 per month and includes 20 GB storage, 200 GB bandwidth, and up to 10 websites. If you need more than that, you can choose from the Scale or Custom plans. All plans include a global CDN, automated SSL certificates, and an SSH gateway.
LiquidWeb
Best Dedicated Hosting
LiquidWeb focuses on managed hosting, offering dedicated servers, VPS, cloud dedicated, private VPS, and cloud site hosting, as well as managed WordPress, WooCommerce, and premium business email hosting. They’ll help you pick your hosting plan, migrate your site and manage it and keep your server updated and secure.
Liquid Web, like our other choices, has 24/7/365 tech support, with trained staff who are, the company says, “the most helpful humans in hosting.” They guarantee that you’ll get a response in less than a minute when you contact them by phone or live chat, and less than an hour when you submit a ticket.
Conclusion
Your website needs a hosting provider to be accessed over the internet. Choosing a hosting service that suits your needs and is tailored to your expected growth is critical to the success and performance of your website. We hope you follow the steps we outlined above and consider the plethora of service options available so you can make and host a website that gains the visibility and engagement you want.