Comparing the best WordPress hosting services according to ’ price, features, performance and support to choose which is best for you or your business.
WordPress is a popular content management system loaded with site customization tools. About 40% of all websites use WordPress as their CMS, according to Web Tribunal, including popular sites like the White House, Time Magazine and the Spotify Newsroom. Over 600 sites are created every day using WordPress, roughly ten times the estimated 60–80 created using Shopify and Squarespace. So if you’re looking to start your first site — or thinking about migrating your established site — WordPress hosting might be a good option for you.
However, choosing a WordPress hosting service can be challenging. Many WordPress hosting options offer great customer service and a lot of good features at a reasonable price. We examined the data for 22 services to help make the choice easier for you.
While we didn’t test these services, we did read through each service’s offerings and ranked them according to essential features. Here’s what we looked for to determine the best WordPress hosting service.
Tiered hosting plans: Tiered plans give you the option to scale your WordPress site up as it grows.
Security features: Services need to include some basic security features such as SSL certificates, DDoS protections and backups to protect your and your visitor’s data. The best web hosts do this at no extra charge.
Uptime of 99.9% or higher: An uptime of 99.9% or higher ensures your site won’t go down for more than 20 minutes a month, so you keep losses of readers and sales to a minimum.
Customer support: All services offer some kind of customer support. Some say they offer customer service 24/7, but they mean you can email them any time. That’s a good start, but if you have an issue that needs immediate attention live chat support is better, and phone support is best.
The best WordPress hosting services meet all four of those criteria. If a service falls short on one or more of those measures, you’ll find it in our list of other WordPress hosting services to consider or our list of additional WordPress hosts.
Note: Pricing for hosting services is hard to follow. Services usually list introductory rates that require contracts of one or more years. But once those contracts are up, the prices jump considerably, meaning the long-term cost is a lot different than it seems at first glance. This is why it’s important to check the renewal price because most services auto-renew contracts annually to ensure sites stay up at all times. Actual month-to-month plans are available in some cases, but they usually bill at the regular rate without an introductory discount.
Bluehost’s customer support is bolstered by its Blue Flash team to help you learn the ins-and-outs of WordPress. The team or experts can help you set up your site or help with plug-ins. Bluehost has four tiered WordPress hosting plans, and security features include SSL certificate for your first year and two-factor authentication. On top of the Blue Flash team, you can reach customer support 24/7 by call or chat. Bluehost’s lack of an uptime guarantee is concerning though. Their uptime agreement says they will resolve most issues within 15 minutes, but it doesn’t say how often you should expect service to potentially go down. If your site goes down for 15 minutes daily, that means your site is down for over three days in one year. The industry standard 99.9% uptime means your site will potentially be down for almost nine hours in one year.
· Value of “deals” doesn’t hold up for long-term use
Tiered hosting plans
SiteGround offers three WordPress hosting options called StartUp, GrowBig and GoGeek. Each offers unmetered traffic, but as you move from StartUp to GrowBig and finally to GoGeek, you get additional perks like on-demand backups and more server resources.
Security features
Each SiteGround WordPress plan includes security features like SSL certificates, daily backups and a custom web application firewall.
Uptime
SiteGround offers a 99.99% uptime, which is higher than the industry standard of 99.9%. Customers should expect less than an hour of downtime per year, compared to nine hours for companies that only offer 99.9% uptime.
Customer support
Customer support is available 24/7 by phone, chat or ticket submission. SiteGround also offers tutorials to help you if you want to figure out any issues on your own.
Other information
Each WordPress plan also comes with automatic WordPress installation and free site migration when you purchase a plan. Each plan also includes automatic updates, so you can customize an update schedule once a new plugin or version is available. Siteground also has a 100% renewable energy match so the service gives back as much energy as its data centers use.
On the downside, Siteground’s language around its ‘Best Deal’ is a bit misleading. Siteground says its 12-month plan is the best deal, but the price renews at the regular rate of $15 a month after the first year, which is more than three-times the introductory price. The service’s 36-month plan looks to be more pricey, but this plan is actually the best deal if you plan on hosting a site with SiteGrounds for three years, coming in at almost $30 less than the ‘best deal’ for that same amount of time. Domain registration is also not included, so when you check out, that is automatically added for a one-time additional $18.
· Shared, VPS and dedicated WordPress hosting available
· Automated social media posting included
Cons:
· Add-ons automatically added at checkout
Tiered hosting plans
InMotion Hosting offers four tiered standard WordPress plans called WP Core, WP Launch, WP Power and WP Pro. The WP Core plan comes with limited resources, like two websites, 100 GB of storage and 10 business email addresses, but all other plans remove limits on websites, data storage and email accounts.
Security features
All plans include an SSL certificate, web application firewalls and hack and malware protection.
Uptime
InMotion Hosting offers 99.99% uptime, placing InMotion Hosting above the standard in terms of uptime.
Customer support
InMotion hosting customers can reach customer support 24/7 by phone, chat, email or ticket submission. The InMotion Hosting support center also offers video tutorials for more detailed assistance.
Other information
InMotion Hosting offers shared, VPS and dedicated WordPress hosting, which is more than many other WordPress hosting services. Each of these plans are also tiered, allowing you to fine-tune your subscription. VPS WordPress hosting has four tiered options, and dedicated WordPress hosting has five tiered options plus a “build your own plan” option. These additional tiers give you more plan options than other services.
If you choose a WordPress hosting plan with InMotion Hosting, make sure you double check your cart before checking out. When I went to my cart, my bill was $54 higher thanks to automatic add-ons. You can remove these options, though.
· Automated backups from CodeGuard and SiteLock Essential included
Cons:
· Renewal prices not listed
Tiered hosting options
HostGator offers three tiered WordPress hosting plans called Starter Plan, Standard Plan and Business Plan. The main difference between each plan is the number of websites you can run, how many visitors your site can accommodate per month and how many sites can be migrated to HostGator for free. None of these options are unlimited or unmetered like other WordPress hosting services.
Security features
HostGator plans include SSL certificates and DDoS protections. WordPress plans also come with automated backups from CodeGuard and security features from SiteLock Essential. Combined, these would cost at least $120 per year, but they are included at no additional cost. However, HostGator writes that anyone with “critical business information or important data are STRONGLY encouraged to seek a third-party backup service…” (emphasis theirs). Maybe this is just HostGator covering its legal bases, but it doesn’t feel like a vote of confidence for HostGator’s existing backup system.
Uptime
HostGator has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This means your site shouldn’t be down for more than nine hours a year, which is the industry standard.
Customer support
Customers can reach HostGator customer support representatives by chat, email or phone 24/7. Users can also access a database full of video tutorials, articles and guides. Not all services offer video tutorials, which could help solve an issue when it feels like talking to customer support over the phone or online isn’t helping. HostGator support is also active on Twitter.
Other information
HostGator also has a one-click WordPress installation process, and HostGator offers a video tutorial in case you want additional help.
Like other services, each tiered plan offers an introductory price, and the cost rises when the plan renews. While other services list the renewal price near the introductory price, HostGator doesn’t. You can only see the renewal price when you go to check out, so I pulled those rates and listed them here.
· Shared hosting plans are cheaper, offer similar features
Tiered hosting options
GoDaddy Web Hosting offers four tiered WordPress hosting plans called Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate and Ecommerce. Basic and Deluxe plans have data limits in place of 30 and 75GB, respectively. Basic and Deluxe plans also accommodate 25K and 100K site visitors a month, respectively. Ultimate and Ecommerce plans offer unlimited data and site visitors. The Ecommerce plan also helps get your online store up and running fast.
Security features
Each plan includes an SSL certificate, automatic daily malware scans and daily backups. Deluxe, Ultimate and Ecommerce plans also include secure file transfer protocol access.
Uptime
GoDaddy has an industry-standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. This means you should expect your site to be down for about nine hours a year.
Customer support
GoDaddy customers have 24/7 phone and chat customer support, plus a help center full of guides and videos.
Other information
WordPress is preinstalled with each hosting plan. Unlike other services, when plans renew there isn’t a drastic increase in price. Some plans only increase by one dollar.
What’s confusing about GoDaddy is it offers shared hosting plans that have similar features to its WordPress plans. The introductory and renewal rates are less than the WordPress plans, and the shared hosting plans come with a one-click WordPress installation tool, too. With that in mind, why not go with a shared hosting plan and save yourself some money?
Prices start at $9 a month (or $6 a month for shared hosting plans with one-click WordPress installation).
DreamHost
DreamHost has a 97-day money-back guarantee, which is the longest money-back period for any hosting service on this list. If you’re new to WordPress hosting, this could help you decide if it’s the right choice for you. The lowest starting price is with a monthly contract, and after your first month, the price renews at $8 a month. DreamHost also has a managed WordPress hosting option called DreamPress, which has three tiered options, and VPS WordPress hosting, which has four tiered options. Otherwise, DreamHost offers two basic tiered WordPress options, security features like an SSL certificate and automated daily backups and a 100% uptime guarantee. Customer support is limited, though. Email support is available 24/7 and chat support is available from 3 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. PT (6 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET). Dreamhost doesn’t offer phone support, which hurts them, as well as not supporting 24/7 chat support.
Hostinger’s prices start at a competitive $2 a month for managed WordPress hosting — some Wordpress hosting services charge five times as much for managed WordPress hosting. It also offers free site migration if you are switching from another hosting service. Hostinger offers four tiered WordPress hosting options: Each plan includes security features like an SSL certificate, DDoS protection and web application firewalls as well as a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Customer support is available by email or chat 24/7. While Hostinger’s prices are competitive, some of the tiered options cost more than the service’s shared hosting plans. Those plans come with similar features, have a one-click WordPress installer and are cheaper than their WordPress counterparts. You could save money by going with a shared hosting plan. On top of that, no phone support hurts Hostinger’s rating.
