If you are an entrepreneur, it is advisable that you use an efficient and reliable web hosting service.
Since I’ve helped countless clients rank their websites, I’ve realized that you have to use a web hosting provider that features a high uptime rate, fast loading speed and can scale as your business grows.
Being an owner of several websites, I know which hosting service providers that are worth looking into.
I’ll walk you through the seven best small business web hosting, their features, and their pros and cons.
Table Of Contents
What Are The Best Web Hosting Services for Small Business Owners?
The seven best web hosting services for small business owners are:
WPX- SiteGround (Best Customer Service)
- HostPapa
- Accuweb Hosting
- Hostgator (Best for Lean/Minimal Needs)
- Hostinger (Best Cheap Hosting Plans)
- Bluehost
WPXThe guide is organized into mini-reviews where I dive into the data and give you a sense of what each small business host has to offer.
WPX Hosting
Specializes in WordPress hosting. But I have run custom sites on their servers without issue.
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Siteground
Shared hosting, WordPress hosting, Woocommerce hosting,
Cloud hosting.
Hostpapa
Shared and Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting.
1. WPX (Editor’s Choice)
WPX is a managed WordPress web host. WPX has three dedicated hosting plans:
- Business: Up to five websites, 10 GB of storage, and 100 GB bandwidth. You also get access to the WPX CDN.
- Professional: Up to 15 websites, 20 GB of storage, and 200 GB bandwidth. You also get access to the WPX CDN.
- Elite: Up to 35 websites, 40 GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth. You also get access to the WPX CDN.
Business: Up to five websites, 10 GB of storage, and 100 GB bandwidth. You also get access to the WPX CDN.Those are the three hosting plans where you get access to a dedicated server. Let’s look at why they are a suitable solution for small business web hosting.
Overview
Having used WPX for my business websites, I can attest that it is an excellent managed WordPress web host. Their hosting plans have given me excellent options to handle projects on any scale.
WPX has a top-notch customer support. One time, I had a faulty WP plugin which caused my website to crash. I immediately called technical support and got a response within 30 seconds, and the issue was resolved on the first encounter.
I consider WPX to be the best web hosting service for small business owners and online entrepreneurs. With WPX, there are no add-ons, upsells, or hidden fees. It’s great value for money and the best web hosting for WordPress users.
- Fast load times: WPX provides faster load times than all the other business web hosting companies. That’s why they’re my preferred small business web host.
- Great customer service: You get 24/7 customer support via live chat. The response time for any inquiry is less than 30 seconds, and most problems are resolved on the first encounter.
- Daily backups: WPX offers automatic backup services daily. If something happens to your site, like you mistakenly delete a few vital lines of code, you can ask for a refresh. Some companies charge a lot for that service.
- Free SSL certificates: If you buy your domain through WPX, you’ll get free certificates. An SSL certificate secures data inception between your client’s computer and the rest of the websites.
- Easy to navigate UI: Access everything easily through WPX’s dashboard. You can check the amount of disk space you have or the bandwidth you have, and they’ll send you email reminders as you close in on your limit.
- Cost of service: WPX is a mid-priced web hosting company. If you’re just starting, 25 bucks a month can feel like overkill when other small business website hosts charge less than $100 a year.
- Hosting and data limits: WPX hosting has clear hosting limits. If you need more space on their servers or higher bandwidth, you’ll need to pay more money for the service. Many other services will restrict your bandwidth rather than charge you more.
Cost of service: WPX is a mid-priced web hosting company. If you’re just starting, 25 bucks a month can feel like overkill when other small business website hosts charge less than $100 a year.Features
I looked at the major pros and cons of WPX-managed WordPress hosting. I’ll quickly cover some of the other things that make them stand out when it comes to business hosting.
FTP/SFTP Access: You can access your server space through FTP and SFTP, although WordPress is installed through the WPX Hosting client area dashboard.
You can securely upload and plugin files via an FTP client. There is also a testing area where you can play around with a website or app before pushing an update.
WPX Cloud: the content delivery network created by WPX ensures that sites hosted on their servers load rapidly wherever in the world the customers are based. The CDN was custom-built by the company to provide really fast site load times.
The support team can also provide support in the event your site’s hacked.
WPX is the best web hosting service for small business owners and SEOs. The hosting they offer provides great value for money. They also have great service with outstanding customer support.
You can get started and take advantage of their money-back guarantee.
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2. SiteGround
Since I’ve utilized SiteGround as one of my providers, I can attest to its reliability and efficiency. The company offers both WP hosting and WooCommerce hosting.
SiteGround has three shared hosting plans:
- StartUp: Suitable for up to 10,000 visitors per month, with 10 GB of web space, one website hosting, and unmetered bandwidth.
- GrowBig: Suitable for up to 25,000 visitors per month, with 20 GB of web space, unlimited website hosting, and unmetered bandwidth.
- GoGeek: Suitable for up to 100,000 visitors per month, with 40 GB of web space, unlimited website hosting, and unmetered bandwidth
All the packages come with unmetered bandwidth. The unmetered bandwidth comes with a recommendation on the max number of visitors. So, not unmetered.
Overview
Having used Siteground for some of my domains, I can truly say that it stands out among web hosting providers. The site includes automatic upgrades, daily backups and free SSL and CDN, which proved to be invaluable for my websites.
- Fast servers: SiteGround servers are optimized for speed. You can choose where you want your files hosted. They have data centers on four continents.
- Good Customer Service: SiteGround has a reputation for good customer service. They provide 24/7 customer support via phone and chat services.
- Daily Backups: Your data is always protected and secured in case anything unfortunate happens.
- Free SSL Certificate: SiteGround provides a free certificate if you purchase a URL through their site.
- Reliable uptime: siteground’s uptime performance is 99.99%. Essentially, your site will almost always be accessible.
- Focused on smaller customers: SiteGround has great entry-level hosting plans and enterprise plans. However, they lack solid hosting options in the middle ground.
Features
SiteGround offers affordable web hosting for businesses. Here are a few things that make SiteGround one of the best web hosting:
Protection Against Hacking: SiteGround has impressive security features that keep your website protected. They offer a web application firewall (WAF), which protects against security breaches.
Free Site Migration for One Website: SiteGround has a free website migration plugin. You generate a token from your SiteGround hosting account, and the plugin will do all the difficult work [1].
User-Friendly Dashboard: It’s easy to manage everything through the SiteGround dashboard. You can set up a CRM on a new site in just a few minutes.
SiteGround also has a testing area. You can test new designs and updates before pushing things live to your site.
Over the last year, SiteGround has maintained an uptime of 99.99%. It is ranked near the top website hosting companies when it comes to speed and uptime. It’s a great choice for a business hosting plan and provides great value for money.
3. HostPapa
A colleague of mine employed HostPapa and testified that it is an excellent choice for small business owners. They offer WordPress hosting, virtual private server hosting, and reseller hosting.
Here’s a quick comparison between two of the shared hosting plans and the lowest VPS package:
- Business shared hosting plan: Free domain registration, unlimited sites, unlimited disk space, and unmetered bandwidth.
- Business Pro: Free domain registration, Free SSL certificates, unlimited sites, unlimited disk space, and unmetered bandwidth.
- Mercury, VPS: 4 core CPU, 2 GB memory, 60 GB SSD storage, and 1 TB transfer.
The shared hosting plans offer great value for money if you’re looking for web hosting for your business. The VPS storage packages have storage that ranges from 50GB SSD to 200 GB SSD.
With HostPapa, you have access to bandwidth from 500 GB to 1.4 TB. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Overview
HostPapa is a great hosting provider for businesses, organizations, and growing websites. They even offer reseller hosting.
HostPapa’s customer support is available 24/7. When my email stopped working on a few of my domains, I contacted their technical support and they immediately resolved the issue.
I was able to test the platform’s features if it was suited for my business without any worries because of their 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Great place for buying domains: HostPapa is a domain registrar; hence they have a wider selection of domain TLDs.
- Global coverage: All hosting services come with free Cloudflare CDN Services. A CDN will ensure your site’s content loads fast wherever in the world a person accesses your site.
- Daily backups: Daily backups for your site. Basic plans come with up to 1GB of backup space.
- Good customer service: You can access the support team 24 hours a day through the live chat. They also have a good knowledge base, with video tutorials.
- Focused on North America: HostPapa has most of its data centers in North America. If you are located outside the United States or Canada, consider using another business website hosting provider.
- Slow customer support: Though HostPapa offers 24-hour customer support, it can take a while to connect with someone. I’m certain their first response resolution rates are nowhere near as good as WPX’s.
Features
Let’s look at some of the stand-out features that make HostPapa one of the top web hosting options for small business websites.
Uptime and Load Time: HostPapa maintained an uptime of 99.99% with only one hour of downtime over the last year. For the same period, they had an average load speed of 565 ms.
Green Web Hosting: HostPapa stands out from other small business web hosting providers by trying to go green. They purchase renewable energy credits designed to balance out the energy they consume.
This is perfect if you’re environmentally conscious.
Domain Names: HostPapa offers free domain registration during the first year of service. Encrypted SSL certificates are included for free. However, you will be charged for Premium Wildcard certificates.
When you get past the unclear pricing, which doesn’t leave the best first impression, you’ll find HostPapa provides a great service. They offer affordable web hosting and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
4. Accuweb Hosting
Accuweb Hosting offers a wide range of available services, including Linux and Windows-based shared plans, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, reseller hosting, and more. Our team proved that this diversity of applications was beneficial to any website.
Here’s a quick overview of the WordPress Accuweb Windows hosting plans:
- WordPress Personal: Unlimited sites, 20 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth – good for up to 75,000 visitors a month, and free SSL certificate.
- WordPress Small Business: Unlimited sites, 50 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth – good for up to 200,000 visitors a month, and free SSL certificate.
- WordPress Enterprise: Unlimited sites, 100 GB storage, 2.5 TB bandwidth – good for up to 1 million visitors a month, and free SSL certificate.
You can see a big jump between the types of hosting packages and the enterprise hosting plan. I doubt that a web hosting plan will handle 75,000 visitors per month for less than $3 per month while providing lightning-fast server times.
Overview
I was looking around for an affordable web hosting service and Accuweb caught my attention, their rates were cost-effective and yet the performance was commendable.
All web hosting plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and they assure 99.99% uptime.
- Great range of plans: Accuweb Hosting has highly configurable VPS and dedicated plans. I’m sure many people will appreciate the option of Linux and Windows hosting plans.
- Global presence: They have data centers in the United States, France, India, Australia, and Singapore. That means your site will load fast in the market you’re targeting.
- 24/7 customer support: Access their support staff via live chat, telephone, and email. They have a 30-second support response time.
- Nice Corporate Social Responsibility package: Hosting is free for computer and systems engineering students who meet specific requirements.
- Free Backups: Shared plans come with daily automated backups. Data is saved for a week. You can restore data for free as many times as you desire.
- You’re locked into their packages: Accuweb has no monthly payment plans for its shared web hosting packages. The minimum payment period is six months.
- Information overload: If you don’t know much about hosting, you might get overwhelmed choosing between the range of plans.
Features
The section below covers the different features AccuWeb offers.
SSL Certificate: Free certificate with Plesk and cPanel hosting. In Plesk, they offer a free Let’s Encrypt Certificate, while with the control panel hosting, they provide a cPanel Comodo Certificate.
Uptime and Load Time: You are guaranteed 99.9% uptime with Accuweb. Their loading time is also amongst the best for small business hosting.
As you can see, Accuweb provides a great service. They offer great value for money. If you’re looking for the top web hosting providers, they’re worth considering.
5. HostGator
I used HostGator when I’m starting out, primarily because it was affordable. The company offers several types of hosting, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting plans, dedicated hosting, and a reseller plan.
Below is an overview of their shared web hosting package:
- Hatchling Plan: Unmetered bandwidth, one domain, free SSL certificate, and free domain.
- Baby Plan: Unmetered bandwidth, multiple domains, free SSL certificate, and free domain.
- Business Plan: Unmetered bandwidth, multiple domains, free SSL certificate, and free domain.
Hostgator offers generous hosting packages across all its plans. That includes the shared, WordPress, VPS, cloud, and dedicated server hosting packages. You also get access to a website builder if you want to take advantage of the tool.
Overview
One of the outstanding features of HostGator is their user-friendly interface. When I started my first website with the company, the process was simple and smooth, making them an excellent choice for beginners.
Here’s a quick overview of the pros and cons of their service.
- Reliability: one of the largest web hosting companies in the world.
- Cheap prices: Hostgator has mastered economies of scale. The price for a package starts from less than $3 per month.
- Jump in prices: Renewal fees are expensive. There are also lots of fees for services. For example, if you need to restore a backup, you are charged $25.
- Slow customer service response: You might have to wait for minutes before connecting to a customer support agent. The customer service agent might not be able to resolve your query the first time. Their customer support is no match for SiteGround’s support.
- Lots of upsells: Heaps of extras that will cost you more if you want them.
Features
Here is an overview of some of Hostgator’s key features.
Impressive Uptime: HostGator guarantees 99.95 uptime. They also guarantee an average page load speed of 1.17 seconds.
Free Site Transfer: HostGator provides a limited number of free transfers from other web hosting companies within 30 days of signup.
It’s worth reading HostGator’s fine print when considering the various hosting packages. For example, there’s the term unmetered hosting.
Here’s what they have to say when you review their legalese; “customers who are using 25% or more of system resources for more than 90 seconds violate the terms of service.”
That’s not a criticism of the company’s service. Many host providers use these terms to make themselves appear attractive. Just don’t expect your $ 3-a-month hosting package to handle tens of thousands of visitors.
HostGator offers affordable web hosting. Click the link below to get access to try out their service.
6. Hostinger
After a thorough review of Hostinger, I found the web hosting provider offers a variety of types of web hosting that are cost-effective and affordable.
The hosting plans include shared web hosting, WordPress hosting, cPanel hosting, VPS hosting, and more.
Here’s a quick review of the different shared hosting packages:
- Single Shared Hosting: one site, 50 GB storage, 100 GB bandwidth, and 10,000 visitors a month.
- Premium Shared Hosting: 100 websites, 100 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 25,000 visitors a month.
- Business Shared Hosting: 100 websites, 200 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 100,000 visitors a month.
The shared hosting packages are competitive, and Hostinger is clear about what you get across the different packages, which is nice. They also offer a money-back guarantee.
Overview
Here’s a quick overview of the main pros and cons of Hostinger.
- It’s Cheap: The small business web hosting packages start at 0.99 cents a month. That makes them one of the cheapest business web hosting services.
- Fast Load Time: Hostinger offers really fast page load times, which is impressive given the hosting price.
- Range of Plans: Hostinger has many different types of hosting plans. The pricing is pretty transparent.
- Great Support: Hostinger has great customer support. Their agents respond quickly to inquiries through live chat.
- Free SSL Certificate: Hostinger provides a free Let’s Encrypt Certificate on the shared packages. You also get a free domain name for the first year.
- Small Issue With Downtime: Hostinger has the lowest uptime out of all the online business hosting solutions on this list. They have an average uptime of 99.74%, with about 23 hours of downtime over the last year. Not bad, by any means.
- No cPanel: If you are used to the traditional cPanel, Hostinger might not be a good choice. Hostinger has a personalized control panel.
- Weekly backups: The shared plans only offer weekly backups. That’s probably not going to be a big deal for most people.
Features
Here are some more things that make Hostinger stand out.
Supports a Variety of Programming Languages: Hostinger provides hosting for PHP, FTP, and MySQL.
Great Load Times: To test if Hostinger’s claims were true, I tested their loading time and determined that they delivered an average of less than 400ms, which is a considerably good rate as compared to the past years.
Free Website Builder: You get access to their free site builder.
Easy-to-Use Interface: The Hostinger interface is easy to navigate.
Hostinger is one of the best small business web hosting solutions. Take advantage of the money-back guarantee. Access the site through the link below.
7. Bluehost
I came to realize that Bluehost and HostGator are owned by the same holding company, and as such, feature considerable advantages to clients. The company is one of the most popular sites for marketers looking to earn affiliate commissions.
They offer shared hosting, dedicated hosting, WordPress Hosting, and VPS hosting.
Here’s a quick overview of the shared packages:
- Basic: 1 site, 50 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, free SSL certificate.
- Plus: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and free SSL certificate.
- Choice Plus: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and free SSL certificate.
- Pro: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and free SSL certificate.
On the surface, there’s not much difference between these plans. Like HostGator, it pays to look at the fine print.
Their WordPress-optimized hosting starts at under $5 per month. VPS starts at under $30 per month, and a dedicated server starts at around $125 monthly.
By choosing Bluehost, you get storage from 50GB to unmetered storage. You also have access to unlimited bandwidth. Based on your price package, you get RAM of 2GB, 4GB, or 6GB.
Overview
Bluehost offers web hosting services for more than 2 million sites. That is not surprising since they offer amazing speed, reliable uptime, and 24/7 customer support.
They provide a free SSL Certificate and free domain in your first year.
- Cheap price: Bluehost has low introductory prices. Pricing starts from under $5. This comes with 50 queries GB SSD storage, and a free SSL Certificate, among other features.
- Free Domain: You get a free domain name for free when you register as well as the SSL certificate. You are, however, charged for the annual domain renewal.
- Great uptime & fast: Bluehost has an average uptime of 99.96% over the past year with an average loading speed of 641ms.
- Good support: Bluehost has 24/7 live chat, email, and phone support for customers. Customer service agents are highly trained to deal with all customer care concerns.
- Price Jumps: Their renewal rates are quite high. Although the cheapest plan is around $3 a month, you are charged a renewal price starting from almost $10 per month.
Features
Let’s look at a few of the things that make Bluehost stand out:
Impressive Uptime: Bluehost has reliable servers. Expect fast loading times for your site and reliable uptime.
Free Site Transfer: Bluehost provides free transfers from other web hosts within 30 days of signup.
Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies. If you’re going to start a new site, they are a reliable business web host.
How We Picked the Best Web Hosting Providers for Small Businesses
We picked the best web hosting providers for small businesses by thorough research and comparison of the individual parameters.
1. Performance
Our team searched each web hosting provider site to evaluate and verify the performance of the company. Based on the available information, almost all the web hosting providers had a commendable uptime rating of 99.9%.
2. Plans and Features
Each web hosting service offered a wide range of plans with corresponding features to cater to the individual needs of clients.
The features common to most companies include daily backups, free SSL certificate, user-friendly interface, CDN and migration options.
3. Customer Support
Most of the hosting service came available with 24/7 customer support. To assess the response time of each platform, we searched customer reviews and client feedback.
Majority of the hosting providers had a response time of 30 seconds.
How to Choose the Best Web Hosting for Small Business
As a small business owner, there are some important factors you need to consider before choosing a hosting provider. Let’s take a look at some of these considerations.
1. Uptime
Uptime refers to the amount of time your website is accessible.
Accessibility issues will impact your website ranking. For example, if a thousand people click on your link in the SERPs and can’t access the site, they will go to a competitor.
Google notices these things and can cause your website search rankings to go down.
You want a business website hosting provider that’s always switched on. Sure, there will be times when your servers will have to go through a bit of maintenance, but that should only happen occasionally.
2. Loading Speed
The loading speed is the amount of time it takes for your website to load when someone tries to access the site. Load times are an important user experience issue.
Page load time is a ranking factor in search rankings. The more time your site takes to load, the worse the user experience.
A fast website provides a good first impression to visitors. You need a fast hosting provider that guarantees a loading speed of two seconds or less.
3. Security
Website security is essential to your site. Apart from the fact that it prevents hackers from intercepting your information, it also prevents malware attacks.
An attack could cause your site to lose important data. Always look out for website business hosting providers that place a priority on security. That means regular backups, alongside things like regular anti-virus checks.
4. Support
The best small business website hosting should be accessible 24/7. Importantly, you want your support staff to resolve your issues on the first contact.
There’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with five different people who are unable to solve your problem.
5. Cost vs Quality
Cost is a primary consideration for most business owners. When choosing the best web host for small businesses, you want to find the right balance between service quality and price. After all, consider how much time you’ll spend on your website.
All of the web hosting plans for small companies on this list offer a great basic service.
Where you notice the difference in pricing is in the service of the various cloud hosting solutions. The more expensive web hosts, for example, WPX, provide:
- Better customer response, so you can get your problems solved faster.
- They are less likely to charge for extras, like charging for a website backup, because they have provided a fair upfront charge for their service. Ultimately, this can save you money on your hosting.
- Provide extras like a free CDN, so your content can be accessed anywhere in the world fast.
- Have the money to spend on equipment maintenance, and upgrades, because they are not operating on razor-thin profit margins. That means you know your website will always load quickly.
As a small business owner, you need to decide if you want to spend a few bucks more each month for these extras.
Ultimately, I’d say the additional cost and what you get for your money outweigh the small savings you’d get from a cheap hosting provider.
6. Scalability
Although your business is a small one, you would likely want to grow. You should consider a hosting company that can scale with you as you expand.
This means that the web host offers different packages based on how many visitors you receive each month. This way, as you grow, you can easily upgrade your hosting plan.
You should also choose a hosting company that specializes in your Content Management System. For example, there are companies on this list that specialize in WordPress.
What Other Factors Should You Consider
The other factors you should consider include server location and site speed, as well as green web hosting.
1. Server Location and Site Speed
Essentially, the proximity of the site determines the loading speed. To illustrate, if the browser is based in the United States, the loading time will take longer for clients from other parts of the world.
To address this situation, it is ideal to acquire a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Clients will be able to access your browser from a server nearby, resulting in a quicker website loading speed.
2. Website Hosting Provider that Use Green Web Hosting
Green web hosting uses alternative energy that is eco-friendly and more economical than site hosting providers that rely on traditional energy sources.
FAQs
How Much Should I Pay for Web Hosting?
How much you should pay for web hosting would depend on the type of platform and the features you choose. A shared host could cost you $3 to $15. VPS hosting is around $20 – $80 per month, while dedicated hosting costs $80 to $300 per month.
Which Web Hosting is Best for Beginners?
The web hosting that is best for beginners would be shared hosts where you can split resources with other sites, you can choose between Bluehost or Hostinger. WPX offers the best-managed WordPress hosting.
Check out our list of the best web hosting providers for beginners for more options.
Is GoDaddy a Good Website Host?
GoDaddy is a good website host because they offer excellent performance and decent storage. However, it lacks some features like backups, SSL certificates, and staging areas.
For hosting, I’d recommend GoDaddy alternatives like WPX, Bluehost, or HostGator. We also compared Godaddy and Bluehost based on reliability, ease of use, and performance.
What Are the Best Hosting Providers for Photographers?
The best hosting providers for photographers are A2 Hosting, BlueHost and GoDaddy since they offer the bandwidth, speed and support for photography websites.
How Often Do You Have to Pay for Web Hosting?
You should pay for web hosting monthly or annually, depending on the hosting provider. Many hosts offer discounts for paying annually, so it’s important to weigh all of your options to find the best deal.
Review the hosting service’s terms and conditions to understand the payment plan before signing up.
Our Verdict on Best Web Hosting for Small Business
If you’re a small business owner, I can’t stress enough the importance of choosing a reliable web host.
WPX stands out with its exceptional customer service and top-notch performance, that’s why I’ve been using WPX on all of my major domains.
But remember, the best fit always depends on your unique needs. So, take a moment, reflect on what’s crucial for your business, and make an informed decision.
Our #1 Recommendation: WPX Hosting
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