Hostinger
Cheapest Shared Hosting
Money Back Guarantee
Superior securityDreamHost
Best VPS Hosting
Cloudways
Best for Cloud Hosting
HostGator
Great Shared Hosting
Bluehost
Best Low Budget Hosting
You came up with an amazing business idea and now it’s time to kickstart your online presence. One of the best representations for small businesses online besides social media is a website. But for the website to come online, it needs a trustworthy web hosting.
In this article, we’ll detail the best web hosting for small business and how to choose it. Web hosting refers to an online place where your website practically resides. There are a lot of web hosting companies that offer different types of hosting – but not all of them are suitable for small businesses.
Types of Web Hosting for Small Business
In this section, we’ll detail only web hosting types suitable for smaller businesses with a limited budget. There are other types of hosting like dedicated, but they’re more suitable for veterans and businesses that already have steady traffic and generate sales.
- Shared Hosting ($2-$12/month) – the cheapest and most limited hosting in terms of performance and built-in features in the CPanel. It is the best for small businesses that are just beginning to open their online presence – mostly containing business information, a few products, and a dedicated blog. Your site is located on a shared server, sharing bandwidth and other features with other sites on the same server, hence the name shared.
- VPS Hosting ($15-$200/month) – VPS stands for virtual private server and delivers much more reliable performance compared to shared hosting. It’s good for small businesses that started building an audience and generating steady sales. Moreover, it’s good for fast-growing websites and businesses. Your website is located on a dedicated virtual machine on a server. It has its virtual CPU, RAM, and storage, making up for more speed.
- Cloud Hosting ($20-$300/month) – The final small business hosting type uses fast-growing cloud technology to provide more versatility and better performance. It is more expensive than the aforementioned two and is good with small businesses that see its growth and already generate consistent sales off its products and services.
Every business has its growth rate and pace. The growth of business online is determined by different factors like the products and services they offer, the market, audience, and customer’s needs and the end-goals that every business should have.
Top 10 Web Hosting for Small Business Reviews
Are you ready to get started with reviewing the best website hosting for small business? Dive in!
1.Bluehost – Best Overall Cheap Hosting
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Bluehost is one of the best web hosting providers, specifically oriented towards business starters and those looking to spread the word about their business online. The testament of their quality is the WordPress platform itself, which wholeheartedly recommends this company.
It’s ideal for those who plan to use the WordPress CMS, as well as those looking for the best eCommerce hosting for small businesses, as this service provides it too. We praise it for outstanding performance, great pricing plans, intuitive use, and customer service.
Pricing Plans
When it comes to pricing plans, Bluehost is an affordable web hosting for small business. It is available with both shared and VPS website hosting, which is quite affordable. The shared hosting spans from $2.95/month to $13.95/month, as shown in the picture.
The basic plan offers one website, limited 50GB SSD storage, free SSL certificate, and unlimited Domains. Meanwhile, other plans offer all that and much more, with most of the features being unlimited. The VPS hosting starts at $18.99/month, while the most expensive package starts at $59.99/month.
Keep in mind that pricing can be tricky. The company offers a more affordable package only if you’re running a hosting for three years in advance. Additionally, it may charge you for additional domain security, as well as SEO analytic tools.
Performance
Regardless of the plan you pick, Bluehost performs amazingly. The websites have consistent uptime and go down for a brief amount of time for maintenance and updates. That capability of providing constant runtime is specifically team on WordPress hosting. The website also has a good response and loading times, between 300 and 450ms, which is ideal.
One bad thing about Bluehost service is that there’s no uptime guarantee, while some sites have it. The installation process and maintenance, as well as the cPanel use, are intuitive and trustworthy.
Strengths
- Affordable and a lot of features.
- Advanced performance
- Simple to use even for people who aren’t well educated.
- Amazing customer service.
Weakness
- The payment process can be tricky.
- No uptime guarantee.
Choosing a theme for your new site can be daunting for a beginner. To help you out, we have compiled a list of the best WordPress themes!
2.Hostgator – Hosting For Every Website
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Hostgator is the promised land of website hosting market for small businesses because it has nearly everything you could need, at a reasonable price. You can customize the website according to the needs of your business. It sports free templates and innovative website builder, gets a powerful control panel, guide for CMS, and punctual customer support.
Pricing Plans
The pricing for shared website hosting starts at $2.75/months. There are two more plans Baby Plans and Business Plan that bring forth a lot of amazing features and functionalities. What’s interesting that you can get unlimited storage and space even with the Hatchling Plan which is the cheapest.
However, the bad part is that the payment process is overly-complicated. These amazing prices work only if you plan to use hosting for more years, otherwise, it’s more expensive. Also, the renewals are quite expensive. Additional offerings include SSL, email account support, spam filter, and the website builder.
Performance
Unlike the Bluehost hosting, Hostgator offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and it lives up to its word. The maintenances, updates, and other work around the hosting are unnoticeably fast, and your website is guaranteed to run almost all the time.
A website hosted using Hostgator plans loads from 400 to 500ms, which is more than acceptable for attracting reliable customers and smooth performance.
Strengths
- Plans are a great value
- You get a free domain name
- Unlimited bandwidth on a shared hosting
- Free website builder
Weakness
- The pricing and renewals are tricky and confusing.
- Short-term contracts are more expensive.
Hope this article will help you learn how to install WordPress on a hosting provider of your choosing or even on your local system.
3.Cloudways – Best for Cloud Hosting
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If you feel like your business has stepped its game and generated steady sales with good audience and analytics, perhaps you’re looking for an investment like cloud hosting. Cloud hosting is ideal for small businesses that are just about to plan to move onto the medium business scale. That Cloudways is one of the best cloud-oriented companions, with approachable plans, reliable and trustworthy performance, and great customer service.
Pricing Plans
Cloudway’s cheapest plan starts at $10/month, while the most expensive plan is $80/month. All four plans boast the same features in terms of free SSL, 24/7 customer support, free website migration, real-time monitoring, and a lot more security and privacy functionalities.
However, what makes each plan different is the RAM, CPU, storage, and bandwidth. The $10/month plan is affordable, but the cloud specifications aren’t enough to run demanding sites reliable with 1 core CPU and only 1GB of RAM.
Performance
Free SSL, CDN Add-on, Unlimited Application installation, automated backups, auto-healing are just some of the features that Cloudways offer. In addition to that, its loading times are far better compared to some other cloud-hosting services. The hosting service offers between 400 and 600 loading speed for the websites hosted on Cloudways, which is sufficiently reliable.
When it comes to the uptime, Cloudways delivers 99.9% uptime guarantee, meaning that the website you host on Cloudways is guaranteed to run smoothly and consistently. It also has dedicated firewalls and other protection assets, so you don’t have to worry about hackers and potential DDOS attacks.
Strengths
- Great pricing plans
- Auto-updating and free migration
- Reliable performance
- Great customer service.
Weakness
- No traditional cPanel
- It requires you to know your way about setting up the website.
4.DreamHost – Best VPS Hosting
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DreamHost provides affordable web hosting for small businesses, which makes them look more professional and available. It has a lot of great plans for shared hosting, while it also offers cloud hosting plans. Still, our review revolves around the VPS hosting which is quite the best.
The service offers unlimited bandwidth, consistent backups, free domain, domain privacy, and SSL certificate, still, the email list doesn’t come free with all hosting plans. There is also customer service, always at your disposal. Additionally, it’s one of the hosting companies that are, similarly like Bluehost praised by WordPress itself.
Pricing Plans
The VPS hosting from Dreamhost comes with 4 plans. The cheapest plan called VPS basic starts at $10/month and offers 1GB RAM, 30GB SSD storage, unlimited websites, unlimited traffic, free SSL and unlimited email at the domain (unlike the shared hosting that doesn’t offer this luxury)
On the other hand, the VPS enterprise that costs $80/month offers 8GB of RAM, 240GB SSD storage, and other features that are the same as with the basic plan. The plans we listed refer to a 3-year package. The price increases as you switch to the yearly and is the highest if you opt to pay monthly.
Performance
Dreamhost plans and services are incredibly reliable. Customer service is always available to take initiative to help you with your problems. Additionally, the websites load fast and reliably. Another thing that won’t hurt mentioning is that this hosting comes with trustworthy and consistent uptime. The website is well-protected and can have the loading times from 300 to 400ms, which is great.
Strengths
- Domain privacy is guaranteed
- Reliable VPS hosting as well as shared
- You can also subscribe to cloud hosting
- Unlimited bandwidth
Weakness
- Occasional loading time spikes
- The shared plan’s starter pack doesn’t have unlimited emails.
If you are looking to learn how to install a WordPress theme then this article will help you. We will go into detail about the different ways of installing a theme.
5.Hostinger – Cheapest Shared Hosting
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Hostinger is another affordable web hosting for small businesses, with the starter sharing plans starting at a ridiculously low price. There’s the amazing customer support that will help you with your technical questions at all times. Additionally, the plans offer a website builder tool, a lot of savings, reliable storage, and hosting optimized for a WordPress installation.
Pricing Plans
There are three plans for shared hosting, which are easily enough affordable to get you started on your feet. The most basic plan starts at $0.9 and brings 100GB of bandwidth, 10GB of storage, free SSL, and one database. If you pick the $2.89 Premium and $3.99 Business plans, you get unlimited bandwidth, 20GB, and 100GB of storage respectively as well as free domain registration.
Hostinger also provides 1-month free support for its custom website builder. If you don’t want to use CMS like WordPress, you can try the website builder to create powerful-looking websites with one click. Unfortunately, after one month, it’s not free like the Hostgator one, but it’s still something.
Performance
This hosting for small business is perfect for those who’ve just started in the world of online business. With any of the plans you choose, you can build powerful-looking and crisp running websites. The company promises the 99.9% uptime guarantee, which means it’s imminent that your site is to run most of the time.
The loading times are reliable, so the running speeds you’ll get with your small business website are more than enough to keep the visitors while improving the website’s visibility by being SEO-friendly.
Strengths
- Most affordable plans in the list.
- SSL is included
- Ease of use and installation.
- Great customer service.
Weakness
- It’s not the traditional cPanel setup
- The website builder is free only for a month.
6.GoDaddy – Popular Web Host
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GoDaddy web hosting appeals to any small business without the technical expertise of building and maintaining websites. That said, it’s ideal for small businesses that don’t know what they’re doing. The GoDaddy business hosting includes various business-oriented features, as well as simplified use and installation guide. In the process, it provides great customer support.
Pricing Plans
The business hosting provides a hybrid service between a VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting. The most basic “launching” plan works best with basic websites and starts at £14.99 providing a minimal amount of RAM, storage, and other resources but allows unlimited traffic, free SSL, and unlimited websites and databases.
Other plans that focus more on WordPress and eCommerce hosting are more expensive with the priciest plan being £37.99/month, but they offer more powerful resources in terms of RAM, storage, and CPU cores.
Performance
GoDaddy website hosting isn’t the most praised when it comes to the loading speed. Even their website at times takes a long time to load. Still, the loading speeds between 450 and 600ms are more than enough for a web hosting for small business.
Within its hosting agreement, GoDaddy provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee, so you don’t have to worry about the website going down all of a sudden. In case it goes down, GoDaddy has some of the best customer service agents on the market, to the point they won an award for reliable and punctual customer service.
Strengths
- Valuable business plans
- Award-winning customer service
- Easy to install and use
Weakness
- Genuinely expensive shared hosting
- Site loading speeds aren’t always reliable
It’s very easy to activate maintenance mode in WordPress Website for development purposes. This article shows you the best ways to do that.
7.InMotion – Above-Average Uptime of 99.95%
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InMotion is one of the best web hosting for small business because it’s one of the leaders in the industry delivering reliability, great performance, and value-driven service. Among various benefits from picking shared, WordPress, or VPS hosting there’s amazing customer support and reliability in terms of ease of use.
Pricing Plans
The shared website hosting plans start at LAUNCH which is $2.95, while the PRO costs $13.99/month. All hosting plans unlimited bandwidth, storage, and email as well as a free SSL and HTTPS support. Still, the difference is in domain support, and that the POWER and PRO plan come with additional marketing and analytic tools.
Performance
InMotion boasts a powerful data center, promising a 99.9% runtime guarantee. That means that your website won’t let you down when you need it the most. When it comes to loading speeds, they’re reliable, mostly circulating at around 400ms.
Strengths
- Great support from the customer service
- Fast loading speeds.
- Free SSL and unlimited bandwidth and space even with the basic plans.
Weakness
- No support for Windows servers.
8.iPage – Cheap & Inexpensive Hosting
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Being one of the oldest web hosting companies, iPage provides powerful and quality service targeted towards small and medium business owners. They stand out for amazing features, good price, and capable customer service.
Pricing Plans
The basic shared plan costs 2.99 euros. You get a free domain, over 1,000 free templates to build your website along with a free website builder. In addition to that, there is a free email address and a guaranteed SSL certificate.
Performance
The websites running with this hosting are reliable and have decent loading speeds usually around 450ms and 500ms. However, there’s no 99.99% uptime guarantee, but 99.4% which doesn’t satisfy standards of those running e-commerce stores and needs the site to be up constantly.
Strengths
- Free website builder
- Free SSL certificate
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Weakness
- Not guaranteed constant uptime.
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9.SiteGround – Fast & Secure Web Hosting
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Bulgaria-based web hosting service offers superb WordPress hosting plans. It’s another service that is recommended by WordPress itself and boasts the best domain hosting for small businesses. In addition to great WordPress hosting, it offers to host for WooCommerce, meaning it’s a suitable pick for eCommerce stores.
Pricing Plans
The shared hosting plans have a great pricing offer. The cheapest plan is available at 0.33 euros/month while the highest GoGeek costs 11.95 euros/month. The lowest plan allows only one website, limited storage, and 10,000 visits per month, while those numbers go significantly up with more premium plans.
All plans come with unmetered traffic, free WordPress installation, and auto-updates. VPS hosting isn’t offered by this service provider but there is cloud, dedicated, and WordPress plans.
Performance
This service provider offers decent loading speeds, as well as high-grade reliability. The uptime is guaranteed to be 99.98% which is more than enough to have a site up and running at all times, never letting your customers down.
Strengths
- WordPress and WooCommerce plans
- Good uptime score.
- SSL certificate is free.
Weakness
- There’s no VPS hosting.
10.A2 Hosting – One of the Fastest Server
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Last but not least is A2 hosting with great cloud and dedicated plans, as well as top-notch and feature-rich shared plans. It offers great customer service, but the prices may not be for everyone if you’re looking for more premium plans.
Pricing Plans
There is a total of four plans, spanning from $2.99 for the cheapest one and $14.99 for the most expensive one. The cheapest plan allows hosting for only one site and 100GB of storage, while other options allow unlimited SSD and NVMe storage.
Another thing that stands out is easy website migration and a 100% money-back guarantee at all times. The VPS hosting plans start from $25 to $50, which is significantly pricier than most of the other plans.
Performance
When it comes to performance, it’s fairly reliable. The websites will load within 400 to 500ms which is respectable. Meanwhile, the average website uptime via this hosting is 99.95, with a 99.9% guarantee.
Strengths
- There are a lot of plans to choose from.
- Free SSL certificate
Weakness
- Most high-end plans are fairly pricey.
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Features to Look Into When Choosing a Web Hosting for Small Business
Small businesses usually don’t have the financial and technical means to build a large website and network and hire top-end webmasters and developers to complete those hefty processes. Being limited with resources, a small business should look into a special set of features when buying a web hosting plan. We’ll mention the most important of those features.
Price
Price is one of the most determining features to look into when you’re restricted to financial resources. When we consider the full hosting package important things to consider are:
- The costs of the hosting as well as its type and database support.
- Whether it includes a website domain (a name it’ll use) and up to how many domains are included in the package.
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage amount.
- Whether it gives you your email to use mail@yoursitename.com.
- Add-ons like SSL, TLS, and others.
- How frequent are the website and database backups?
Small businesses, due to being misinformed or uneducated usually choose the cheapest possible hosting, forgetting about valuable and secure aspects like SSL support, for the sake of saving resources. That’s not a good practice and often leaves your site exposed to numerous vulnerabilities.
How Easy It is to Use
Small business starters usually aren’t educated about the technical terminology behind how sites are installed and work. Control panels look like rocket science while installing CMS resembles building a spaceship.
Here’s what a website hosting company should provide for you to set up and run your site with ease.
- Control panel with simple user-interface, similar to cPanel which is the norm, as well as its intuitive alternatives.
- Intuitive set-up process – It should provide easy instructions and a trustworthy walk through the installation process and management of domains and email accounts.
- Easy installation – Many small business owners prefer using an intuitive CMS for managing their business. The hosting service should enable a crisp installation of CMS like Joomla, Wixx, WordPress, Drupal, and others.
- Intuitive website building – There should be an explanatory to how to build CMSs, as well as a simple website builder that would simplify the process.
Performance
A website should have a sufficient amount of bandwidth, storage, and speed to keep the site at optimal performance at all times. In simple words, that means that the website you host will load its content fast and smooth. The loading times of a website not only make your website and business look better to the visitors, but are praised by search engines and Google’s crawlers.
According to some studies, you have up to three seconds to engage the audience before they leave the site, making the bounce rate of your website to skyrocket.
Reliability
A good website hosting provider should be reliable enough for you to entrust your small business to them. Also, if you own an online store, you should look into the best eCommerce hosting for small businesses that will be both reliable and secure. There is also one important factor of reliability for your business and customers who visit it.
What is Up-time
Website uptime refers to the time your website is available to its visitors over a period established with your hosting provider. If your website is down for one reason or another, its visitors and potential customers won’t be able to use it which can enrage and discourage them from using your services. It may decline new customers but also make your already-existing customers lose trust in you.
The website’s uptime should always be 99.99%. It’s impossible to achieve the 100% reliability, due to maintenance, backups, PHP, or other updates, as well as hacker attacks which are a frequent threat in the online world.
Customer Service
Lastly, the testament of hosting’s reliability is its customer service that is prompt, polite, and always available to help in need. New business owners often face difficulties when picking small business web hosting. They should always be ready to help.
Conclusion
As we’re wrapping up our list, there are a few more things we’d like to point out. Remember to always see how beginner-friendly some web hosting company is. Small businesses usually don’t have a skilled team of web developers to assist them through website migration and setting up.
The web hosting company needs to deliver impeccable service and intuitive assets to make website implementation and use fast and simple. If you were wondering about what should the best hosting for small businesses provide, we hope our post helped you choose.
