Finding a web hosting provider is similar to finding the best physical place for your business.
Know that the enough space and provisions/features is the key here.
As an individual or small [online] business owner choosing the right web hosting provider is a daunting task.
Especially when you are not familiar with the bells and whistles of web hosting. You need to be careful because the endless number of technical terms can force you into unnecessary research and study.
The count of live websites is growing at an astronomical pace. As per internetlivestats.com, approximately 200 million websites are active in 2022. With increasing websites, rapid growth in hosting providers is also noticed in past few years.
So a plethora of web hosting services are available and picking up the best fit for your business is not going to be easy.
But I will help you!
Believe me, it doesn’t need to be that complicated and confusing!
How to Choose a Web Hosting Provider for Small Business?
In fact, every business [website] is different.
But the flow of traffic, in the beginning, remains the same for all websites.
So initially, you might plan to opt-in for any one of the standard web hosting providers.
Yes, of course, you should! But, here lies the trick!
Carefully anticipating future growth is of utmost importance. Otherwise, with growing business (increasing website traffic), you might have to change your web hosting provider.
Also, by choosing an inappropriate, cheap, and free hosting service you will risk website uptime, loading speed, and revenue over time.
Following web hosting services are used and trusted by us and our clients. They are proven to offer excellent service!
SIDENOTE: At the end of this article, I have included complete guide to choosing best web hosting service provider. Make sure to check it out!
List of Best Web Hosting Services
- BlueHost – Best Overall
- DreamHost
- Hostinger – Best Affordable
- HostGator – Best Uptime
- SiteGround
- A2 Hosting – Best Speed
- InMotion
- GreenGeeks – Eco-Friendly
- WP Engine – Best Managed WordPress Hosting
Let we jump in and start discussing above list,
1. BlueHost
Discussion about best web hosting is incomplete without mentioning BlueHost.
This hosting company was founded back in 2003. Since then, BlueHost is world’s one of the biggest hosting companies, collectively hosting over 2 million websites.
Enough speed with excellent uptime, support, and security are the USPs of their service. It is a recommended hosting provider by WordPress!
Benefits
- The trial period of 30 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.98%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- Site Migration assistance
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free domain name
- Free website builder
BlueHost uses standard cPanel for hosting management. The cPanel is made easy to use by adding a few customizations.
You will also be surprised by the FREE SEO Tools that let you optimize web pages for Search Engines and a dashboard to track the performance in search results.
It offers Shared Hosting for small websites with a bunch of excellent features.
With your growing website traffic, you can choose from BlueHost’s VPS, Managed WordPress and Woo-commerce, and Dedicated hosting.
Support
BlueHost is one of the most reputed brands in the web hosting industry.
They have obtained five stars for technical support because of their helpful and friendly staff.
It offers 24/7 phone-call and live chat support.
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $2.95/month
- VPS Hosting: $18.99/month
- Dedicated Hosting: $79.99/month
- WordPress Hosting: $2.95
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit BlueHost’s pricing page.
The “Basic Plan” user has to pay for an email account.
The “Plus Plan” starting from $10.99 will boast unlimited domains with unlimited email accounts!
2. DreamHost
This web hosting service was founded back in 1996.
It is trusted and recommended by WordPress!
DreamHost packs a big punch of features at a price that everyone can afford.
Enough speed, reliable uptime, quality support, and excellent security offered by DreamHost makes it popular.
Benefits
- The longest trial period of 97 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.94%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- One-click migration to DreamHost
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free domain name with free privacy protection
- Free website builder
DreamHost’s control panel is easy-to-use and intuitive than conventional cPanel.
Shared Hosting Service is value for money deal full of exciting features.
Along with shared hosting, it also offers VPS, Managed WordPress and Woo-commerce, Dedicated, and Cloud hosting services.
Support
With many years of market share as a popular web hosting service, DreamHost is proven to offer excellent customer support.
It offers 24/7 email support and live chat service during office hours.
The users of the “Starter Plan” need to pay an extra amount to access telephonic support. And, it is free for “DreamPress Plan” users.
Pricing
*Monthly
- Shared Hosting: $4.95
- VPS Hosting: $15
- Dedicated Hosting: $169 (fully managed hosting)
- Managed WordPress Hosting: $16.95
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $3.95/month
- VPS Hosting: $13.75/month
- Dedicated Hosting: $149/month (fully managed hosting)
- Managed WordPress Hosting: $12/month
Cloud Hosting from DreamHost is charged $0.0075 per hour.
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit DreamHost’s pricing page.
3. Hostinger
Hostinger was founded back in 2004 and since then, it was popular by the brand name “Hosting Media” till 2011.
With affordable plans, impressive speed, uptime, support, and security Hostinger is serving millions of users to this date.
Hostinger pricing plans are awesome! New users will get a huge discount (up to 90%) at the beginning!
Benefits
- The trial period of 30 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.90%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- One-click migration to Hostinger
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- The free domain name (with premium plans only)
- Free website builder
The Control panel is flexible and lets you have more control over performance and features as compared to conventional cPanel.
The Shared Hosting plan costs $0.99 only.
You can also opt-in for VPS, WordPress, and Cloud hosting at discounted prices.
Support
Hostinger offers good technical support. Their team will be available 24/7 hours on live chat to assist you.
Additionally, it comes with email support and an extensive knowledge base, which will solve most of your problems.
However, this web hosting service does not provide phone call support!
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $0.99/month
- VPS Hosting: $3.95/month
- Cloud Hosting: $9.99/month
- WordPress Hosting: $1.99/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit Hostinger’s pricing page.
4. HostGator
This brand was founded in 2002 and sold to Endurance International Group (founder of BlueHost) in 2012.
It offers an impressive website uptime of 99.99%.
Customer support service is knowledgeable and helpful. It is backed by friendly people.
Both small and large websites can benefit from HostGator’s excellent speed, support, security, and scalability.
Benefits
- The trial period of 45 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.99%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- Free migration service
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free domain name
- Free website builder
It comes with a standard cPanel for managing hosting configuration and setup. The cPanel interface is easy to use.
HostGator’s Shared Hosting plan is more than sufficient for small websites.
With the growing business you can upgrade to VPS, Dedicated, Managed WordPress, and Cloud hosting service.
Support
HostGator’s knowledge base is something to mention first when it comes to customer support.
Knowledge-base is full of easy-to-follow how-to guides.
Doesn’t have any email support, but offers 24/7 phone and live chat support.
Overall, beginners can get a lot of help from their polite technical staff.
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $2.75/month
- VPS Hosting: $19.95/month
- Dedicated Hosting: $89.98/month
- WordPress Hosting: $5.95/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit HostGator’s, Pricing Page.
You will get a free email account on the purchase of any of their plan.
5. SiteGround
Siteground was founded in 2004.
It is one of the Top 3 Recommended Hosting Providers by WordPress!
A highly-rated hosting provider that offers superb speed, excellent support, and complete security.
Pricing is quite high as compared to others on this list.
Benefits
- The trial period of 30 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.98%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- One-click migration to Siteground
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free website builder
It comes with a standard cPanel for managing hosting configuration and setup. The cPanel interface is easy to use.
Managed WordPress and Woo-commerce Hosting Plans by SiteGround are very popular.
If you are planning to use WordPress as CMS for your website then don’t forget to check out SiteGround’s value for money managed hosting plans.
Small business websites can also start with Siteground’s Shared Hosting Plan, and later, upgrade to Cloud and Enterprise hosting.
Support
Siteground provides instant and excellent customer support.
It is one of the few hosting providers on this list that offers a huge knowledge base.
Siteground offers 24/7 phone, live chat, and email support.
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $6.99/month
- Managed Cloud Hosting: $80/month
- Managed WordPress Hosting: $6.99/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit SiteGround’s, Pricing Page.
Note that, initial prizes are discounted by almost 50%.
On the purchase of any of the above basic plans, you will get a free email account.
6. A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting was founded back in 2003.
It seamlessly integrates with the LightSpeed Cache plugin and offers superb speed. So, if the speed of a website is your concern, then A2 Hosting is the best fit for you.
In case if you don’t like their service, they offer an anytime money-back guarantee!
Benefits
- The trial period of 30 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.95%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- Free site migration
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free Domain name
It comes with a standard cPanel for managing hosting configuration and setup. The cPanel interface is easy to use.
Small businesses can either opt-in for reliable Managed WordPress Hosting or Shared Hosting in the beginning.
With growing business and traffic, you can switch to VPS, Dedicated, or Cloud hosting.
Support
A2 Hosting users will enjoy 24/7 support from their knowledgeable “Guru Crew.”
The support team is quick and responsive.
You can communicate with A2 Hosting through phone, live chat, and email service.
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $2.99/month
- VPS Hosting: $25/month
- Dedicated Hosting: $99.59/month
- Managed Dedicated Hosting: $141.09/month
- WordPress Hosting: $2.99/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit A2 Hosting’s pricing page.
The basic plan comes with free email accounts.
7. InMotion
InMotion was founded back in 2001.
This hosting provider is one of the oldest and most prominent in the industry.
It packs outstanding speed, support, and security.
The quality of service offered by InMotion outranks many hosting providers on this list.
Benefits
- The longest trial period of 90 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Highly scalable over time
- Uptime of 99.95%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- Free site migration
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free Domain name
It comes with a standard cPanel for managing hosting configuration and setup. The cPanel interface is easy to use.
InMotion offers Shared Hosting for small websites with a bunch of excellent features. Once your website outgrows in the near future, then you can choose from VPS and Dedicated hosting.
WordPress CMS users can directly opt-in for WordPress Hosting Plan.
Support
Comes with 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support.
InMotion has built an extensive knowledge base and Q&A section to quickly answer many of the customer doubts in one place.
Their support staff is knowledgeable and helpful.
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $5.99/month
- VPS Hosting: $9.99/month
- Dedicated Hosting: $139.99/month
- WordPress Hosting: $5.95/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit InMotion’s, Pricing Page.
There is a variety of hosting plans in each category. So, don’t forget to take a careful look at them before choosing InMotion.
8. GreenGeeks
In this section, we will talk about something Eco-friendly.
Yes, you might be guessed it already! GreenGeek is an eco-friendly hosting provider offering services mainly to environment-conscious companies.
Generally, hosting industries consume a tremendous amount of electrical energy!
So, in contrast to others, GreenGeeks uses renewable energy to power their web hosting devices and at the same time supply back a huge amount of electrical energy into the grid.
GreenGeek was founded back in 2006 and attracted a huge user base by offering excellent performance through the combination of optimum speed, security, and support.
Benefits
- The trial period of 30 days with a money-back guarantee
- Range of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and RAM options
- Scalable
- Uptime of 99.90%
- One-click WordPress Installation
- Free site migration
- SSD Storage
- Free SSL certificate
- Free Domain name
It comes with a standard cPanel for managing hosting configuration and setup. The cPanel interface is easy to use.
WordPress users can opt-in to an impressive WordPress Hosting Plan.
It also offers Shared Hosting Services at a competitive price as compared to others on this list.
With your growing audience, you can opt-in for more flexible VPS Hosting.
Support
GreenGeeks offer 24/7 phone, live chat, email, and ticketing support.
It has proven to provide good customer support with its skilled technical staff.
They also have a decent knowledge base, which is worth trying.
Pricing
*Yearly
- Shared Hosting: $2.95/month
- Managed VPS Hosting: $39.95/month
- WordPress Hosting: $2.95/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit the GreenGeeks pricing page.
This hosting service boasts unlimited email accounts with all plans!
If you want an eco-friendly web hosting service, then look no further.
GO GREEN with GREENGEEKS!
9. WP Engine
The WP Engine is our last pick on this list which mainly focuses on WordPress CMS users.
It is a Managed WordPress Hosting service that makes your website ultra-fast and highly secure.
This hosting company was founded in 2010 by Jason Cohen.
Jason predicted the need for a dedicated WordPress Hosting Service by considering the popularity of WordPress during those days.
To this date in 2022, WP Engine is serving millions of websites!
Benefits
- The trial period of 60 days with a money-back guarantee
- You don’t need to worry about anything (speed, security, maintenance, etc.)
- Uptime of 99.99%
- Quick and easy site migration
- Free SSL certificate
- Reliable (It can take up any load of traffic without slowing down the website)
Support
WP Engine employs highly skilled WordPress Experts.
It offers 24/7 phone, live chat, email, and ticketing support.
Pricing
WP Engine is offering four plans: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
Small businesses should opt-in for the Startup plan.
*Monthly
- Startup: $30
- Growth: $115
- Scale: $290
*Yearly
- Startup: $25/month
- Growth: $95/month
- Scale: $241/month
Sidenote: These are the basic plan prices. For more information please visit WP Engine’s pricing page.
If you feel like WP Engine’s services are costly, then remember it is Managed Hosting.
We highly recommend this option for people who want an entirely hassle-free hosting service for their WordPress site.
Now, let’s take a look at the Fundamentals of Web Hosting to ensure that you will be able to take an informed decision before you leave this article.
Fundamentals of Web Hosting
Have you ever heard about Types of Web Hosting Servers?
- Shared
- VPS
- Dedicated
- Cloud
- Managed
Knowledge of the above types shall help a lot.
Here is the list of other specs that need to be considered while choosing the best web hosting provider,
- Speed
- Security
- Support
- Uptime
- Reliability
- Storage
- Bandwidth (data transfer)
- RAM
- Scalability
- One-click Migration
An ideal web hosting service should be easy to set up and capable of one-click installation!
Let us discuss all of the above points in a brief,
#1 – Shared Server – best fit for small websites
Shared hosting is affordable and the best fit for small businesses.
In this type of web hosting, a bunch of websites resides on a single server.
The pricing is very less as compared to others because several websites pay for a single server.
The only downside of such type of web hosting is that if one website in a shared network experiences surges in traffic, the performance (speed) of others on the same network is hampered. Though it happens very rarely, the hosting provider forces that website (with a huge surge in traffic) to upgrade their plan to VPS or Dedicated server.
It is suitable for a website with low traffic (20,000 visitors per month).
Small businesses should opt-in for this type of hosting at the beginning and as the traffic increases over time upgrade to another hosting type.
#2 – VPS
The term VPS stands for Virtual Private Server.
It is similar to shared hosting, and your website will be hosted on a single server with a bunch of other websites.
But in this type of hosting, the server is virtually partitioned into multiple dedicated slots using Software.
So even when a single server is shared between many websites, everyone will have a dedicated slot for their website.
It is suitable for a business website with intermediate traffic (50,000 visitors per month).
#3 – Dedicated Server
The name itself speaks a lot. You will get a dedicated server [device] for your website. No sharing and no nonsense!
The cost of such a hosting type is so high. It might break your bank if you are a small business with an initial level of traffic and revenue.
But if you have a plethora of traffic nearly 100,000 visitors per month then this type of hosting is the best fit for you.
#4 – Cloud Server
In this type of web hosting, a website is hosted on multiple servers connected to the cloud network.
It is considered the most efficient way of hosting because the website uptime will be guaranteed to nearly 100%.
If a website in a shared cloud network experiences a sudden surge in traffic, then others are moved to another server in the cloud network.
It is designed to handle loads and maximize website uptime.
#5 – Managed Server
With a Managed Server, you don’t have to worry about installation, configuration, maintenance, and ongoing performance.
Because your hosting provider will take care of all for you!
Think of it as having a dedicated IT team for managing your server.
Managed Website Hosting sounds perfect, but it is costlier. The pricing starts at $30 per month.
The wealthiest websites that are willing to delegate server management completely should opt-in for this type of hosting.
#6 – Speed
For every website, the Page Loading Time matters most!
It is one of the important Google Ranking Factor.
If your site doesn’t load faster, you will lose traffic, customers, Search Engine rankings, and REVENUE.
Walmart has experienced a 1% increase in revenue for every 100ms page loading speed improvement.
So choose a hosting provider that offers excellent speed.
#7 – Security
Security is highly important for everyone doing business online.
An unsecured website may share visitor’s login and credit card details with a hacker.
To avoid such accidents, a website must be SSL Certified. The SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) will secure and encrypted the connection between your server and the visitor’s browser.
Most of the Web Hosting Providers on this list offer an SSL certificate for FREE.
#8 – Support
Make sure that the selected Web Hosting Provider has friendly and skilled customer support.
You can opt-in for TRIAL and test the customer support executives during this TRIAL period. Try to know, how well are they at helping and solving your queries?
This trick is a perfect way to avoid future complications.
And, Don’t Worry! We have tested all of the suggested Web Hosting Providers on this list.
They employ polite, helpful, and technically sound people.
#9 – Uptime
Website Uptime indicates the total time for which a site is functional or live (accessible to visitors).
There is no point in having a website that is not accessible to visitors.
Many hosting providers claim to have 100% uptime. But only a few of them stand true.
However, few providers are proven to have 99.99% website uptime!
99% uptime means your website will be offline for less than an hour in a year.
#10 – Reliability
A Best Web Hosting Provider must be reliable in terms of website uptime, speed, security, support, etc.
Nothing is perfect! So does a Web Hosting Service.
But it should be proficient at an optimum and acceptable level in every aspect of hosting.
All of the suggested options on this list are trustworthy and reliable.
#11 – Storage
The speed of your website is affected by the type of storage drives used to host your site.
Generally, the following types of hard drives are used by web-hosting providers,
- SSD Drive
- HDD Drive
SSD took over HDD in 2009 by offering 4x fast speed, efficiency, and reliability.
HDD is not bad at all! It also offers excellent speed but cannot outperform SSD.
#12 – Bandwidth
If you know the engineer-level definition of Bandwidth then you might think of it as the speed of data transfer.
But don’t get confused because web hosting Bandwidth is somewhat different.
Let me explain you through an example,
Consider it as a Water Pipe. The bigger the diameter, the more amount of water it can carry.
Similarly, the Bandwidth represents the rate at which data is transferred. Higher the Bandwidth, the greater the benefits!
#13 – RAM
RAM is responsible for loading time and real-time processes that take place on your website.
During the surge of traffic, a series of processes might be performed at once. Your selected RAM should be capable of handling these processes flawlessly.
An insufficient RAM may return an error “500 internal server error”.
#14 – Scalability
This feature is of PRIME IMPORTANCE!
With your growing business, you will have to expand the Storage, RAM, and Bandwidth capacity of your server.
The web hosting providers must offer a range of storage, RAM, and Bandwidth options in order to cope with future demands.
#15 – One-click Migration
Last but not least!
If you will make wise decisions in the beginning then the future probabilities of switching from one web hosting provider to another are very less.
We (including our clients) never came across such a situation.
But if you do, then a long and hectic process of website migration is waiting for you!
Manual migration means transferring data, theme configurations, settings, plugins, and more from old to new websites.
But you are lucky! Because many of the web hosting providers on this list offer the One-Click Migration feature using which you can migrate website with few simple clicks.
Conclusion
Our quick answer to Best Web Hosting for Small Business is BlueHost.
BlueHost is ready to withstand increased traffic demand in the future with its comprehensive hosting types and plans in each category.
People who want to opt-in for an affordable hosting service should go for Hostinger.
Also, the rest of our top picks offers impressive Speed, Security, Support, and Scalability. Give them a try, and they will never disappoint you!
Here is the list,
And, that is the end!
Finally, if you feel like we haven’t tested and included any fantastic web hosting provider in this list, then please let us know in the comment section below.