24 May 2024
Choosing the right web hosting for small business is crucial for creating a strong online presence. Your website is usually the first impression customers have of your business, and unreliable hosting can lead to slow load times, downtime, and lost revenue.
Small business owners often face the challenge of finding a hosting provider that’s reliable, affordable, and scalable—without getting bogged down by confusing technical jargon or hidden costs.
This blog post cuts through the noise, offering you clear, actionable advice on selecting the best web hosting for small business needs.
Whether you’re starting a website from scratch or replacing an old host, we’ll guide you through the best options to make sure your site works properly, safely, and effectively.
By the end, you’ll have all the tools to make an informed decision and set your business up for online success.
Let’s dive in!
Selecting the best web hosting sites for your small business website is a difficult task. It’s a crowded field, and there are various factors to consider. The following factors should be considered while looking for the ideal web hosting provider for your needs:
To avoid confusion, we’ll briefly outline the five types of web hosting you’re likely to find while looking for the best website hosting for small businesses.
Shared hosting is enough for a small business site. Managed hosting is even better. And dedicated hosting? You probably don’t need that.
It is one of the most affordable options for hosting a website. Your website shares a single server with multiple other websites, which keeps costs low. However, since resources are shared, performance can vary—if other sites on the server use a lot of resources, your site may experience slower speeds.
Managed hosting doesn’t refer to a specific type of server but rather to a service where the hosting provider handles key tasks for you. This includes plugin updates, website monitoring, security management, and other maintenance, making it a hassle-free option for website owners.
Dedicated hosting offers top-tier performance. With this option, your website gets an entire server exclusively for its use—no sharing. This setup ensures the best performance and can handle the highest traffic loads, but it comes at a premium cost.
Cloud hosting relies on a network of servers instead of just one. While it’s generally more expensive, it provides better scalability and reliability. With multiple servers working together, your site’s performance can be optimized more effectively.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting offers a hybrid of shared and dedicated hosting. Your website shares a server with others but has its own isolated section, ensuring dedicated resources and improved performance compared to standard shared hosting.
Here are some of the best small business hostinger services.
Hostinger is the best web host for small business due to its affordable price, rich resources, and strong focus on performance. On top of that, it is user-friendly, with features that are great for businesses.
Even the most basic plan has Google Analytics integration, free SSL and email, automated updates, AI website creation, designer templates, web application firewall, and 24/7 customer support. This is great for small and new businesses with limited resources.
We were particularly pleased with the AI website builder, which is available with all hosting plans. It gives a quick and cheap solution to create a professional-looking business website, even if you lack the skills or resources to do it from scratch.
When it comes to performance, Hostinger guarantees 99.9% uptime and uses speed-optimized technologies such as LiteSpeed and NVMe to ensure maximum site performance. Plus, it has data centers on four continents and offers a free CDN on higher plans, resulting in up to 40% faster loading times.
Furthermore, if you want to migrate your pre-existing small business website from another web host to Hostinger, Hostinger could be a good fit for you. Simply submit a request, and a Hostinger expert take care of the rest.
Hostinger’s cheapest shared hosting plan costs $2.99/mo (billed for a four-year term). This is enough for a startup or personal website.
Bluehost is one of the cheapest WordPress hosting providers, and among the three web hosts, WordPress recommends. The key reasons for its popularity are the reasonably priced plans and the variety of business-related services, such as Google My Business and Google Ads.
Its basic plan provides unmetered bandwidth, 10GB storage, a free domain for the first year, and a few more features like parked domains and subdomains. It also comes with chat support, though if you want phone support, you need a higher plan.
However, its storage space is more limited than that of Bluehost alternatives, and automated backups aren’t included in the cheapest plans.
In terms of performance, Bluehost only provides data centers in the United States, meaning that the best site load time will also be found there. Furthermore, while there is no official uptime guarantee, Bluehost showed highly stable and fast performance during our six-month testing period. We experienced 99.99% uptime.
The Bluehost basic plan costs $2.95/mo (billed annually).
Dreamhost is the next best web hosting service for small businesses. It offers excellent value for money for any small business with a large amount of content to host, thanks to its high-quality features and enough storage capacity. There’s also room for growth! WordPress is pre-installed, and you get automated daily backups, free domain privacy, and advanced features like Shell access – all for a low price.
It’s worth mentioning that if you commit for only one year, you may get the Unlimited plan for the same price as the Starter! The advantage of this is that you can host unlimited sites instead of only one.
One of DreamHost’s most notable features is its outstanding 97-day money-back guarantee. This means that you can test it completely risk-free and get a full refund if you feel it’s not the right fit for you.
In regard to performance, DreamHost only provides servers in the United States. As a result, it is most appropriate for users in the United States. Despite this, you can expect fast performance. Although DreamHost guarantees a very rare 100% uptime guarantee, our testing found 99.99% uptime, which is still outstanding.
For a three-year contract, DreamHost shared hosting price costs $2.59/mo for Shared Starter and $3.59/mo for Shared Unlimited.
HostGator is a popular small business web hosting option that offers all of the essential features at low pricing. Furthermore, many business owners like its ease of use. This host is an excellent choice for beginner users.
All HostGator plans offer a free SSL certificate, a free domain name for a year, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited email addresses, and a free site builder. The website builder lets you create up to six pages. If you have an eCommerce website, the Online Store plan offers website analytics, Yoast SEO integration, YITH WooCommerce plugins, secure payments, and other features you may require to manage a small business e-shop.
HostGator’s uptime rate is 99.99% in a world where 100% uptime is hard to guarantee. HostGator stats are as amazing as it gets! If HostGator fails to meet this uptime guarantee, you get a one-month credit in return.
HostGator’s cheapest hosting plans for small businesses cost $3.75/mo (billed for a three-year term).
With any InMotion plan, you’ll get everything you need to establish a website. You can host two or more websites, use more than 100GB of SSD storage, and have at least ten email addresses.
You get professional email, security that covers a lot of vulnerabilities, and marketing tools to help you promote your business online, such as a website builder, free advertising credits, and customer management software. What’s more impressive is that marketing tools are available with all options.
Furthermore, it also delivers good performance. All plans include UltraStack, which incorporates NGINX proxy caching, PHP FastCGI Process Manager (PHP-FPM), and Brotli Compression for a faster business website.
We were also highly pleased with InMotion’s security features. All plans include hack and virus protection, a backup manager, SSH access, and spam experts.
InMotion Hosting’s cheapest plan costs $2.29/mo (billed for a three-year term).
If you’re looking for a web hosting service that focuses on performance, go no further than A2 Hosting. The host is a highly secure and performance-oriented provider that prioritizes simplicity.
A2 Hosting will do an excellent job of keeping your business’s website secure. In addition to basics like free SSL, DDoS protection, and automatic backups, it offers advanced features such as free Google Suite setup, dual firewall, auto-heal protection, virus check, and more.
Small business owners will also benefit from the most recent PHP versions, LiteSpeed Web Server, and pre-configured cache. The most impressive part was Perpetual Security. It features kernel upgrades, DDoS protection, brute-force defense, and continuous security monitoring. The functionality is included with all A2 Hosting plans, so businesses, large and small, can stay safe.
Furthermore, A2 Hosting is well-known for its several performance-enhancing tools. These include A2 Optimized (a plugin for customizing and controlling caching), optimized Turbo plans, and Anycast DNS. Furthermore, you may select whether to host your site in the United States, Europe, or Asia.
A2 Hosting prices start at just $2.99/mo (billed annually).
MochaHost is the perfect option for smaller businesses and startups that want to keep their costs down and can benefit from their scalable plans. It charges the same renewal prices as the introductory price. As a result, your rates will never increase.
All plans come with an unmetered bandwidth, a free SSL and migration, a LiteSpeed web server, and other features.
However, for most plans, you can pay for premium daily backups, though basic, automatic backups are free.
MochaHost affordable web hosting plan costs $3.18/mo.
ScalaHosting offers flexible and affordable website hosting for medium-sized business-oriented websites. While this product is relatively new, the host is well-prepared to help you build a powerful business website in no time. In addition, you might expect strong server resources and fast speeds.
All ScalaHosting’s web hosting plans come with all the features needed to run a business site. These include SSL, CDN, WordPress staging/cloning, cPanel, unlimited email/database, unmetered bandwidth, SShield security, daily automated backups, etc.
If your small business website needs reliable protection, SShield is very useful. This real-time malware protection tool blocks 99.98% of web attacks on websites. That’s an impressive tool to take advantage of.
ScalaHosting cheapest web hosting plan costs $2.95/mo (billed for a three-year term).
SiteGround is our next web hosting for small businesses because of its value for money, features, and strong reputation. Plus, their plans can be navigated without being the most tech-savvy. For example, instead of detailing the resources you get with your plans, Siteground tells you how many monthly visits the plans support.
For the first 12 months, you get 10,000 monthly visits, unmetered traffic, 10 GB storage, managed WordPress, a CDN, email, etc. The plan later renews at $17.99/mo, but that is still good value compared to other providers that offer managed hosting.
Siteground’s customer support is a strong selling point. The majority of queries get solved at first contact, and their team is very highly trained to help you with the majority of issues. If you’re already with another host, Siteground currently offers free domain and site transfer with all plans.
Regarding performance, SiteGround uses the Google Cloud infrastructure to host websites. The host also includes multiple speed-enhancing solutions like SuperCacher, Ultrafast PHP, SG Optimizer plugin, etc. Moreover, there are eight server locations to choose from. All this helps in building a fast-loading website.
SiteGround hosting plans start at $2.99/month.
NameCheap is another excellent choice if you need low-cost hosting for small websites. The shared hosting plan provides a professional email service, and you may host your websites using your preferred CMS.
If you choose WordPress hosting, you can host a single website. However, the benefit of this option is that you can scale your resources anytime as your website gets more monthly visits.
Another benefit of WP hosting is that you will have access to an easy-to-use free website builder and hundreds of professional WP themes and plugins. This allows you to spruce up your website and turn it into a revenue-generating engine.
What’s also fantastic about the web host is that you can manage all of your websites from a single dashboard, saving time and making it simple to keep things organized.
Namecheap performs site backups twice a week, with automated daily backups available for higher-tier subscriptions.
Namecheap shared hosting plan costs $1.58/mo (billed for a two-year term). Meanwhile, the Namecheap WordPress hosting plan costs $2.91/mo (billed annually).
When choosing a web hosting service for your small business, you must consider your specific needs.
What type of traffic are you expecting? What website features would you like the host to support? Ultimately, your top provider should offer the features, security measures, and performance guarantees you need. Additionally, it should not strain your budget. For this reason, we recommend starting with the most basic plan and then upgrading as needed based on your website needs.
Our top recommendation for the best web host for small businesses is Hostinger. It is reliable, user-friendly, and has affordable price plans starting at $2.99/mo. Additionally, it provides all of the essential features, such as free SSL certificates, DDoS protection, an AI website builder, 99.9% uptime, and more, to help you grow your small business and establish a strong online presence.
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Hostinger is best web hosting for beginner due to it user-friendly interface and excellent customer support. It also offers one-click WordPress installation and a free domain for the first year.
The cost to host a website can vary widely depending on several factors, such as the type of hosting, the hosting provider, and the features you need. 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.
Having a website is a valuable investment for a small business. It enhances your credibility, expands your reach, improves customer interaction, and can ultimately drive more sales and growth.
Yes, shared hosting is cost-effective and ideal for small businesses with low to moderate traffic.
Hostinger and Bluehost offer affordable plans starting under $3/month, making them popular options for small businesses on a budget.
VPS or cloud hosting is best for e-commerce, offering better performance, scalability, and security to handle traffic spikes and protect customer data.