The best hosting for startups mirrors many of the same aspirations held by the ambitious founders and developers seeking the next big thing: new technologies, speed, and the ability to scale.
Nowadays, the term “startup” can mean just about anything. From the crafters selling their jewelry online to the multimillion-dollar companies in Silicon Valley, startups all seem to come back to ideas, innovation, and motivation to make something happen.
As such, startups of all shapes and sizes have different web hosting needs than casual bloggers or hobbyist designers. Startups need to build an online presence and get their brand or product seen — and do so quickly so that they can focus on growing their business instead of fighting with a website. No matter your startup’s size or industry, we’ve compiled a list of the 15 best hosting shared, cloud, and dedicated hosting solutions for your specific needs.
Cheap | Cloud | Email | Dedicated Servers
When in doubt, shared hosting is a good place to start — it’s easy on the wallet and comes loaded with all the tools new businesses need to succeed. Budgets are lean when you’re just getting started, and these hosts listed below give you the most bang for your buck. We’ll go into more specifics below about which entrepreneurs and businesses might be best suited for shared hosting, but here are the five highest recommended shared hosting providers:
1.
Monthly Starting Price
$2.15
-
Unlimited everything, from bandwidth to databases
- FREE site builder & WordPress performance upgrades
- FREE daily or weekly backups
- 90+ auto-installation scripts and custom control panel
- SSH access & SSL certificates
- Get started on Hostinger now.
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):
As the shared hosting market becomes increasingly saturated, unlimited storage, bandwidth, and email accounts have become surprisingly average. Hostinger, however, extends the routine, expected metrics to greater lengths — the number of websites, databases,... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cheap Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
10 GB SSD - 30 GB SSD |
FREE (1 year) |
www.hostinger.com/shared |
2.
Monthly Starting Price
$2.95
- Known for performance at a low price
- Endorsed by WordPress.org team
- FREE Weebly site builder
- FREE Cloudflare CDN
- Get 63% off today (was $7.99/month)
- Get started on Bluehost now.
Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com):
If you’re looking for an affordable host, Bluehost is a solid, reputable choice; The company's low costs, coupled with its supremacy in the shared hosting arena, is what makes this provider such a valuable deal. The Bluehost name is listed toward the top of... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cheap Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
50 GB - Unlimited |
FREE (1 year) |
www.bluehost.com/shared |
3.
Monthly Starting Price
$0.01
-
$0.01 for the first month, then $5 monthly after
- NO annual contracts and NO sudden price increases
- Unlimited storage space, data transfers, and email
- New domain is $11 with 1-month plan ($1.99 otherwise)
- 99.9% uptime and price-lock guarantee
- Get started on InterServer now.
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):
It's hard to argue with a shared hosting plan that includes unlimited storage, bandwidth, websites, and email — but shared hosting is a crowded industry that turns on name recognition, reputation, and bargain-basement prices. InterServer outperforms some of... Go to full review »
4.
Monthly Starting Price
$3.92
- FREE Cloudflare CDN and SSD speed boost solution
- A2-optimized caching and 1-click CMS installs
- Up to unlimited email addresses, domains, and databases
- Advanced security features and FREE HackScan
- 24/7/365 Guru Crew support via phone, chat, and tickets
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
Alexandra Leslie (HostingAdvice.com):
There are plenty of excellent cPanel shared hosting providers out there, so what sets A2 Hosting apart from the rest? Not only does the company offer a ton of features, but it has custom-built its packages for enhanced performance, speed, and security —... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cheap Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
Unlimited SSD |
New or Transfer |
www.a2hosting.com/shared |
5.
Monthly Starting Price
$1.99
- Featuring easy setup and superb reliability since 1998
- FREE domain and FREE Google marketing included
- Unlimited disk, bandwidth, and emails
- FREE site builder and shopping cart
- Get more than 75% off today (was $7.99/month)
- Get started on iPage now.
PJ Fancher (HostingAdvice.com):
Whether you're a first-time website owner or a web veteran, iPage’s excellent hosting services and a fantastic list of extras make the brand one of the best values in web hosting.Unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and emails are just a part of what makes... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cheap Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
Unlimited |
FREE (1 year) |
www.ipage.com/shared |
See more top shared hosts »
Not sure if you’re a good candidate for shared hosting? Occupations and industries that thrive on shared hosting typically include:
- Independent Contractors (résumés and consulting services)
- Graphic Designers, Photographers, and Performers
- Nonprofits, Religious Organizations, and Humanitarian Groups
- Realtors, Brokers, and Mortgage Consultants
- Restaurants, Mom-and-Pop Businesses, and Boutiques
- Bloggers, Freelance Writers/Editors, and Online Publications
- CPAs and Financial Representatives
- Attorneys and Local Government Officials
When choosing a hosting provider for your startup, keep an eye out for particular features that resonate for your company’s goals. The best shared hosting services will give you unlimited storage space and bandwidth, along with a free domain name. Reliability, automatic backups, and top-notch support might be more important to some entrepreneurs, while others will place more value on a site builder, eCommerce tools, and marketing credits.
Hosting in the cloud or on a VPS, otherwise known as a virtual private server, is perfect for big-budget startups, businesses with rigorous technical requirements, and companies experiencing rapid growth in web traffic that shared servers can no longer handle. For example, these organizations would do best with VPS or cloud hosting:
- Tech Startups (cost-effective, compute-capable servers for fast-growing sites)
- Healthcare Organizations (HIPAA compliance for protecting sensitive patient data)
- Retail Chains (PCI compliance secures credit card info; can display thousands of products)
- Investment Firms (helps safeguard sensitive financial and customer data)
Cloud and VPS hosting plans also give you more control over your infrastructure. If you’d prefer to focus on your business and products, however, most hosts offer various levels of managed services where their experts will take care of your hardware needs. Because your server resources scale with your traffic needs, you’ll only pay for what your site or application actually uses. Read on to see who we tab as the best cloud hosting providers:
6.
Monthly Starting Price
$21.04
- Ranked #1 for cloud VPS hosting
- Fault-tolerant SSD storage and up to 8GB of RAM
- FREE control panel with choice of Linux OS
- Full root access or managed servers available
- FREE live-state or scheduled snapshots
- Get started on InMotion now.
PJ Fancher (HostingAdvice.com):
With leading-edge cloud technology, InMotion offers free site transfer, setup, and SSD drives for the ultimate cloud solution offerings. They include free data backups and offer unmanaged or fully managed servers to help you scale your site with... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cloud Hosting Plans |
| 90 days |
75 GB SSD - 260 GB SSD |
FREE (1 year) |
www.inmotion.com/cloud |
7.
Monthly Starting Price
$4.95
- Twice as fast and four times the computing resources
- Tons of storage with the scalability of the cloud
- Low-density servers and multiple caching layers
- Unlimited domains and MySQL databases
- Upgrades available for security, backups, productivity, and domain privacy
- Get started on HostGator now.
Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com):
For those ready to expand beyond shared hosting, HostGator offers a fully featured step into the cloud. With scalable, high-powered resources, customers can easily monitor resources and caching from an intuitive dashboard. Rest easy knowing your site is... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cloud Hosting Plans |
| 45 days |
120 GB - 240 GB |
New or Transfer |
www.hostgator.com/cloud |
8.
Monthly Starting Price
$4.99
- Choose your OS or optimized application configuration
- Hourly or monthly billing for convenience
- Optional upgrades for cPanel, backups, and monitoring
- Managed services, SSDs, and HDDs available
- Block and object storage, plus enterprise-grade firewall
- Get started on Hostwinds now.
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):
Hostwinds provides supremely scalable and customizable options for the savvy developer or site owner. Customers can customize their cloud environment or choose pre-built configurations optimized to run apps like WordPress, Drupal, and others. With an emphasis... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cloud Hosting Plans |
| N/A |
30 GB - 750 GB SSD |
New or Transfer |
www.hostwinds.com/cloud |
9.
Monthly Starting Price
$6.00
- Choose Linux ($6/mo) or Windows ($10/mo) cloud hosting
- Choice of 1-16 cores and up to 16TB of data transfer
- Plenty of RAM and redundant cloud storage
- FREE Webuzo control panel and several OS options
- Use coupon HOSTINGADV to pay $.01 your first month
- Get started on InterServer now.
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):
InterServer’s on-site datacenter and hands-on involvement with configuring and provisioning cloud servers give customers a level of flexibility not seen with many other hosting providers. InterServer rations its VPS and cloud resources through slices.... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Cloud Hosting Plans |
| N/A |
30 GB SSD - 480 GB SSD |
New or Transfer |
www.interserver.net/cloud |
See more top cloud hosts »
Central to any growing business is the ability to communicate — both internally among employees and externally with your customers. A strong email hosting platform helps you coordinate your organizational growth and the projects helping you achieve success. As with all things business, speed and security is a must-have feature. Even better, many of our favorite email hosting providers include additional productivity tools, such as calendars and conferencing apps, as well as newsletters and other email marketing tools.
10.
Monthly Starting Price
$3.92
-
FREE software for webmail, newsletters, contact forms, list management, and spam filtering
- Unlimited addresses with forwarding & autoresponders
- Secure POP3, IMAP, and SMTP messaging
- Unlimited storage and transfer with FREE SSL
- Get more than 50% off today (was $7.99/month)
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
Alexandra Leslie (HostingAdvice.com):
Combining the internet’s most popular and secure email technologies with high-speed and reliable infrastructure, A2 Hosting ensures your messages are delivered on time. As a recipient, you’ll appreciate the company’s multiple spam filtering... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Email Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
Unlimited SSD |
New or Transfer |
www.a2hosting.com/email |
11.
Monthly Starting Price
$2.95
- FREE domain and unlimited emails
- Secure email with 3 webmail solutions
- $200 in advertising credits with Google and Bing
- Google app integration available
-
FREE Office 365 mailbox for your first 30 days
- Get started on Bluehost now.
Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com):
For email hosting with security and tons of available features, Bluehost is one of our favorites. The company includes a free domain name for a year, POP3 and IMAP security for unlimited emails, plus email forwarding and three web-based email solutions…Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Email Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
50 GB - Unlimited |
FREE (1 year) |
www.bluehost.com/email |
12.
Monthly Starting Price
$1.99
- FREE site transfers and 1-year domain registration
- Unlimited domains, disk space, and email addresses
- Email forwarding, autoresponders, and webmail
- Market your site with $200 in ad credits and SEO tools
- FREE online store and site-building tools
- Get started on iPage now.
PJ Fancher (HostingAdvice.com):
With iPage, users get a free domain name and email account, plus unlimited bandwidth, disk space, domains, and MySQL databases. The brand offers POP3/IMAP support for unlimited emails, plus autoresponders, virus checking, and spam filters…Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Email Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
Unlimited |
FREE (1 year) |
www.ipage.com/email |
See more top email hosts »
Truthfully, not many startups are going to need a dedicated hosting plan out of the box except for those with big ambitions and investments. If performance is king and price isn’t an issue, however, then dedicated servers are the way to go, because you’ll never have to worry about your website crashing due to a spike in visitors. Here are our top picks:
13.
Monthly Starting Price
$149.00
- 100% network and power uptime guarantees
- Custom configurations, SSDs, and instant provisioning
- Auto-migrations, backups, and real-time monitoring
- Block/object storage and load balancer add-ons
- Windows or Linux servers with 100% uptime guarantee
- Get started on Liquid Web now.
DEDICATED
RATING
4.9
★★★★★
Alexandra Leslie (HostingAdvice.com):
Liquid Web's strong suit is managed dedicated server hosting. The company owns and operates five state-of-the-art datacenters in the US and Europe works tirelessly to build and maintain custom solutions for added performance and security.Liquid Web offers... Go to full review »
14.
Monthly Starting Price
$70.00
- 24/7 uptime monitoring and privately owned datacenter
- Up to 24 cores, 256GB RAM, and 100TB bandwidth
- Choose from 12 operating systems and 3 control panels
- Custom configurations built and maintained in-house
- Price-lock guarantee without contracts
- Get started on InterServer now.
DEDICATED
RATING
4.8
★★★★★
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):
You know a hosting company means business when it owns and operates its own datacenters. Because InterServer employees build and manage servers in the same building as company headquarters, dedicated hosting customers get the utmost in flexibility, support,... Go to full review »
15.
Monthly Starting Price
$99.59
- Root access available with 3 levels of server management
- Expertly-tuned managed servers deployed instantly
- Choose from 4 datacenters spread across 3 continents
- FREE redundant SSD storage in RAID-1 arrays
- Choice of 13 Linux operating systems
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
DEDICATED
RATING
4.8
★★★★★
Alexandra Leslie (HostingAdvice.com):
Whether you're looking for managed or self-managed hosting, A2 Hosting offers three extremely reliable dedicated server plans to meet your needs, depending on your levels of comfort and experience.With A2 Hosting's Unmanaged Flex Dedicated Server plan, users... Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee |
Disk Space |
Domain Name |
Dedicated Hosting Plans |
| 30 days |
256 GB SSD - 14 TB HDD |
New or Transfer |
www.a2hosting.com/dedicated |
See more top dedicated hosts »
Hopefully, all the startup leaders reading this will find themselves needing a dedicated hosting plan at some point — when your website is large enough to demand its own resources, you know you’ve made it. The Silicon Valley types might be closer at achieving that goal, but the right host can make all the difference for helping small companies grow.
Search instead for the best web hosting for:
Bloggers and Writers | Photographers | Musicians | Realtors | Small Business
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