The best small business web hosting provides cheap shared servers with database and programming language support for CMS sites and ecommerce scripts.
Open-source software is an important aspect of small business solutions for saving money on web/mobile development costs. The best small business hosting allows publishers to use developer tools to build on shared Linux and Windows servers in a high-speed datacenter.
Here, we’ll review the main small business hosting options for 2022. Business owners can compare brand offerings with their project requirements to find the best marketplace deals.
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Top Small Business Web Hosting Services
The top small business web hosting services offer everything required for professional website publishing and mobile application development.
The companies listed below have an established reputation for low-cost, reliable shared hosting plans. These brands lead in the provision of powerful web development solutions for small businesses through the inclusion of MySQL, PHP, and open-source scripts on their platforms.
Bluehost.com
- Known for high-performance, low-cost hosting
- FREE website builder with 1,000s of templates
- Endorsed by the WordPress.org team as a top host
- FREE SSL certificate and CDN acceleration
- Usually $7.99/mo, but our visitors pay $2.95/mo
- Get started on Bluehost now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | 10 GB SSD – 100 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
Bluehost is one of the world’s most popular web hosting brands for its optimized WordPress runtime environment. Small businesses can use WordPress with free themes or with professional design solutions to build a complete website with blogs, ecommerce, and plugin options.
A WordPress website at Bluehost includes free Cloudflare CDN support across a global network of edge servers for website caching.
The combination of PHP 8, MySQL, and WordPress at Bluehost supports the requirements of small business publishing with free SSL for all domains.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at Bluehost:
- Recommended: Plus Plan
- Features: cPanel admin with unlimited domain names, SSD storage, and bandwidth.
- Bonus Offers: Free domain name, CDN, SSL certificates, and WordPress themes.
- Price: $4.95 per month (12-month billing).
The Plus Plan at Bluehost includes shared hosting with SSD storage and unlimited monthly bandwidth. cPanel makes it easy to administer domain names and web server settings.
Small business owners can use the Softaculous archive to install over 450 free PHP and MySQL scripts. Upgrade to a managed VPS plan at Bluehost when your website traffic scales.
2. A2Hosting.com
- FREE Cloudflare CDN and SSD speed boost
- Optimized caching and 1-click installs
- Unlimited email, domains, and databases
- Advanced security and FREE HackScan
- 24/7 support via phone, chat & tickets
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | 100 GB SSD – Unlimited SSD | New or Transfer | 4 minutes |
A2 Hosting is a longtime favorite of web developers and small business publishers for its platform support of the latest standards. The advantage of shared hosting plans at A2 Hosting is the suite of free developer tools, including free SSL, provided with every cPanel account.
cPanel makes it easy for small businesses to manage their domain presence through remote teams of experienced web developers.
You can use Softaculous and the MySQL Database Wizard to quickly install scripts without the command line or Git Version Control in teams.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at A2 Hosting:
- Recommended: Drive Plan
- Features: cPanel + unlimited websites, SSD storage, and data transfer.
- Bonus Offers: Free website builder, SSL certificates, staging, and migration.
- Price: $5.99 per month (36-month billing).
A2 Hosting is designed to support the requirements of CMS scripts like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Education groups can run LMS solutions or Moodle on the platform at cheap prices.
The A2 Hosting platform includes an easy upgrade to Turbo Servers or managed VPS plans if your scripts need more system resources. Page load speeds are the best with CDN caching.
3. Hostinger.com
- Officially endorsed by WordPress.org
- FREE website builder or managed WordPress
- Unlimited bandwidth and free SSL certificates
- Malware scanner and CloudFlare DDoS protection
- Upgrade for staging and caching tools
- Get started on Hostinger now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | 100 GB SSD – 200 GB NVMe | FREE (1 year) | 3 minutes |
The Hostinger Business Shared Hosting plan is designed to support a maximum of 100,000 visitors per month across 100 websites. Businesses with multidomain or high traffic website requirements beyond this level, should upgrade their site to VPS plans.
Hostinger represents the best of the budget web hosts with rock-bottom prices targeting the needs of niche publishers and small ecommerce stores.
Online marketers with many WordPress or CMS websites will enjoy the managed runtime environment and cheap prices at Hostinger.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at Hostinger:
- Recommended: Business Shared Hosting
- Features: 100 websites, 200 GB SSD storage, and unlimited bandwidth.
- Bonus Offers: Managed WordPress, free SSL, CDN, daily backups, and Google Ads.
- Price: $4.99 per month (48-month billing).
Hostinger offers free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt which will continue to be free. The Business plan also includes a free CDN account that is valued at $9.95 per month.
Developers receive unlimited database support with SSH connections and Git. Hostinger uses hPanel as an alternative to cPanel for cost savings that it passes on to business publishers.
4. HostGator.com
- Get 77% off monthly pricing
- A perfect blend of price and performance
- Intuitive control panel with 1-click CMS installs
- Unlimited everything — from domains to databases
- Around-the-clock expert support
- Get started on HostGator now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | 10 GB SSD – 40 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
The Business plan at HostGator will support unlimited websites with unmetered storage and bandwidth for only $5.25 per month.
The best way for small businesses to develop is on shared Linux servers with cPanel and Softaculous. PositiveSSL includes a TrustLogo® seal.
HostGator gives customers a free domain name, SEO tools, and a dedicated IP address with every plan.
The company has a long experience as a web hosting provider and is one of the most recognized brands in the industry. HostGator is popular for professional web development.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at HostGator:
- Recommended: Business Plan
- Features: cPanel, unlimited domain names, and unmetered storage/bandwidth.
- Bonus Offers: Free PositiveSSL, dedicated IP address, SEO tools, and ad credits.
- Price: $5.25 per month (36-month billing).
Small business customers using HostGator resources for web publishing enjoy a secure LAMP environment with a free cPanel license. Support unlimited domain names at the lowest costs.
PRO Hosting options at HostGator include VPS, reseller, and dedicated server plans. Industry leadership allows HostGator to offer the lowest prices on hardware to small business owners.
5. InMotionHosting.com
- High-quality hosting, no matter the format
- FREE SSD storage packs 20x the performance
- FREE SSL certificate and 24/7 support
- 1-click installs for WordPress and popular CMSes
- Get started with FREE website transfer service
- Get started on InMotion Hosting now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
90 days | 100 GB SSD – Unlimited SSD | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
InMotion Hosting is favored by small business publishers for its high-performance platform solutions based on NVMe SSD storage. InMotion Hosting has consistently introduced SSD hardware into its product lines for the fastest web server performance speeds and page loads.
Ecommerce publishers lose an estimated 1% of their business for every 100 millisecond of delay in page load times over 1 second.
The fast NVMe SSD hardware on InMotion Hosting plans will support unlimited domain names, databases, storage, and bandwidth with 12x UltraStack web servers.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at InMotion Hosting:
- Recommended: Power Plan
- Features: cPanel, unlimited sites, NVMe SSD storage, and unmetered bandwidth.
- Bonus Offers: Free domain name, SSL, ad credits, and 12x UltraStack performance.
- Price: $5.99 per month (24-month billing).
InMotion Hosting is one of the most popular choices for WordPress publishing. Most CMS websites will run optimally on the shared Linux servers provided on the Power plan.
If you need Windows Server support, consider the options with a Flex Metal Cloud IaaS plan at InMotion Hosting. The company specializes in managed WordPress with WooCommerce.
6. iPage.com
- An industry-leading host with competitive pricing
- Attract visitors with FREE marketing credits
- Lots of extras like SiteLock security
- Start selling with FREE ecommerce tools
- Get more than 63% off today! (usually $7.99/mo)
- Get started on iPage now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
iPage has just one shared hosting plan that is designed to support unlimited websites, storage, and bandwidth at the lowest prices. The Go Plan at iPage costs only $1.99 per month and includes a free domain name on signup. With 24/7 customer support, this is a great deal.
iPage offers a website builder, one-click WordPress installs, free SSL certificates for all domains, and webmail options with support for unlimited email addresses.
You can use IMAP or POP settings to integrate your domain email channels with Microsoft Outlook or Gmail.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at iPage:
- Recommended: Go Plan
- Features: Unlimited websites, unmetered storage, and scalable bandwidth.
- Bonus Offers: Free domain, website builder, SSL, script installer, and security suite.
- Price: $1.99 per month (36-month billing).
iPage saves money on cPanel licensing costs by offering the Foundation control panel on the Go plan. The AMP includes network analytics for website traffic and an enhanced security suite.
iPage is best if your company demands the cheapest web hosting costs for project support. There are upgrade options for VPS and dedicated server hosting plans on the platform.
7. InterServer.net
- $0.01 first month (coupon code HOSTINGADV)
- $2.50/month after. No contracts or increases
- Unlimited storage space, data transfers, and email
- Register or transfer domains for less than $10
- 99.9% uptime and price-lock guarantee
- Get started on InterServer now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | Unlimited SSD | New or Transfer | 4 minutes |
The InterServer platform runs on CloudLinux with LiteSpeed servers for a performance advantage over other data center solutions in shared hosting. The inclusion of fast SSD storage capacity on plans is offered in RAID-10 arrays. Direct Admin is provided as the control panel.
With InterServer, small business publishers receive a WordPress installer with automated updates and an integrated backup service.
iPage includes managed security on the shared hosting platform. WordPress publishers can host unlimited websites for only $2.50 per month.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at InterServer:
- Recommended: Standard Web Hosting Plan
- Features: Unlimited UltraSSD storage, data transfer, and email addresses.
- Bonus Offers: Free website migration, SSL, SitePad builder, and LiteSpeed servers.
- Price: $2.50 per month (36-month billing).
InterServer plans include all of the bonus offers that you need for complete web publishing solutions. This includes free SSL certificates, CDN, and InterShield protection for a firewall.
The upgrade options at InterServer are Cloud VPS plans, dedicated servers, reseller hosting, and colocation services. You can also lease GPU-dedicated servers at InterServer for ML.
8. SiteGround.com
- FREE CDN, email, and daily backups
- Hassle-free website and email migrations
- Unlimited traffic, databases, and email
- Industry-leading customer support response times
- HostingAdvice readers get 86% off
- Get started on SiteGround now.
Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
---|---|---|---|
30 days | 10 GB SSD – 40 GB SSD | FREE (1 Year) | 6 minutes |
SiteGround has built its brand reputation on decades of support for open source web development projects and innovation in data center engineering.
SiteGround ranks as one of the most popular companies with customers for development support with friendly service staff.
SiteGround has sponsored open-source programming solutions in the Joomla development community. The company includes a SuperCacher plugin on shared hosting plans that will support Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and other CMS sites with improved caching.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at SiteGround:
- Recommended: GrowBig Plan
- Features: Unlimited websites, 20 GB SSD storage, and unmetered traffic.
- Bonus Offers: Free SSL, email, CDN, caching, managed WordPress, and backups.
- Price: $6.69 per month (12-month billing).
The main difference between the GrowBig and GoGeek plans is the amount of SSD storage included on accounts. Start small and upgrade on the platform only if your scripts require it.
SiteGround shared hosting plans include a free CDN service and SSL certificates. If you need Git support for version control, you’ll need to pay $10.69 per month for the GoGeek plan instead.
9. LiquidWeb.com
- HostingAdvice fans get 75% OFF
- Cloudflare CDN, DDoS protection, and backups
- Performance-boosting SSDs and cloud flexibility
- Rock-solid reliability with 100% uptime guarantees
- 24/7 Heroic Support® via phone, chat, and email
- Get started on Liquid Web now.
Setup Time | Disk Space | CPU | RAM |
---|---|---|---|
7 minutes | 30 GB SSD – 150 GB SSD | 1 – 8 cores | 1 GB – 8 GB |
Liquid Web Cloud Sites is the most affordable option for small business publishers that require an elastic web server solution that will scale to support any web traffic levels in production. Priced at $150 per month, the service will support unlimited domains and databases.
Liquid Web purchased the Cloud Sites platform from Rackspace in 2016. The service compares to AWS EC2 at much lower costs.
Liquid Web has a strong reputation for elite hardware configurations and only offers VPS plans, Cloud Sites, bare metal servers, and IaaS products.
Best Small Business Hosting Plan at Liquid Web:
- Recommended: Cloud Sites Plan
- Features: Unlimited websites, visitors, 50 GB SSD storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.
- Bonus Offers: Elastic auto-scaling with script installer and Windows/Linux support.
- Price: $150 per month (Monthly billing).
If you are doing significant levels of ecommerce on your small business websites, the $150 cost is a small percentage of monthly revenue with 100% uptime guarantees and blazing speeds.
Liquid Web Cloud Sites is a premium solution for web publishers and will support the most demanding requirements of multi-domain publishing with automated elastic scalability.
What is Small Business Web Hosting?
Small business web hosting is designed to level the playing field with enterprise brands by offering open-source database and web script support on shared hardware. Small business web hosting is primarily found in two categories: high-performance and budget hosting solutions.
“Ecommerce websites require the fastest speeds in production or they risk losing customers.”
Most small business hosting plans are designed to assist in the development of ecommerce solutions. Managed WordPress and WooCommerce solutions are the cheapest business option.
Best Features Included on a Small Business Hosting Plan:
- Shared Web Servers: Host securely in a multi-tenant environment to save costs.
- Database Support: Free database solutions like MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, etc.
- Open Source Scripts: CMS, ecommerce, wiki, forum, blog, and support ticket sites.
- Daily Backup Service: Make sure your site files and database backup every day.
- Cybersecurity Suite: Extra WAF, anti-virus, DDoS protection, and anti-SPAM tools.
The main cost of software development is custom programming. Open source solutions allow small businesses to use database, ecommerce, and CMS solutions for web publishing they otherwise could not afford. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are the most popular solutions.
CMS websites allow small businesses to manage user accounts, ecommerce catalogs, and blogs with a contact form for customers. Developers can add modules and plugins to extend functionality. Open source development with Softaculous and cPanel is the cheapest option.
How Much Does Small Business Web Hosting Cost?
Small businesses can use shared hosting plans with security and high uptime at the lowest prices for hardware. Most shared hosting plans with Linux servers and cPanel bill in the $1.99 to $6.99 per month range.
“The cheapest unmanaged VPS plans usually cost around $4 to $5 per month.”
Expect to pay $15 to $20 per month for the minimum basic configuration on a managed VPS plan. CMS websites will perform optimally on a VPS with 2 vCPU and 2 GB RAM. In order to get the fastest page load speeds, make sure your hosting plan offers a free CDN account.
Estimated Monthly Costs on a Small Business Hosting Plan:
- Shared Hosting: $1.99 to $6.99 per month for shared Linux servers with cPanel.
- VPS Plans: Estimate $19.99 to $29.99 for 2 vCPU + 2 GB RAM plans.
- Dedicated Servers: Prices average $129 to $749 depending on configuration.
- Cloud Hosting: Elastic services on public cloud hosts are the most expensive.
- Reseller Plans: Look for plans at $6.99 to $15.99 per month with white-label branding.
If your websites, domain portfolio, or mobile apps regularly consume a high level of web traffic, a dedicated server plan can be a viable option. Systems administrators will need to estimate peak capacity in comparison to average daily web traffic in order to maintain web server resources.
Reseller plans with white-label options are designed for the requirements of online professionals, web design agencies, and freelancers. Reseller plans offer a bundled cPanel, WHMCS, and Enom license at prices starting around $6.99 with unlimited domain support.
How Do I Choose the Web Hosting Plan for a Small Business?
The best web hosting for small businesses will depend on the requirements of the project and the experience of the development team. The best web hosting companies provide free domain registration as a discount offer.
“You can also get unlimited websites, SSD storage, and databases on many budget cPanel plans for less than $5 per month.”
Small business website hosting will depend on the web traffic, database, and programming language requirements of the scripts. A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is an important upgrade for projects that require custom programming team support.
The best web host companies offer Git and SSH connections on shared hosting plans, but this is not standard across the industry.
Best Bonus Features on a Small Business Hosting Plan:
- Free Domain Name: Get started with a new site or create a development environment.
- Unlimited Bandwidth: Limit downtime risk by avoiding hard caps on data transfers.
- SSD Storage: Web servers transfer data 20x faster than HDD storage options.
- Unlimited Databases: Support MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL without limits.
- Keyword Ad Credits: Get up to $200 in free Google AdSense and Bing Ad credits.
Web hosting providers include a suite of free offers on shared hosting plans designed to attract small business customers.
A free domain name can be a good hosting option for new sites. A hosting company that offers first-class customer service with quick response times and live chat is recommended.
The best web hosting service will support the workflow requirements of a business organization with ecommerce and CRM tools. An email hosting service is included on all shared hosting plans.
Some web host companies offer free Google Workspace or Microsoft Outlook integration for small business management.
Is WordPress Hosting Good for a Small Business?
Companies like BlueHost, InMotion Hosting, Web Hosting Hub, and HostGator specialize in managed WordPress hosting for small business requirements.
“High-traffic WordPress blogs and WooCommerce stores can use VPS hosting or dedicated hosting to dedicate more system resources to script operations.”
A web hosting company will support WordPress on shared Linux or Windows plans with different runtime performance optimizations. The best cloud hosting offers low-density account allocation and elite hardware for managed WordPress optimization.
A web hosting service with PHP and MySQL database support is the minimum runtime requirement for WordPress.
Web Development Support on a Small Business Hosting Plan:
- Softaculous: Install over 450 free open-source scripts on PHP and MySQL.
- Fantastico: A popular alternative to Softaculous (no longer actively supported).
- MySQL Database Wizard: Create a new MySQL database in cPanel for sites.
- phpMyAdmin: Check your database tables, manage backups, or install websites.
- Git, Drush, & WP-CLI: Use command-line tools for version control and file transfer.
Small business publishers do not need to migrate to Google Cloud or AWS with higher costs unless they have enterprise traffic levels to support.
The best web hosting plan is one that is balanced with the requirements of the project under support without overpaying for services.
“A web host with PHP, MySQL, and cPanel is the best hosting option for managed WordPress hosting.”
Web hosts like WP Engine and Liquid Web offer premium hosting package support for high-performance WordPress websites. Managed WordPress is the best hosting option for a small business website on a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or shared hosting plan.
Shared Web Hosting, VPS, Dedicated Server: Which is Best?
The best formula for small business hosting is to start on an unlimited domain plan at a budget web hosting company to build websites on open-source scripts at the lowest costs.
Then if your web traffic scales, it is easy to migrate on the same platform to a VPS or dedicated server plan.
“A VPS plan is optimal for most small business organizations, offering a higher level of system resource allocation to web scripts and a lower-density multi-user environment.”
VPS plans allow small business owners to support custom software development with freelancers at low costs.
When to Upgrade a Small Business Hosting Plan:
- Web Traffic: Add more CPU and RAM to optimize web scripts in production.
- Custom Programming: Use VPS or dedicated servers for programming teams.
- High-Performance: Add support for NGINX or LiteSpeed servers on hardware.
- Website Caching: Install Redis, Memcached, and Varnish Cache on websites.
- Elastic Scalability: For user traffic over the level of a single dedicated server.
For most projects, a VPS plan is more efficient than a dedicated server. A VPS plan will scale to 16 or 32 CPU cores and equivalent RAM configurations at prices lower than a dedicated server.
An elastic cloud service is more expensive and difficult to manage than a VPS plan in production. You need to budget for custom web development and programming costs.
WordPress is the cheapest way to develop on open source software, but Drupal, Joomla, Grav, and many other solutions compete on features.
A shared hosting plan with Softaculous allows anyone to demo scripts for small business website development requirements. You can install scripts on subdomains for customer support with ticket systems, wikis, and forums.
Get Your Business Websites Noticed Online
There are two main paths of development for most small business owners: open source solutions with Linux or ASP.NET programming with Windows.
Each development solution has unique advantages, but the use of free open-source software is the best way for small businesses to launch competitive products in ecommerce without extensive programming costs.
WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento are the best CMS solutions for small business publishing. Most web development for these scripts is on Linux servers with PHP and MySQL support.
Use cPanel on shared Linux plans for the cheapest small business hosting solutions. VPS plans with NGINX or LiteSpeed are top for high-performance requirements in ecommerce.
Many small business plans can save money by using shared Linux hosting platforms and open source development solutions.
The ability to launch dynamic scripts on MySQL and PHP enables small businesses to build websites and mobile apps with free CMS software. Adopt headless CMS development with APIs, Node.js, and JavaScript for the best performance.
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