Written by: Laura Bernheim
Edited by: Lillian Castro
As a relatively new homeowner and frequent online shopper, I’m a prime example of why web hosting for small business is a critical investment for entrepreneurs. For the past few months, I’ve enjoyed upgrading my hand-me-down furniture to make the house more comfortable and grown-up — and not once did I think of setting foot inside a store.
That’s why it’s critical for businesses to establish a strong online impression. More than 85% of consumers will research a product online before making a purchase, so you’ll want to ensure your company quickly establishes itself as a trustworthy resource. Your site will attract new customers from all over, so choosing a reliable, reputable host is just as important as the website itself.
Uptime and performance rates matter to online shoppers like me, and finding the right host for your business needs will help sales soar and your brand reputation grow. Read on to see who we say are the 10 best web hosting services for small businesses in 2023.
1. Best Overall Small Business Hosting
To see the most return on your website investment, seek out a host with high uptime guarantees — that reliability will mean your site stays online and available to customers at all hours. Strong hosting companies will also include top-notch support and powerful site builders that let you focus your efforts on your business passion and not the technical details behind running a website.
InMotionHosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.29
- FREE BoldGrid site builder and templates
- FREE website, domain, and cPanel migrations
- SSD storage makes your site load up to 20x faster
- Security suite includes SSL and hack protection
- Unlimited bandwidth and email accounts
- Get started on InMotion now.
CHEAP
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan — with a price tag lower than several other budget hosts. For the IT crowd in the audience, you’ll appreciate SSH access, as well as support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, WP-CLI, and other popular languages. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90 days | 100 GB SSD - Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
2. Most Affordable Small Business Hosting
We know you want free hosting, but the flexibility, support, and features included with even bare-bones shared hosting plans are well worth the minor investment. For $3 or less per month, hosts will give you all you need to make a successful website for your small business: a free domain, website builder, SEO tools, advertising credits, eCommerce capabilities, and around-the-clock support for prices that can’t be beat.
Hostinger.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.99
- Unlimited everything, from storage to databases
- FREE site builder & WP performance upgrades
- FREE daily or weekly backups
- Custom control panel and auto-installation scripts
- SSH access & unlimited FREE SSL certificates
- Get started on Hostinger now.
CHEAP
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
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, FTP users, subdomains, and parked domains are all unrestricted for most customers. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 50 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 3 minutes |
3. eCommerce Hosting for Small Business
Business owners can make their products and services available to a global audience by adding eCommerce functionality — an online storefront and shopping cart program — to their website. Adding these features to your site can be complicated for beginners, but many hosts offer easy, 1-click installations of the most popular tools — and the knowledgeable support staffs to help you implement them. Boost sales by offering customers the convenience of buying from anywhere.
IONOS.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.00
- Drag-and-drop online store builder for $1/mo
- Quickly sell products, services, and digital goods
- Cross-platform selling integrations with social media, Amazon, Google, and eBay
- Built-in metrics, promos, and coupons
- Track competitors’ Google and social media activity
- Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.
ECOMMERCE
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
The online store builder from 1&1 IONOS gives entrepreneurs a full suite of selling and marketing tools at their disposal — and all for a ridiculously low price. The company’s lightning-fast architecture and tools for SEO and marketing metrics will make your customers’ buying experience quick and enjoyable. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | Unlimited SSD | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
4. Email Hosting for Small Business
With customer relationships at stake, you don’t want to trust just anyone with your business communications. We appreciate a host that includes all sorts of secure, reliable, and easy-to-use email features with your hosting plan, such as unlimited accounts and a free domain. Keep an eye out for plans that include autoresponders, spam filters, forwarding, and webmail options, too.
A2Hosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.99
- FREE software for webmail, newsletters, contact forms, list management, and spam filtering
- Unlimited inboxes, forwarding, and autoresponders
- Secure POP3, IMAP, and SMTP messaging
- Unlimited storage and transfer with FREE SSL
- Get more than 75% off today (was $7.99/month)
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
EMAIL
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
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 programs, along with autoresponders and forwarding. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD | New or Transfer | 4 minutes |
5. Free Website Builder With Hosting
Hosts make it a snap to put a website together — you don’t need to learn how to code to use the simple website builders that let you drag and drop your logo, images, text, and videos exactly where you want them displayed. From blogging to online stores, website builders make your online dreams happen with just a few clicks of the mouse. The top builders come with hundreds of customizable themes, letting you find just the right look to match your brand.
Wix.com
Monthly Starting Price $0.00
- No coding skills needed with drag-and-drop builder
- 100s of templates with niche-specific designs
- Add features via the App Market and Wix Events
- Easily create ecommerce functionality easily
- Great way to build small sites on a budget
- Get started on Wix now.
WEBSITE BUILDER
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
Website building is where Wix shines. The thousands of templates, the intuitive editor, the industry-leading designs that cater to a variety of specific fields and use cases — all these facets represent a platform that excels at facilitating easy web design for the non-tech-savvy user. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-day FREE trial | 2 GB - Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
See more website builder hosts »
6. Blog Hosting for Small Business
When done right, blogs set the tone for how potential customers view and interact with your business. Beyond your products and online store, online shoppers are looking for information about your brand. Blog hosting should be fast, simple, and lightweight enough to let you work, but still showcase your brand in a powerful, visually appealing manner.
Bluehost.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.95
- Recommended by WordPress since 2005
- Automatic WordPress installation and updates
- FREE themes and plugins in Bluehost Marketplace
- Upgrade for managed WordPress or design help
- FREE domain and content delivery network
- Get started on Bluehost now.
BLOG
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
Bluehost's WordPress hosting packages are aimed at first-time site owners and personal bloggers. These services come at a premium compared to the standard Bluehost web hosting (basic shared hosting) plans, but the WordPress optimization and platform-specific resources are arguably worth the cost. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 50 GB SSD - 100 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 7 minutes |
7. Cloud Hosting (VPS) for Small Business
Shared hosting plans will meet the needs of most small businesses starting their own website. By sharing server space with other hosting customers, small business owners can save money as their company takes off. Once you start to see that growth, however, you’ll want hosting resources that can keep up with the increased demand. Cloud hosting, or hosting on virtual private servers, gives you more control over what is powering your website.
Kamatera.com
Monthly Starting Price $4.00
- Cloud VPS that's more flexible and affordable
- Load balancer, firewall, and managed services
- Premium Intel CPUs with 300% more power
- Choose between monthly or hourly billing
- Sign up today for a 30-day FREE trial
- Get started on Kamatera now.
VPS
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
Backed by cutting-edge cloud computing technology, Kamatera adds instant and limitless scalability to the VPS hosting marketplace. Each cloud or virtual server is equipped with blazing-fast SSD storage and Intel Xeon Platinum CPUs. Go to full review »
| Setup Time | Disk Space | CPU | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 minutes | 20 GB SSD - 4 TB SSD | 1 - 104 cores | 1 GB - 525 GB |
8. Dedicated Server for Small Business
Thriving businesses can outgrow cloud or VPS hosting plans, requiring more powerful computing resources to keep websites at peak performance. Upgrade to a dedicated server when your site receives high amounts of traffic. The price can be steep for the top level of hosting, but dedicated plans come with the utmost in support, infrastructure, uptime, and performance.
IONOS.com
Monthly Starting Price $33.00
- Explore server deals to find the best rates
- High powered modern AMD and Intel processors
- Unlimited traffic and 1 Gbit/s network connectivity
- 8-minute deployment with full API control
- Auto backups, DDoS protection, and RAID-1 storage
- Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.
DEDICATED
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
If you need blazing-fast speed, optimum uptime, top-notch flexibility, and full control over the fate of your website the dedicated servers from 1&1 IONOS have you covered. The company offers an assortment of entry-level, performance-focused, and business-class server options. Go to full review »
| Setup Time | Disk Space | CPU | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 minutes | 480 GB SSD - 2 TB HDD | 4 - 32 cores, 8 - 64 threads | 16 GB - 256 GB |
9. Starting a Web Hosting Business? Best Reseller Hosting
What about those merging business and web hosting? Now that you’re learning about the facets of what makes a good host, maybe you’ll want to start your own hosting business. Resellers basically sublease some of their server space to others. They buy hosting — typically a virtual private server, or VPS — from a provider for wholesale rates and set the retail rates for the hosting resources you want to sell to others.
InMotionHosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $15.99
- SSD reseller hosting with FREE cPanel/WHM
- Keep your reseller business organized with WHMCS
- FREE dedicated IP and site backups
- Tons of email features with IMAP and POP3 support
- Manage your domains with a FREE Enom license
- Get started on InMotion Hosting now.
RESELLER
RATING
★★★★★
Our Review
InMotion Hosting offers cPanel reseller hosting that’s affordable, easy to manage, and includes free SSDs. Become a domain reseller for popular gTLDs and TLDs with a free Enom license and WHMCS to manage your accounts. Go to full review »
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90 days | 80 GB SSD - 260 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
Scale Your Small Business with a Host You Can Grow With!
Congratulations to these hosts on being named the best at helping small business owners get online and grow their companies; hosting shoppers, good luck on your company’s quest.
When business starts to boom, you’ll want to move your site to more powerful hosting packages that will scale with you. If you’re ready to start rising through the ranks of hosting, take a look at HostGator, the best host to grow with. They offer the tools to go from rookie to business tycoon.
Search instead for the best web hosting for:
Further Reading: “9 Best: Web Hosting for Small Business Startups (June 2023)“
Hopefully, our recommendation of InMotion fulfills all your web hosting needs. Starting at just $2.29 per month and rated 4.7 overall, InMotion gives users plenty of bang for the buck. Among our favorite features:
- FREE BoldGrid site builder and templates
- FREE website, domain, and cPanel migrations
- SSD storage makes your site load up to 20x faster
- Security suite includes SSL and hack protection
- Unlimited bandwidth and email accounts
- Get started on InMotion now.
If you’d like recommendations similar to InMotion and others in 9 Best: Web Hosting for Small Business Startups (June 2023), check out these popular guides. You’ll find comparisons of InMotion to other hosts on pricing, features, support and more:
And of course, if InMotion is your top choice, you can get started now at just $2.29/month. InMotion is easy to set up and scale, no matter the size of your next project.
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