Despite the fact there are over 1 million plus active WordPress ecommerce sites, finding the best WordPress hosting for your ecommerce site is still a challenge. It takes time, research, and expert knowledge to pick the right web host for your ecommerce store. That’s why I’m creating this guide to give you all the important details about hosting platforms for your ecommerce website.
Best Web Hosting For WordPress Ecommerce
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is when a hosting provider assigns room for your website on a server.
It’s essentially where all the files for your website are stored. When someone types in your domain name, the server on which your website is stored send the files back to the user.
There are a huge number of web host providers for WordPress sites that are vying for your attention. The hosting company you decide to choose will be dependent on the stage you’re at on your ecommerce journey. Pricing can start from as little as $1 a month, right through to $1000.
Benefits of web hosting:
Why WordPress.com?
WordPress is more than just a blogging site.
It’s an ideal entry-level solution for small businesses and has a great ecommerce integration via its WooCommerce solution. It’s one of the best web platforms around.
👉 Read our comprehensive WordPress review.
Best WordPress Hosting – Top Picks
However, if you’re in a rush, here’s the collective list and our overall two best WordPress hosting picks:
Our pick:
siteground logo
SiteGround
Best overall.
Well-optimized WordPress performance is, undeniably, one of them and the best thing about SiteGround. We’ve verified and confirmed that it indeed maintains an uptime of 99.99%, accompanied by super-fast server response speeds. The TTFBs recorded were 214 ms and 179 ms, which translate to extremely responsive servers.
For all that level of efficiency, managed WordPress hosting on SiteGround starts at a cost of $3.95 a month.
Overall rating: 10/10
» Try SiteGround «
Our pick:
Hostinger
Also great.
Hostinger features all the types of WordPress hosting services you can think of, with fair pricing for all its solutions.
Each of these services comes with multiple pricing plans, accompanied by varying billing options to suit difference hosting budgets. That said, the most economical option is Hostinger’s Starter plan, which can save you up to 90% in the first month.
For small and medium business that intend to purchase Shared WordPress Hosting, one of the best WordPress Hosting resources can go for as low as $9.99 a month.
Overall rating: 9/10
» Try Hostinger «
Environmentally Friendly Option:
GreenGeeks
Environmentally Friendly Option.
Admittedly, this might not be one of those providers that feature predominantly in WordPress hosting reviews. But, make no mistake about it. GreenGeeks has, over the past decade, rightfully earned its place alongside the best WordPress hosting providers.
That said, one particularly notable thing about GreenGeeks is its commitment to the environment. This is the type of website hosting service to consider if you’re seeking green WordPress hosting. It boasts of eco-friendly carbon neutral servers that put 300% of the power they consume back into the grid.
Overall rating: 10/10
» Try GreenGeeks «
The 10 best WordPress hosting providers
There are many different hosting options available for WordPress so let’s check out a list of the best.
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- SiteGround
siteground wordpress hosting
SiteGround is one of the big players in the web hosting game. Since its inception in 2004, they now boast over 2 million domains.
Pricing 💰
SiteGround‘s basic plan starts at $5.99 a month.
You get SSL certification, daily backups, email, free CDN, as well as out-of-the-box caching. Caching essentially increases the number of hits your site can take and improves its overall speed.
The GrowBig and GoGeek packages offer more tailored customer support, options to increase contributors, and faster load times.
You can purchase a domain name directly through SiteGround at a cost of $14.95.
Uptime
SiteGround guarantees network uptime of 99.9%. If they fall below this they offer the following compensation:
99.9% – 99.00% uptime: 1 month free hosting
An additional month of free hosting for every 1% of uptime lost below 99.00%.
Pros 👍
Free Migration – a way that SiteGround sets itself apart is that via their free WordPress Migration plugin. Of the people that reviewed it 80% have given it the full 5 stars. If you are on the GrowBig plan or higher then you can have a specialist do this for you.
CDN and SSL – we’ve mentioned SSL enough, but Content Delivery Network (CDN) is another big bonus for your site. SiteGround’s servers are spread over 3 continents ensuring that no matter where your users are they’ll access your site quickly.
Unlimited – SiteGround won’t charge you extra based on website traffic
Servers – to ensure quick load times, you can select where you want your server located
Cons 👎
Pricing – you get what you pay for, but in comparison, it’s much higher than other providers. That price doesn’t come with a domain name, plus renewal rates can double in most places after a year.
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- Hostinger
hostinger – best wordpress hosting
Hostinger initially started out in 2007 under a different guise. In 2011 they rebranded as you see them today. Since then their user base has grown to over 29 million users in 178 countries.
Pricing 💰
Hostinger is a very affordable option that offers plans that start at $2.59 a month.
They have 3 options, Shared Web Hosting, Cloud Hosting, and VPS Hosting, within this, there are 12 options. With all their plans you get a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Uptime
Similar to SiteGround, Hostinger promises a 99.9% uptime. They are fairly consistent but had a slight blip in September in 2020 where uptime was reported as 97.98%, besides that they are near perfect.
Pros 👍
Speed – their speed is unrivaled. Hostinger has servers in several continents which boast a connection speed of 1000mbps
Support – the live chat support option with Hostinger is fantastic. Their staff is proficient and highly knowledgeable on technical questions.
Guarantees – Hostinger offer a 30-day money-back guarantee and a huge array of options to pay for your web hosting
Interface – Hostinger doesn’t use the traditional cPanel, but it’s much better for it. It’s incredibly clean and the functionality allows you to manage your domains and settings with ease
Price – the most cost-effective option on the market if you’re willing to agree to 4 years worth of web hosting.
Cons 👎
Refunds – only parts of Hostinger’s services are refundable. The biggest issue is around domains. Hostinger doesn’t offer a free domain name with their basic plan, plus you only have 4 days to refund rather than 30 days
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- WP Engine
wp engine wordpress hosting
WP Engine lays claim to over 1.2 million websites in over 150 countries and is the #1 managed WordPress host.
Pricing 💰
It’s evident from their pricing plans that WP Engine is designed for big websites, boasting customers such as Etsy and Hello Fresh.
They have 4 pricing options, managed hosting, managed hosting plus, secure hosting, and ecommerce hosting for WooCommerce. Within this, there are 4 pricing options. Their most cost-effective plan starts at $25 a month if billed annually.
They are the most expensive option in this list, but they do offer a coupon for 3 months free, which is valid for new Startup, Professional, Growth, or Scale plans.
Uptime
WP Engine promises an uptime of 99.95% which is slightly lower than other providers in this list. Over a year this is about 8 hours of downtime. As compensation, you are entitled to 5% of the applicable monthly fees for each full hour of downtime.
Pros 👍
Experts – WP Engine only focuses on WordPress so they know what they are talking about. There’s only great added features such as access to 30+ premium themes
Management – all plans are managed which means you are not sharing server disk space
High performance – as they are managed the performance is superb. You can benefit from industry-leading speed and security
Cons 👎
Pricing – WP Engine doesn’t come cheap. If you expecting big things initially it’s a good option, but it’s not built for startups
Plugins – there is a list of disallowed plugins so it’s worth checking if you plan to use any of these
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- Dreamhost
dreamhost wordpress hosting
Founded in 1997, DreamHost is one of, if not the biggest names in web hosting for WordPress websites. As of 2021, they host 1.5 million websites, over 100 countries.
Pricing 💰
DreamHost offers three levels of hosting, Shared, DreamPress, and VPS.
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Shared WordPress web hosting is ideal for new startups. You share servers with other websites which keeps the cost down. This starts at $2.59 if you take out a 3-year plan.
DreamHost’s VPS plan stands for virtual private server. This allows you to have your own dedicated hosting for very fast speeds. The price of this is $13.75 a month.
Uptime
DreamHost reports the best uptime in this list and guarantees 100% uptime. If they fail to deliver this they will offer a credit for time loss. In the first few months of 2021, they have delivered on this promise.
Pros 👍
Monthly Hosting – you have the option to use DreamHost on a month-to-month basis and you cancel at any point. Additional to this they offer a 97-day money-back guarantee.
Free WordPress Migration – don’t expect hosting companies to provide a free integration with WordPress,. DreamHost offers this on the most basic plan, however.
Custom Control Panel – most hosting comes with a standard control panel called CPanel. DreamHost have built their own which is much more user friendly and actions can be taken in just one click.
Unlimited Features – even on their basic plan DreamHost offers unlimited traffic. This means they don’t track bandwidth and you won’t be overcharged dependent on how well your site performs.
Basic Features – the features on the lowest-priced plan are phenomenal. You get a free domain name and an SSL certificate.
Managed WordPress Hosting – DreamHost offers a plan where it manages all aspects of your hosting such as setup, support, and administration
Cons 👎
Speed – DreamHost’s average loading time is 1320ms which wouldn’t put them in the top end of web hosting services.
Support – their support is shown as 24/7 however a lot of this done via a chatbot. If you want to speak to a representative you need to do this Monday-Friday 9am-4pm (PT).
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- Nexcess
nexcess wordpress hosting
Nexcess manages over 500,000 websites and has 20 years of web hosting experience. They have 10 data centers all over the world.
Pricing 💰
Pricing starts from $12.57 annually or $19 monthly. Nexcess has one of the best entry-level plans on this list. Offering a lot of features such as one-click staging, SSL certificate, and daily backups.
There are 7 pricing plans in total and the increase depends on the number of websites you own, storage and bandwidth.
Uptime
Nexcess has had a perfect start to 2021 with 100% uptime. They have an uptime status page which you can check out. They will also list when maintenance is carried out and if there are any incidents.
Pros 👍
Features – it’s not the cheapest on this list but the features you get on the spark plan are superb. A CDN and caching is offered automatically to ensure fast speeds
Scaling – if you see a boom in traffic in 24 hours then Nexcess won’t automatically upgrade your package. They will monitor to see if this is a one-off and adjust from there
Users – you can have an unlimited amount of users on all plans. You also have the benefit of having unlimited email accounts which will be great for your team
Cons 👎
Refunds – Nexcess has a 14-day money-back guarantee but this is only available on the entry-level package
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- GreenGeeks
greengeeks wordpress hosting
Since forming in 2008, GreenGeeks now hosts over 600,000 websites. Founder Trey Gardner has been working in web hosting since 1999 and has experience which no fewer than 8 web hosting companies.
Pricing 💰
They offer 3 pricing plans for WordPress, Lite, Pro, and Premium. The Lite package does offer some great freebies including an SSL certificate as well as a domain name (for the first year) at a price of $2.49 a month.
The Pro package promises much faster performance and unlimited bandwidth and is priced at a very reasonable $4.95 a month.
Uptime
GreenGeeks report some fantastic uptime. This is no surprise as they monitor all of their servers every 10 seconds. Most providers will do this every minute.
Pros 👍
Speed – Greengeeks is much better than the industry average and reports figures of 487 ms.
Domain Name – they offer a free domain for the first year. From there it’s just $13.95 per year for the domain.
Ethical – you’d hope that a company called GreenGeeks would be environmentally friendly and they are just that. GreenGeeks adds up their annual energy consumption and promises to give 3 times as much back via wind energy.
Guarantees – like many of its competitors, GreenGeeks matches the 30-day money-back guarantee, which is available across all 3 of its WordPress plans.
Cons 👎
Pricing – unlike its competitors there are only 3 options, which doesn’t allow for much flexibility. The pricing jump to $10.95 on a monthly basis for its Lite package makes it more expensive than most in the sector
Refunds – if you took them up on the free domain then you will only be deducted the amount that you paid for the registration fee
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- Kinsta
kinsta wordpress hosting
Founded in 2013, Kinsta has gone from strength to strength, growing its client base group by 282% since 2018. It now has major companies in its ranks such as Ubisoft, Buffer, and Trip Advisor.
Pricing 💰
All of Kinsta’s plans are WordPress-specific. They have 10 pricing options ranging from $30-$1,500.
If you are looking to run an ecommerce store through WooCommerce then Kinsta recommends starting on the $100 a month plan. If paid annually then all plans come with 2 free months.
Uptime
Checks are performed every 5 minutes and they guarantee an uptime of 99.9%. Kinsta is more costly than other providers but can justify this with their excellent uptime which has been 100% throughout 2021.
Pros 👍
Speed – this is Kinsta’s USP and they deliver it on. Specializing in ecommerce they realize how crucial load times are, their 25 data centers worldwide help provide fantastic performance
Interface – Kinsta arguably has the most aesthetically pleasing interface on the list. It’s no hassle and is very easy to use and understand
Backups – daily backups are ideal to make sure your data is still available as the result of an unlikely hack
Cons 👎
Pricing – it’s not cheap. If you are launching an ecommerce store then Kinsta is only applicable if you are expecting major traffic
Support – telephone support isn’t available
best hosting for woocommerce
The best WooCommerce hosting providers will help you launch an e-commerce platform with ease.
WordPress has long established itself as the premier blogging software but thanks to a large repository of plugins and themes, you can easily deploy just about any manner of website with WordPress. More impressively still, you can have a functioning website configured and live in almost no time at all, even if all you have is a passing familiarity with web hosting.
WooCommerce is yet another extension of WordPress which allows you to setup and deploy a fully featured ecommerce platform. Unlike most other extensions and plugins, WooCommerce is developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. As a result, integrating any number of other WordPress plugins with WooCommerce is a breeze, which further explains WooCommerce’s popularity not just with small enterprises but also large and established brands.
As it’s developed to work with WordPress, you can easily deploy any of the thousands of WordPress plugins to customise the look and feel of your e-commerce platform, or address any other area such as marketing, sales, analytics, etc.
Even apart from that, there are a whole host of themes and plugins aimed exclusively at WooCommerce. Although WooCommerce itself is released for free, and there are no restrictions on how you use the software on your website, some of its themes and extensions, which provide additional useful functionality, are developed by third parties and offered at a premium. While free themes and plugins still rule the roost, there are plenty of themes that cost upwards of $30 each. You can similarly expect to shell out hundreds of dollars for some niche extensions.
We’ve compared these hosting providers across many factors, like their ease of integration with WooCommerce, uptime guarantee, user interface, and pricing models. We also looked at what types of businesses they’d be best for, the quality of the customer support, and the migration options, among other things.
What are the best WooCommerce hosting providers?
Hosting providers offer a variety of services that help you get your business online. While the conventional approach is to register a domain name, and buy a hosting plan, there are many hosting providers which offer WooCommerce hosting.
If you’ve already decided on WooCommerce as the software to drive your e-commerce platform, opting for a specialised hosting plan is the only sensible decision. This is because in addition to troubleshooting and help, these hosting providers also provide various additional services so that you can devote all your energies towards growing your business.
At a minimum, the hosting providers will offer a domain name, storage space, perform backups, SSL certificates, and more. The exact range of offerings will depend on the plan you opt for, and your ideal plan will depend on various factors such as the total number of monthly visitors, the number of products on offer, etc.
We’ve also reviewed the best payment gateways, the best cloud hosting providers, and the best WordPress e-commerce plugins.
The best WooCommerce hosting providers of 2022 in full
SiteGround
(Image credit: SiteGround)
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- SiteGround
An excellent WooCommerce hosting provider to get started with
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
SiteGround StartUp
US$3.95/mth
SiteGround GrowBig
US$5.95/mth
SiteGround GoGeek
US$11.95/mth
VISIT SITE
at SiteGround
REASONS TO BUY
+Automatic WordPress updates
+Free daily backups
+99.99% uptime guarantee
+Custom AI anti-bot system
REASONS TO AVOID
-Limited storage space
-Control panel isn’t sleek
At $6.99/month, SiteGround’s StartUp plan(opens in new tab) is one of the cheapest WooCommerce hosting options available today. Expectedly, the plan has various restrictions. For instance, you are restricted to only a single website, 10 GB of storage space, and 10,000 monthly visitors. If you are an established e-commerce platform looking to switch hosting providers, or expect your business to quickly outgrow these limitations, you should consider one of their other plans.
The GrowBig plan(opens in new tab) limits storage to 20 GB, with a cap of 25,000 monthly visitors. Currently available for a discounted price of $14.99/month, the GoGeek plan(opens in new tab) allows for 100,000 monthly visitors but only 40 GB storage.
For each plan, SiteGround offers a host of freebies. For instance, in addition to installing WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin, the Storefront theme is offered out of the box. Security is another strong suit, with its own AI designed to safeguard your online platform from attacks. SSL certificates, email, etc. are also offered for free with each plan.
With the low barrier of entry, coupled with the myriad free offerings, SiteGround has positioned itself for new and small businesses looking to build an online platform with WooCommerce.
In addition to providing a robust service, SiteGround also boasts of 24/7 customer support, which can be over phone or live chat and you can even opt for ticket-based email support. While the response time is near instantaneous in the case of phone and live chat, for emails, the hosting provider strives to respond within 10 minutes.
You can read our full SiteGround review here
Bluehost
(Image credit: Bluehost)
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- Bluehost
The best WooCommerce hosting provider for beginners
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
BlueHost Choice Plus
US$5.45/mth
VISIT SITE
at Bluehost
REASONS TO BUY
+Free domain name
+No hidden fees
+Custom cPanel makes managing easy
REASONS TO AVOID
-No email based support
-No free site migration
-High renewal rates
Another hosting provider which offers affordable WooCommerce hosting is Bluehost(opens in new tab). The two plans on offer, Standard(opens in new tab) and Premium(opens in new tab) can also be availed for as little as $12.95/month and $24.95/month if you opt for a 36 month plan. Also available are plans for 1 or 12 months, but the costs go up with the decreasing term period.
In addition to all the common features such as the ability to set up a blog and e-commerce store, 24/7 support, Storefront theme, etc., Bluehost also offers website traffic analytics. This provides real time data on performance of your store, with reports on site traffic, trends and orders. You can also add Office 365 to your Bluehost plan. A 30-day trial is available with both Standard and Premium plans. Should you require assistance or hand holding, Bluehost offers support over phone or live chat.
For any website, safety and backup are paramount. This is an area where the Premium plan is far better placed than the Standard option because the latter only includes free backup for the first year. Bluehost offers various CodeGuard plans, ranging from $32.95 to $239.95 annually. These plans allow monitoring your data for changes, and reverting the website to a previously stored state with a single click. The cheapest plan however only provides 1 GB of storage space, making it meaningless for established stores, or data-rich websites.
But this isn’t a major concern for new store owners, who also benefit from Bluehost’s collection of tutorials. In addition to creating or setting your store, the tutorials span a range of topics including proper configuration and optimum usage of tools such as SEO, email marketing, etc. to ensure maximum reach for your online store.
You can read our full Bluehost review here
A2 Hosting
(Image credit: A2 Hosting)
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- A2 Hosting
The best WooCommerce hosting provider that’s reliable and fast with a focus on performance
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
A2 Hosting
US$2.99/mth
A2 Hosting Startup
US$2.99/mth
A2 Hosting Drive
US$4.99/mth
VISIT SITE
at A2 Hosting
REASONS TO BUY
+SSD drives
+Choose server location
+30 day money-back guarantee
+Free site migration
+99.9% uptime commitment
REASONS TO AVOID
-Low RAM
-Startup Plan lacks necessary features
-Automatic WordPress updates only in Turbo plans
A2 Hosting doesn’t offer WooCommerce out of the box. Instead, it’s WordPress hosting plans include 1-click installs of various apps and services including WooCommerce. Although the process is straightforward and easy enough, you’ll have to set up the theme and other aspects of the WooCommerce installation yourself.
The cheapest plan includes 100 GB SSD storage, while the other plans boast of unlimited NVMe storage. Couple this with free migration of your existing site, and A2 Hosting makes sense for established businesses looking to switch hosting providers in search of optimum performance.
With 24/7 support over email, chat and phone, A2 Hosting has a sharp focus on providing the best user experience to its customers. As the focus is on speed and performance, A2Hosting also lets you choose the server location. You can choose the server closest to you on the order form itself, and the options are Michigan and Arizona in the USA, Amsterdam in Europe and Singapore in Asia.
The ability to handle traffic spikes is a key factor in deciding the hosting provider. You can get peace of mind with the Turbo plans, which also include Litespeed Web Server. The result is a site far faster than those powered by Apache or Nginx.
Each plan also includes various security features such as reinforced DDoS protection, two-factor authentication, virus scanning, server hardening, dual firewall, bruteforce defence, etc. But the one area where the hosting provider lags is physical RAM and CPU cores, offering only 2 cores and 4 GB RAM in the costliest plan, while the cheapest plan only includes 700 MB RAM and a single core.
You can read our full A2 Hosting review here
Nexcess logo in white on a blue background
(Image credit: Nexcess)
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- Nexcess
The best WooCommerce hosting provider for enterprise-grade hosting
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Visit Site
REASONS TO BUY
+Offers visual regression testing
+Free website migration
+14-days of free trial and gives a 30-days money-back guarantee
+Daily backups
REASONS TO AVOID
-No free domain
-More expensive than some of the other WooCommerce hosting providers
Nexcess(opens in new tab) is a hosting platform that offers managed solutions for WordPress, Magento, and WooCommerce. A subsidiary of Liquid Web, Nexcess is a particularly good choice if you’re looking for a fully managed WooCommerce hosting service.
The Nexcess Cloud infrastructure automatically keeps your WooCommerce store updated, taking care of the core and plugin updates. Staging environment, 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts, and 30-day money back guarantee is included in every plan.
We tested Nexcess’ starter plan that costs $13.30 per month and comes with 30 GB storage, and allows up to 500 orders per-hour. All the plans come with premium WordPress plugins and we found the WooCommerce hosting service to be secure.
Nexcess has five other WooCommerce hosting plans on offer that range from $55.30 per month for its Creator plan, to $699.30 per month for its Enterprise plan. There’s a plan for almost every type of ecommerce store.
Overall, we found Nexcess delivers on fast-loading speed and generally aids the good performance of an online store. What’s even more impressive is Nexcess’ auto-scaling feature that allows your website to handle more concurrent users when required. This is useful because with the more demand you have on your site, you won’t need to worry about bandwidth and storage when there’s a spike in traffic on your online store.
Nexcess also runs a nightly test of important features, using WooCommerce test products and Stripe test mode. In as little as one minute, its WooCommerce Automated Testing capability identifies critical problems affecting your carts, payment methods, and login credentials, which is yet another reason why we would recommend Nexcess for your WooCommerce hosting needs.
WP Engine
(Image credit: WP Engine)
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- WP Engine
The best WooCommerce hosting provider that’s aimed at large stores and recommended by WordPress
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Visit Site
REASONS TO BUY
+Speed
+Security
+Customer service
+Daily backups
+Automatic update of WordPress plugins
REASONS TO AVOID
-Doesn’t sell domains or provide email
-Starter plans are meaningless for established stores
WordPress itself recommends WP Engine for large stores. While this doesn’t mean that small businesses or novice store owners can’t use WP Engine, you’re unlikely to appreciate its offerings, when compared to its pricing, if you are just starting out.
All plans include features that will help you deliver quality experience to visitors. These include a curated list of tested and recommended e-commerce plugins, a CDN, optimized caching, etc. All these and more features are geared towards delivering a fast experience. With the exception of the Starter plan(opens in new tab), which will set you back by $24/month, all plans also include Elasticsearch, which is a powerful store search utility, and delivers near instantaneous results. This is especially useful for stores with a vast collection of products and options on offer.
The Starter plan wouldn’t appeal to many established stores because of its low limits. For instance, it restricts you to 25,000 visitors per month and only provides 10 GB storage space and 50 GB bandwidth. At $233/month, the Scale plan(opens in new tab) too only provides 50 GB storage and 500 GB monthly bandwidth, apart from capping monthly visitors to 400,000.
If these hard limits are insufficient for your needs, WP Engine also offers customised hosting solutions based on your needs. The exact cost of such a plan will depend on your needs, but you’ll get dedicated high-availability architecture which guarantees 99.99% uptime, dedicated support and technical success manager to help you make the right changes and decisions to meet your business goals, etc.
WP Engine provides 24/7/365 support via multiple channels, including live chat, phone, and email, and you can even talk to a specialist if you are unsure which hosting plan best suits your needs.
You can read our full WP Engine review here
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